Category: Conversations
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Vijnana Vedanta: The Theology of Sri Ramakrishna
In this conversation, we discuss Swami Medhananda’s milestone publication on Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa which brings the thought of this esteemed saint in conversation with debates in Western philosophy of religion. We discuss how what can be termed Sri Ramakrishna’s ‘Vijnana Vedanta’ differs from the other schools of Vedanta such as Advaita, Vishishtadvaita, and Dvaita. Swami…
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Chaitanya Vaishnavism and Islam: The Path of Bhakti / Devotion
Dr. Saad Ismail is joined with Dr. David Coolidge who is a leading Muslim voice in Hindu studies. They focus on his area of specialization i.e. Chaitanya or Gaudiya Vaishnavism. Among other things, they explore the Vaishnava path of Bhakti or devotion to the Lord and discuss how it differs from other models of Hindu…
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Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship After Empire with SherAli Tareen
In this conversation Prof. SherAli Tareen joins Dr. Saad Ismail for a succinct survey of key theoretical motifs in Prof. Tareen’s most recent ground-breaking book which explores how leading South Asian Muslim thinkers imagined and contested the boundaries of Hindu-Muslim friendship from the late eighteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries. He argues that often what was…
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Sculpting the Self: Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing
Sculpting the Self addresses “what it means to be human” in a secular, post-Enlightenment world by exploring notions of self and subjectivity in Islamic and non-Islamic philosophical and mystical thought. Alongside detailed analyses of three major Islamic thinkers (Mullā Ṣadrā, Shāh Walī Allāh, and Muhammad Iqbal), this study also situates their writings on selfhood within…
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The Gita Commentaries of Shankara and Ramanuja on God and Being
The Gita is a central text in Hindu traditions, and commentaries on it express a range of philosophical-theological positions. Two of the most significant commentaries are by Sankara, the founder of the Advaita or Non-Dualist system of Vedic thought and by Ramanuja, the founder of the Visistadvaita or Qualified Non-Dualist system. Their commentaries offer rich…
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The Hindu Self and its Muslim Neighbors in Bengali Landscapes
What do we learn from Rabindranath Tagore’s copious yet lesser-known writings on the Hindu-Muslim question? What do we learn from the fascinating interplay of Hindu-Muslim interactions in the history of Bengal? How do the behavioral patterns between the two communities fare and change over the course of history, particularly entering into the modern period? What…
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The Island of Remembrance
On a rainy afternoon in July, Reginald took a wrong turn at the busy intersection. Instead of walking in the direction of the noisy marketplace that would take him home in a few minutes, he accidentally stepped into a narrow lane that drew him towards a small garden shaded with leafy trees. As the golden…
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Prof. Ankur Barua’s Gift to Project Noon
A song from Shah Abdul Karim, dedicated to Project Noon by Prof. Ankur Barua, Senior Lecturer in Hindu Studies in the Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge. Stay tuned for our podcast release.
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Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion: Religion, Race, and Empire
In her fascinating and path paving book, Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion: Religion, Rebels and Jihad (I. B. Tauris, 2017), Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Vermont reorients our understanding of the 1857 rebellion in India, while offering a nuanced theorization of religion, religious identity, and questions of…
Project Noon 