Registration is now open for the 50th Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions.
Please book your tickets through this link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/50th-annual-spalding-symposium-on-indian-religions-tickets-1234492302709
Spalding 50th draft speaker schedule – all panel timings are still subject to change
Venue: Christchurch College, Oxford University, Friday 2nd May to Sunday 4th May
Friday 2nd May
12.15-12.45: Registration, Arrival
12.45-1.00: Opening welcome
1.00-2.00: Opening Keynote: Professor Diwakar Acharya, Spalding Professor of Eastern Religions and Ethics (University of Oxford)
15 min break
2.15-3.45: Panel 1
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
15 min break
4.00-5.30: Panel 2
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
Evening Break
7.00: Film Screening & Discussion at Balliol College
Saturday 3rd May
9.00-10.45: Panel 3, Postgraduate
Kush Depala (Heidelberg University, Germany): 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
11.00-12.30 Panel 4 & Panel 5
Panel 4
Annalisa Boccheti (University of Naples “L’Orientale”): Between Eid and Holi at Shāh ʿĀlam II’s court: ritualised power or powerful rituals?
Manik Bajracharya and Rajan Khatiwoda (Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities): Power and Patronage in Motion: The Buṅgadyaḥ Yātrā of Kathmandu Valley
Panel 5
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
Richard David Williams (SOAS, University of London): The Pleasures of Bhīm: Festivals and Courtly Time in Early Nineteenth-Century Udaipur
Ananya Vajpeyi: Centre for Study of Developing Societies, India: The Arts Festival: Transformations of the “Classical” in Contemporary Carnatic Music and Kudiyattam Theatre
Panel 7
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
4.00-5.30 Panel 8 & Panel 9
Panel 8
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
Panel 9
Smytta Yadav (University of Sussex, UK): Liminal Spaces and Cultural Continuity: Diasporic Hindu Festivals as Sites of Heritage and Identity in the UK
Aarti Patel (Pennsylvania State University): Pandemic Festivals: Transcending Geographies and Expanding Accessibility
Plenary 5.30-6.30: Celebrating 50 years of Spalding Symposium
Evening 7pm: Group dinner at Balliol College, Oxford
Sunday 4th May
9.00-10.30 Panel 10
Leah Comeau (Saint Joseph’s University / Universität Hamburg): Shared Blessings: The Role of Sacred Sarees in Tamil Christian Festival Celebrations
Ewa Dębicka-Borek (Jagiellonian University, Poland): From Theft to Reverence: The Ritual Theft of Jewelry in Ahobilam
15min break
10.45-12.15 Panel 11
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
15min break
12.15-1.15: Closing Keynote: Professor Ute Hüsken, Head of Cultural and Religious History of South Asia, Heidelberg University
1.30 Conference END