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John S. Hawley
Course Description: This course will explore historical, theological, social, and ritual dimensions of "lived Hinduism" in the greater New York area. Common readings deal with diasporic Hinduism in several locations and with the religious plurality of contemporary New York. Individual field projects will focus on several worshipping communities, a retreat center, a national organization, and a foundation.
Course Rationale: It is often argued that in the last half century, Hindus living outside of India have exerted an influence on conceptualizations of Hinduism that is far more creative and influential than their sheer numbers would predict. This course enables students to investigate that phenomenon while simultaneously getting a sense of how disparate-yet interconnected-are the environments where such rethinking and "repracticing" take place in the greater New York area. Simultaneously, it provides a framework in which students can work individually and in small groups to investigate and document the life of several such sites by means of interviews, participant observation, life histories, and archival research. In the latter part of the course, students generate corporate reading assignments appropriate to their individual projects, and present those projects to the class as a whole. The course culminates in a mini-conference in which Hindus and Sikhs associated with the seven sites selected for field study discuss with students the results of their research; and in a class project in which these results are collocated and tailored for a website.
Course Requirements: Students are expected to attend all class sessions, and to participate vigorously in class discussion on the basis of a thoughtful reading of the assigned materials. Starting early in the course, they also spend significant time and effort relating those readings to the study of one particular site, which serves as the basis of the seminar paper each will produce. These papers will be individual efforts, but students will work in groups of two or three, so as to produce more than one perspective on a single site. The seminar paper will be submitted in a draft (April 7) and final (May 5) version. Both of these will be read by Barnard Writing Fellows and discussed with them before being submitted to the instructor and-in the case of the first draft-the class. Throughout the course, even when not explicitly noted on the syllabus (weeks 5-9), students will be reporting to the seminar on problems and progress in their site-work projects, raising questions of strategy, technique, ethics, adequacy of representation, and accuracy.
Specific requirements are as follows: four 2-page reading responses (due in weeks 2-9) and class participation (together, 30% of grade); initial field observation project (week 3, 10% of grade); oral presentation of the site/seminar project (weeks 10-12, 10% of grade); term-long site/seminar paper (first draft due week 10, 20%; final draft due week 14, 30% of grade).
Course Readings:
(1.)Books. The following books are required for the course, and are available for purchase at Labyrinth Books (536 W. 112th Street). Copies are also available on reserve at the Barnard College Library.
Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Diana L. Eck, A New Religious America (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001).
Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
Joanna Lessinger, From the Ganges to the Hudson: Indian Immigrants in New York City(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995)
Robert A. Orsi, ed., Gods of the City (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999).
Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folk (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
T. S. Rukmani, ed., Hindu Diaspora: Global Perspectives (Montreal: Concordia University, Chair in Hindu Studies, 1999).
Steven Vertovec, The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns (London: Routledge, 2000).
(2) Other required reading. Certain materials will be handed out in class. These are indicated on the course syllabus with an asterisk (*). (3) Additional resources. Readings that may be helpful but are not required are listed with other readings for the weeks to which they most closely pertain, and are indicated with a triple asterisk (***). Course Policies: The Pluralism Project: This course is affiliated with the Pluralism Project at Harvard University and has received a grant in that connection. It also benefits from a "New Directions" grant from Andrew Mellon Foundation. Our association with the Pluralism Project carries with it the responsibility and privilege of contributing to the general archives of the Pluralism Project, and potentially to the Project's website and future editions of its CD-ROM On Common Ground. Details will be discussed in the first two class sessions. Travel funds: Thanks to our grant from the Pluralism Project, funds will be available to defray the cost of student travel to distant sites. If you are working at such a site, please introduce yourself to Tynisha Rue for further information about how to negotiate the financial hurdles. Deadlines: Reading response papers are to be posted to the CourseWorks bulletin board by midnight Monday, so that they can be read by the entire class in preparation for Wednesday's seminar in weeks 2-9. If you fail to meet that deadline, you're welcome to post anyway, but it will not count toward your course grade. Often students (and faculty) can't find time to read and think about late postings before the seminar itself is convened. Initial field reports are due on CourseWorks on Monday, February 10, at midnight. Please come prepared to talk about commonalities between your observations and those of others involved with your project in class on February 12. You're most welcome to read the field reports of other groups as well. Seminar papers Ð first draft are due at 4:00 p.m. on Monday, April 7, in my incoming box in Milbank 219. Please note, however, that these first drafts also serve as the basis for discussion and cross-reading in weeks 10-12 and should therefore be posted to CourseWorks. They are due at 4:00 on Friday before the week in which they are to be presented orally and discussed. Seminar papers-final version are due at 4:00 at the same place on Monday, May 5. This paper version may or may not be identical with the form to be placed on the course website, depending on individual circumstances. Writing Fellows: It is required that students submit a prior version of both the first and the final versions of the seminar paper to one of the Barnard Writing Fellows who will be participating in this aspect of the course. These submissions are due on Monday, March 24 and Monday, April 21, as indicated on the syllabus. The Writing Fellows are not specialists in the subject matter of the course: they will be reacting to your papers purely from the perspective of the writing itself. We expect that they will also be available to help you think through the shaping of the first draft, even before you submit that draft in written form, should you wish. Late work: Except in case of serious medical or family emergencies, late work will be downgraded one-half letter grade per day. General Travel Advisory: There's much to be said for keeping generally abreast of issues affecting members of the Hindu community in the United States and specifically in the New York area. Here are several resources-a small sampling of a list that is potentially very large: www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/indiv/southasia/cuvl
Course Syllabus
Week 1: January 22. Introduction to the course and to the sites on which we will focus. Tentative formation of project groups.
Week 2: January 29. American religious plurality. Finalization of project groups. Field Work Ð I.
Diana L. Eck, A New Religious America (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 1-141.
Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 1-38.
Complete the Human Subjects Research training program available at https://www.rascal.columbia.edu. Select the Compliance module and within that, the Testing Center. This on-line course is intended to take one hour to complete and once done, provides you the certification necessary to proceed with our course.
*** http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~pluralism
*** Diana L. Eck, On Common Ground: World Religions in America [CD-ROM] (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997; second edition, 2002).
Week 3: February 5. Diasporic Hinduism Ð I. Field Work Ð II.
Steven Vertovec, The Hindu Diaspora: Comparative Patterns (London: Routledge, 2000), entire.
Emerson et al., Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, pp. 39-65.
** Ron Grimes, "Fieldwork in Religious Studies: Guidelines and Forms for the Waterloo Religions Project," unpublished paper, Wilfrid Laurier University, 2002, pp. 7-10, 17-24, 43-54.
* Courtney Bender et al., "Pointers and Guidelines for Observing Religious Services" (adapted).
* Courtney Bender, "Protocol for Field Notes."
*** Harry F. Wolcott, The Art of Fieldwork (Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press, 1995), chapter 5, pp. 86-121.
*** Harold Coward, John R. Hinnells, and Raymond Brady Williams, ed., The South Asian Religious Diaspsora in Britain, Canada, and the United States (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000).
*** Raymond B. Williams, Religions of Immigrants from India and Pakistan: New Threads in an American Tapestry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).
*** Colin Clarke, Ceri Peach, and Steven Vertovec, eds., South Asians Overseas: Migration and Ethnicity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
NB: February 10. Your initial field report must appear in CourseWorks by midnight, Monday, February 10. The document itself should be no longer than 5 pages. In addition, a 1-2 page statement should be devoted to sketching out your seminar project as you now understand it, with the beginnings of a bibliography.
Week 4: February 12. Diasporic Hinduism Ð II. Field Work Ð III.
Vijay Prashad, The Karma of Brown Folk (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 1-156.
** Sandhya Shukla, "Locations for South Asian Diasporas," Annual Review of Anthropology 30 (2001), pp. 551-572.
*** Aparna Rayaprol, Negotiating Identities: Women in the Indian Diaspora (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1997).
*** Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda L. Shaw, Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). The remaining chapters of this book are a helpful resources throughout the course.
*** Arthur J. Magida, ed., How to Be a Perfect Stranger: A Guide to Etiquette in Other People's Religious Ceremonies (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 1996).
*** James Clifford and George E. Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). See especially the chapter by Vincent Crapanzano, "Hermes' Dilemma: The Masking of Subversion in Ethnographic Description," pp. 51-76.
*** Daniel Miller and Don Slater, The Internet: An Ethnographic Approach (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).
Week 5: February 19. Indians in New York.
Joanna Lessinger, From the Ganges to the Hudson: Indian Immigrants in New York City(Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1995), entire.
** Susan Slyomovics, "New York City's Muslim World Day Parade," in Peter van der Veer, ed., Nation and Migration: The Politics of Space in the South Asian Diaspora (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), pp. 157-177.
** J. S. Hawley, "Global Hinduism in Gotham," in Tony Carnes and Fenggang Yang, eds., Asian American Religions: Borders and Boundaries (New York: New York University Press, forthcoming 2003).
*** Madhulika S. Khandelwal, "Indian Immigration in Queens, New York City: Patterns of Spatial Concentration and Distribution, 1965-1990," in Peter van der Veer, Nation and Migration, pp. 178-196.
*** Daniel Jasper, "The Incorporation of Hinduism in New York," International Center for Migration, Ethnicity, and Citizenship, The New School University. Posted at:
Week 6. February 26. On City Religion.
Robert A. Orsi, ed., Gods of the City (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999), pp. 1-154.
** Joanne Waghorne, "The Gentrification of the Goddess," International Journal of Hindu Studies, forthcoming 2003.
*** Tony Carnes and Anna Karpathakis, eds., New York Glory: Religions in the City (New York: New York University Press, 2001).
*** R. Scott Hanson, "City of Gods: Religious Freedom, Immigration, and Pluralism in Flushing, New York," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2000.
Week 7. March 5. On Memory.
NB: Class meets in Butler 204. The second hour of the seminar will be devoted to a discussion-with Cynthia Lawson of the Center for New Media-of "social memory" as it relates to the preparation of the website for "Midnight's Children" and to the "Midnight's Children" project generally.
The "Midnight's Children" website: http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/mmt/mc.
Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), entire.
** Maurice Halbwachs, "Religious Collective Memory," which is part I, chapter 6 of Halbwachs, On Collective Memory, tr. Lewis A. Coser (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 84-119.
Week 8. March 12.
** David N. Lorenzen, "Who Invented Hinduism?," Comparative Studies in Society and History 41:4 (1999), pp. 630-359.
** J. S. Hawley, "Naming Hinduism," The Wilson Quarterly 15:3 (summer 1991), pp. 20-34.
** Wendy Doniger, "Hinduism by Any Other Name," The Wilson Quarterly 15:3 (summer 1991), pp. 35-41.
** Vasudha Narayanan, "Creating South Indian Hindu Experience in the United States," in Raymond b. Williams, ed., A Sacred Thread: Modern Transmission of Hindu Traditions in India and Abroad (Chambersburg, PA: Anima Publications, 1992), pp. 147-176.
** Prema Kurien, "Becoming American by Becoming Hindu: Indian Americans Take Their Place at the Multicultural Table," in R. Stephen Warner and Judith G. Wittner, eds., Gatherings in Diaspora: Religious Communities and the New Immigration (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), pp. 37-70.
*** Vasudha Dalmia and Heinrich von Stietencron, eds., Representing Hinduism: The Construction of Religious Traditions and National Identity (New Delhi: Sage Publications, 1995).
*** Ronald Inden, Imagining India (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 85-130.
*** Gunther D. Sontheimer and Hermann Kulke, eds., Hinduism Reconsidered (New Delhi: Manohar, 1989).
NB: Monday, March 24. &n 4:00 p.m., to be forwarded to Writing Fellows for their reactions. After a conversation with the Writing Fellow, you'll turn in a (possibly revised) version of this draft for in-course use and evaluation on Monday, April 7, as listed below.
Week 9. March 26. Evaluating Others' Work. ** Ron Grimes, Fieldwork in Religious Studies, pp. 32-33.
T. S. Rukmani, ed., Hindu Diaspora: Global Perspectives (Montreal: Concordia University, Chair in Hindu Studies, 1999), selections.
** Lindsey Harlan, "Reversing the Gaze in America: Parody in Divali Performance at Connecticut College," in Knut Jacobson and Pratap Kumar, eds., South Asians in Diaspora (Leiden: E. J. Brill, forthcoming).
*** Hanna Kim, "Being Swaminarayan: The Ontology and Significance of Belief in the Construction of a Gujarati Diaspora," PhD. dissertation, Columbia University, 2001.
NB: Friday, March 28. "Ethnography New York Style: A One-Day Conference." City University of New York, Graduate Center.
Information about the conference is posted at http://www.nyethnography@yahoo.com.
Week 10. April 2. Site Projects Ð I.
This is the first of three weeks in which two groups of students will present their work. Draft versions of the project reports will provide the main reading for each of these weeks, available on CourseWorks. These will be judiciously supplemented by additional readings that presenters wish to assign as background especially relevant to their presentations. Students not making presentations will be responsible for editorial evaluations of the papers presented in any given week (probably with two students commmenting on a given paper).
NB: Monday, April 7. First drafts of your seminar papers (possibly revised in consequence of conversations with our Writing Fellows) are due in Milbank 219 by 4:00 pm.
Week 11. April 9. Site Projects Ð II.
[See Week 10.]
Week 12. April 16. Site Projects Ð III.
[See Week 10.]
NB: Monday, April 21. The second draft of your seminar paper is due in Milbank 219 at 4:00 pm, to be forwarded to our Writing Fellows for reading and discussion. Any refinements can be incorporated into the papers before they are submitted in final form on May 5, as indicated below.
Week 13. April 23. Site Projects Ð IV. Visit to class of Rajiv Malhotra, Founder, the Infinity Foundation.
[See Week 10.]
Rajiv Malhotra, "The Position of Hinduism in America's Higher Education," www.infinityfoundation.com/ECIThinduismframe.htm, downloaded December 4, 2000, with e-correspondence from J. S. Hawley, Rupa Viswanath, and Nate Roberts.
"Defamation/Anti/Defamation: Hindus in Dialogue with the Western Academy," www.barnard.edu/religion/hindu. These are the edited proceedings of a panel held at the American Academy of Religion in Denver in fall, 2001.
*** Rajiv Malhotra, "RISA Lila Ð 1: Wendy's Child Syndrome," www.sulekha.com/column.asp?cid=239156, version of September 6, 2002.
Week 14. April 30. Preparation of a Course Website. Conference Preparation. Course Evaluation.
Eck, A New Religious America, pp. 294-386.
In addition, work with your research group to develop a short (7-10 minute) presentation that will serve as the basis for a discussion with representatives of the organization/site you are studying. The primary purpose of the mini-conference is to give these representatives a chance to react to your work in a shared setting. I imagine a discussion in which 20 minutes is devoted to each "site," for a total running time of 3 hours in addition to a half-hour break midway.
In class we will work with the class webmaster (to be chosen in the course of the term) to prepare the class website. The webmaster will in turn coordinate efforts with Pankaj Singh, Web Specialist, Barnard Library and Information Information Services.
Saturday, May 3. Mini-conference with site representatives and others.
Please see the invitation appended at the end of the syllabus.
Monday, May 5. The final version of your seminar paper is due in Milbank 219 at 4:00 pm.
The Sites
The following "sites" have been selected for investigation and encounter by students enrolled in the course in Spring, 2003. 1. Divya Dham, a "mission temple" built in a warehouse in Woodside, Queens, with the explicit aim of creating a space capable of accommodating large numbers of Hindus-beyond specific temple membership--on ritual and celebratory occasions. The languages in most frequent use there are Hindi and Gujarati. 2. The America Sevashrama Sangha, a Guyanese-Hindu ashram- temple in Jamaica, Queens, whose religious leaders come from a Bengali lineage. 3. Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, an influential retreat center for adults and children in Saylorsburg, PA that features a broad range of courses (Sanskrit, Vedanta, yoga, Ayurveda, music) under the general leadership of Swami Dayananda Saraswati. http://www.arshavidya.org. 4. The Vaisnav Temple of New York, in Holliswood, Queens, which is a regional expression of the theologically influential Vallabh (or Pustimargiya) Sampraday of north and northwest India. Gujarati and Hindi are spoken. http://www.geocities/athens/6035. 5. The Sri Guru Ravidas Sabha of Woodside, Queens, which reveres as its founding guru the16th-century dalit ("oppressed") poet-saint-teacher Ravidas. Presently most members understand themselves to stand firmly within the Sikh tradition, but historically there are important ties to an independent Ravidasi lineage and, through Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, to Buddhism. Punjabi is the primary language, but Hindi is understood, as well. 6. Jivamukti Yoga Center, with two locations in Manhattan, is one of the most prominent and highly publicized teaching centers for yoga in the city, and especially significant for "Hinduism Here" because of its founders' dedication to the task of restoring to the American practice of yoga its wider Hindu context and meaning. 7. The Infinity Foundation (http://www.infinityfoundation.com), based in Princeton, NJ and represented by its founder, Rajiv Malhotra, has in recent years become a major player in the politics of "representing Hinduism" in higher education in the United States-through grants it has made, through conversations and contestations with American academics, and through Mr. Malhotra's regular presence in e-mail fora and in electronic venues such as http://www.sulekha.com.
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