Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions 50th Anniversary
Final Schedule
Venue: Christchurch College, University of Oxford, May 2-4, 2025
Research Centre (Thatched Barn) (map link) (and Saturday PM only Lecture Room 2)
Friday 2nd May (Research Centre)
12.15-12.45: Registration, Arrival (Tea & Coffee)
12.45-1.00: Opening welcome from Professor James Mallinson, University of Oxford
1.00-2.00: Opening Keynote Address: Professor Diwakar Acharya, Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics, University of Oxford:
Modes and Expressions of Religiosity in the Indic world and their Ceremonies and Celebrations
15 min break
2.15-3.45: Panel 1 [Chair: Prof. James Mallinson]
Sucharita Adluri (Cleveland State University): Festivals Inscribed in Stone: Public Celebrations in Late Medieval South India
Elizabeth Cecil (Florida State University, USA): Epigraphic Events: Sanskrit Inscriptions as Performative Media
30 min break (Tea & Coffee)
4.15-5.45: Panel 2 [Chair: Dr. Avni Chag]
Peter Bisschop (Leiden, Netherlands): Festivities of the Asuras in the Skandapurāṇa
Mandira Sharma (Independent Scholar): Wheels of Devotion: Understanding Śiva’s Rathotsavam (Chariot Festival) in South India through Śaiva Literature
Saturday 3rd May (Research Centre and LR2 which is next to Cathedral)
9.00-10.45: Panel 3, Postgraduate (Research Centre) [Chair: Dr. Pranav Prakash]
Kush Depala (Heidelberg University): Virtual Venerations and Digital Devotion: Celebrating a VR Janmajayanti during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Jackson Stephenson (University of California, Santa Barbara): Night on Bald Mountain: Performing Enlightenment through Song
Kainat Bashir (Toronto, Canada): Being Catholic the Punjabi Way: An Analysis of Material Acts of Religion in Mariamabad Shrine Punjab, Pakistan
Sujata Chaudhary (McGill, Canada): Bhagwan” and “devtas” of Kullu Dusshera – an analysis of Dusshera of Kullu District
15min break (Tea & Coffee)
11.00-12.30 Panel 4 & Panel 5
Panel 4 (parallel) (Research Centre) [Chair: Prof. James Mallinson]
Annalisa Boccheti (University of Naples “L’Orientale”): Between Eid and Holi at Shāh ʿĀlam II’s court: ritualised power or powerful rituals?
Richard David Williams (SOAS, University of London): The Pleasures of Bhīm: Festivals and Courtly Time in Early Nineteenth-Century Udaipur
Panel 5 (parallel) (LR2) [Chair: Dr. Avni Chag]
Saran Suebsantiwongse (Leiden University): Celebrating Divine Kingship: The Tiruvempāvai-Tiruppāvai Festival in Thailand and Its South Indian Heritage
George Pati (Valparaiso University, USA): Embodiment, Spatiality, and Materiality at the Uthra Śīvēli Festival in a Kerala Temple
Lunch: 12.30-2.00
2.00-3.30 Panel 6 & Panel 7
Panel 6 (parallel) (Research Centre) [Chair: Dr. Avni Chag]
Ananya Vajpeyi: Centre for Study of Developing Societies, India: The Arts Festival: Transformations of the “Classical” in Contemporary Carnatic Music and Kudiyattam Theatre
Aarti Patel (Pennsylvania State University): Pandemic Festivals: Transcending Geographies and Expanding Accessibility
Panel 7 (parallel) (LR2) [Chair: Dr. Karen O’Brien-Kop]
Christopher Fleming (Oxford, UK): The Legal Regulation of Festivals in Contemporary Indian Law: Essential Practices and Constitutional Principles
Nicole Karapanagiotis (Rutgers University, USA): Negotiating Public and Private, Legal and Banned: Rathayātrā of the International Sri Krishna Mandir (ISKM) in Singapore
30min break (Tea & Coffee)
4.00-5.30 Panel 8
Panel 8 (Research Centre) [Chair: Dr. Pranav Prakash]
Daniela De Simone & Ramesh Nanjundan (Ghent University & University of Hyderabad): The Toda Salt Giving Ceremony: A Study of Ecological and Cultural Rituals in the Nilgiri Hills
Hab Cezary Gaiewicz (Jagiellonian University, Poland): Imagined Festivals and Genuine Emotions: the Candrikāvītthī of Rāmapaṇivāda to be staged in celebration of Śivarātri in premodern Kerala
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Plenary 5.30-6.30: *Celebrating 50 years of Spalding Symposium*
(Research Centre) [Chair: Dr. Karen O’Brien-Kop]
Panel discussion on the history of The Spalding Symposium in the UK.
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Evening 7pm: Group dinner at Balliol College, Oxford (with dinner ticket). Formal/smart dress code.
Sunday 4th May (Research Centre)
9.00-10.30 Panel 9 [Chair: Dr. Karen O’Brien-Kop]
Ewa Dębicka-Borek (Jagiellonian University, Poland): From Theft to Reverence: The Ritual Theft of Jewelry in Ahobilam
Smytta Yadav (University of Sussex, UK): Liminal Spaces and Cultural Continuity: Diasporic Hindu Festivals as Sites of Heritage and Identity in the UK
15min break (Tea & Coffee)
10.45-12.15 Panel 10 [Chair: Prof. James Mallinson]
Christophe Vielle (University of Louvain, Belgium): Aspects of the Festival of Love in premodern Kerala
Liwen Liu (SOAS University of London): Festival, Architecture, and Kingship: An Ethnographic Study of the Dasaiṃ Festival at Hanuman Dhoka, Kathmandu
12.15-1.15: Closing Keynote: Professor Ute Hüsken,
Head of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia, Heidelberg University:
Rhythm and Disruption: South Asian Festival Traditions
1.15pm Closing Announcements
1.30 Conference END