Engaging South Asian Religions

Mathew N. Schmalz is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the College of the Holy Cross. Besides writing regularly as a panelist for the Newsweek/Washington Post "On Faith" website, he has published in various books and journals, including The History of Religion, The Journal of Religious Studies, and Method & Theory in the Study of Religion. Peter Gottschalk is Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University. He is the author of Beyond Hindu and Muslim: Multiple Identity in Narratives from Village India and coauthor (with Gabriel Greenberg) of Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy.

• List of FiguresIntroduction: Engaging South Asian ReligionsPETER GOTTSCHALK AND MATHEW N. SCHMALZPART ONE: BOUNDARIES 1. A Science of Defining Boundaries: Classification,Categorization, and the Census of IndiaPETER GOTTSCHALK2. The Repetition of Past Imperialisms: Hegel, HistoricalDifference, and the Theorization of Indic ReligionsARVIND MANDAIR3. Beyond National Borders and Religious Boundaries: Muslim and Hindu Veneration of BonbibiSUFIA UDDINPART TWO: APPROPRIATIONS 4. Boundaries and Appropriations in North IndianCharismatic CatholicismMATHEW N. SCHMALZ5. The Corpse and Cult of St. Francis Xavier, 1552–1623WILLIAM R. PINCH6. Sati or Female Supremacy? Feminist Appropriationsof Gotami’s ParinirvanaLIZ WILSONPART THREE: RESISTANCES 7. Resisting My Attackers; Resisting My Defenders: Representing the Shivaji NarrativesJAMES W. LAINE8. Resisting Assimilation: Encounters with a Small Islamic Sectin Contemporary PakistanSHAHZAD BASHIR9: Climbing through ParadigmsPAUL B. COURTRIGHTAFTERWORD AND RESPONSES Afterword: Scandals, Scholars, SubjectsSAURABH DUBEResponse 1: Historical DifferenceARVIND MANDAIRResponse 2: Legend versus MythSUFIA UDDINResponse 3: Staying With and Thinking ThroughMATHEW N. SCHMALZList of ContributorsIndex

"Even before opening this book, students and researchers are challenged to think both expansively and carefully about their own subjectivity, their own location within the fields in which they roam. Critical reflectivity has become a major theme in many fields of humanities research, and this volume of interlinked essays on the study of religion in South Asia in the western academy, carefully put together by [Peter] Gottschalk and Matthew Schmalz, contributes provocatively to this theme." — Religions of South Asia