CSRS Public Lecture Series: Religion, Caste and Politics in a Hindu Tradition

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Thursday, November 15th, 2012
4:30 PM to 5:30 PM

Based on my fieldwork over the past six years, this illustrated talk examines the changing spatial, political and emotional histories of Dalits who belong to a South Indian Hindu religious tradition that has had a caste (and gender) inclusive identity for over a millennium. To explore how Dalits, once known as “outcastes,” have struggled to make the religious rhetoric of inclusiveness and service a modern social reality, I focus on the oral history of a Chennai (Madras) Dalit family against a background of Hindu Shaiva regional dominance, Indian federal and state politics, urbanization, Muslim and Christian conversions, Dalit religious networks, and changes in Brahmin leadership. I conclude by discussing the special challenges and opportunities associated with the emergence of elites in a community of the dispossessed.

After retiring last year, Katherine Young is Professor Emerita in the Faculty of Religious Studies at McGill University, and now resides in Victoria. She publishes in the field of Hinduism, especially South Indian Vaishnavism, women in Hinduism, and Hindu ethics.