Recommended by R. David Coolidge. David completed his PhD from the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) with a dissertation about Muslim perceptions of the Hindu tradition. He worked as a Muslim chaplain at Dartmouth College and Brown University and taught undergraduate courses on Islamic law and ethics at New York University. He has served on the boards of various American Muslim institutions, including Zaytuna College and Taleef Collective.
For a contemporary expression of Chaitanya Vaishnavism that is easily digestible and written to be relevant to as many people as possible, I would go with The Journey Within by Radhanath Swami, which I mention in my article Dharma of Bhakti, Dharma of Mlecchaas in the Journal of Dharma Studies. I think that is a really well-written and relevant overview of many of the aspects of Chaitanya Vaishnava thought and practice written for a twenty-first century audience. Again, he has a following in India and around the world. So you also want to center authoritative contemporary texts within their tradition.
In terms of the Gita, I would recommend Graham Schweig’s translation The Beloved Lord’s Secret Love Song. It is a straight forward translation of the Gita, and he has actually a concordance of the Gita coming out from Columbia University Press in the future. So its based on deep research into the Sanskrit and the commentarial tradition. He gives you a very beautiful translation of the Gita. And he has extensive end-notes that help you understand a Vaishnava way of looking at the Gita that very much emerges from a way a Vaishnava would read the Gita itself. I wouldn’t say its like a superimposition of Vaishnava thought onto the Gita but more like how from the Gita text itself a Vaishnava would see the Gita and center, for example, Bhakti. Specially how to understand the 18th chapter as the summation of the text as opposed to some earlier chapters which some other scholars have said is the summation or pinnacle of the text.
In terms of academic studies of the Chaitanya Vaishnava tradition, I think that so many of them are quite specialized, assuming a certain base level of understanding. A book that I have yet to get but looks like it would be a very good first step from an academic study of religion standpoint, its called Hare Krishna in the Twentieth Century by Angela Burt published by Cambridge University Press. It might serve as a window into the Chaitanya Vaishnava tradition for someone who has no familiarity with it at the outset.
These are the three texts that come to mind as a way to begin the conversation.
Project Noon 