Copyright (c) 2009 All rights reserved. http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman Recent documents in Chad M. Bauman en-us Sun, 31 May 2009 04:16:53 PDT 3600 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/16 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/16 Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:31:40 PST The article provides a survey of research on immigrant Hindus and South Asian Hinduism in the USA, focusing in particular on certain trends in the development of American Hinduism (e.g., Americanization, protestantization, ecumenization, congregationalization, homogenization, and ritual adaptation) and prominent themes in more recent scholarship on the topic (e.g., race, transnational connections, and Hindu nationalism). Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/15 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/15 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 05:54:24 PST Introduction The ever-present entanglement of modernity and tradition was revealed rather plainly to me when, during a period of fieldwork in Raipur, Chhattisgarh (one of India's newest states), I attended a conference on business communication at the invitation of an Indian friend. The conference was sponsored by Rai University and was held in the city's most impressive hotel, which was posh even by Mumbai's standards and paradisiacal by Raipur's. There, surrounded by the signs and symbols of luxury and modernity, two visiting Dartmouth professors presented papers on business communication skills. During the subsequent period of discussion, a rather wealthy, modern-looking Indian inquired of the professors whether their research had found "communication without technology or speech" to have been a useful business tool. After a great deal of garbar (confusion, agitation, bewilderment) it was determined that the questioner was asking the American professors about telepathy. The easy dichotomization of tradition and modernity is undeniably spurious, as is the Whiggish assumption that societies travel on a direct and evolutionary path from the former to the latter. Yet the continued prevalence of such attitudes requires that the careful scholar constantly attempt to undermine them by drawing attention to what the Rudolphs long ago called the "modernity of tradition" (1967, 3-5) and what Saurabh Dube has more recently dubbed the "silent magic of modernities" (1998, vii). The need to highlight the constant entanglement of modernities and traditions is nowhere more necessary than in the study of colonial and evangelical interactions. This chapter investigates one such interaction, and argues that while Satnami and Satnami-Christian Chhattisgarhis who came into contact with Western missionaries between 1868 and 1947 clearly rationalized their medical behavior as a result of the encounter, exchanging, in some ways, the miraculous for the mundane, they did not necessarily reject their traditional understanding of the causes, prevention, and treatment of disease. That is to say, they continued to accept supernatural explanations of etiology and cure. Moreover, this belief was explicitly encouraged by missionaries who--far from being thoroughly modern individuals--sincerely believed that the efficacy of allopathic (or Western) medicine was related to its association with Christianity. If modernity and modern science are typified by a privileging of rationality over religious belief, then it must be argued that in this context Christian missionaries were neither pure agents of modernity nor the purveyors of an adulterated modern form of medicine. Health and healing, for Satnamis, Satnami-Christians, and their evangelical interlocutors, were miraculous--that is, they involved supernatural elements above and beyond the mundane science of observable cause and effect.1 Note: Link is to the catalog entry in WorldCat's catalog. Please see your local librarian for assistance in borrowing this item via interlibrary loan. Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/14 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/14 Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:29:30 PST This article reviews the book "The Crisis of Secularism in India," edited by A. D. Needham and R. S. Rajan. Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/13 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/13 Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:29:30 PST This paper explores the Indianization of Christianity in late colonial Chhattisgarh, India, with special reference to a Salnami-Christian catechist and composer, Blind Simon Patros. Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/8 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/8 Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:57:01 PST The eighteen articles in this volume grew from papers delivered at the 2006 Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions. The Symposium featured both newer and more advanced scholars who presented papers on a variety of topics and traditions of India (but especially Hinduism and Buddhism). Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/7 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/7 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:30:43 PST This article reviews the book "Rapt in the Name: The Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India," by Ramdas Lamb. Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/6 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/6 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:27:47 PST This article reviews the book "Review of In the Shadow of the Mahatma," by Susan Billington Harper. Note: Link is to the article in a subscription database available to users affiliated with Butler University. Appropriate login information will be required for access. Users not affiliated with Butler University should contact their local librarian for assistance in locating a copy of this article. Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/5 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/5 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:24:44 PST This article reviews the book "Divine Mother, Blessed Mother," by Francis Clooney, S.J. Note: Link is to the article in a subscription database available to users affiliated with Butler University. Appropriate login information will be required for access. Users not affiliated with Butler University should contact their local librarian for assistance in locating a copy of this article. Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/4 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/4 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 08:14:51 PST The article reviews the book "Converting Women: Gender and Protestant Christianity in Colonial South India," by Eliza Kent. Note: Link is to the article in a subscription database available to users affiliated with Butler University. Appropriate login information will be required for access. Users not affiliated with Butler University should contact their local librarian for assistance in locating a copy of this article. Chad M. Bauman http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/3 http://works.bepress.com/chad_bauman/3 Mon, 02 Feb 2009 07:59:43 PST Chad M. Bauman