Smriti Srinivas
[email protected]
EDUCATION
1995
Ph.D. in Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, India.
1989
M.Phil. in Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, India.
1988
M.A. in Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, India.
1986
B.A. in Economics, Madras Christian College, Madras, India.
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
2008-
Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, USA.
2004 -2008
Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Davis, USA.
2002-2004
Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Davis, USA.
1999-2002
Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Studies, Ohio State University,
USA.
1994–1998
Assistant Professor, Sociology Unit, Institute for Social and Economic Change,
Bangalore, India.
RESEARCH and TEACHING INTERESTS
urban cultures, social memory, the body, religion, anthropology of ideas and futures, utopias
FELLOWSHIPS and AWARDS
2012-2013
Academic Senate Research Travel Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2012-2013
Small Grants in Aid of Research, University of California, Davis, USA.
2012-2013
University of California Humanities Research Institute Working Group Award.
Co-PIs: Smriti Srinivas (UCD, Anthropology) and Mary Hancock (UCSB,
History and Anthropology).
1
2011-2012
New Research Initiatives and Collaborative Interdisciplinary Research Grant,
University of California, Davis, USA.
2011
Academic Senate Research Travel Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2009-2010
Small Grants in Aid of Research, University of California, Davis, USA.
2009
Academic Senate Research Travel Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2008-2009
Small Grants in Aid of Research, University of California, Davis, USA.
2008
Academic Senate Research Travel Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2007
Academic Senate Research Travel Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2007-2008
Small Grants in Aid of Research, University of California, Davis, USA.
2006
Academic Senate Research Travel Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2006-2007
Small Grants in Aid of Research, University of California, Davis, USA.
2005-2006
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, USA.
2005-2006
Small Grants in Aid of Research, University of California, Davis, USA.
2005-2006
Faculty Development Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2005
Academic Senate Research Travel Award, University of California, Davis, USA.
2002-2003
New Faculty Research Grant, University of California, Davis, USA.
2001-2002
American Academy of Religion Individual Research Grant, USA.
2001-2002
Ohio State University Seed Grant, USA.
2000-2001
Research Grant, Mershon Center for Security Studies, Ohio State University,
USA.
2000
Course Development Grant, International Studies Program, Ohio State University,
USA.
1998-1999
Mellon Fellowship in Anthropological Demography, University of Maryland at
College Park, USA.
2
1998
Research Grant, Summer Scholars Program, Atlanta History Center, Atlanta,
USA.
1997-1998
Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship, International Center for Advanced Studies,
Project on Cities and Urban Knowledges, New York University, USA.
1996-1997
Research Grant, India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore, India.
1994-1995
Institute for Social and Economic Change Research Grant, India.
1993 -1994
Research Grant from HIVOS (Humanist Institute for Co-operation with
Developing Countries), the Netherlands, at Institute for Social and Economic
Change, Bangalore, India.
1992 -1993
Research Grant, Institute for Social and Economic Change, and Action Aid,
Bangalore, India.
1992
Research Grant, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India.
1988-1993
National Fellowship, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University, India.
1986-1988
National Scholarship for Master of Arts, Delhi School of Economics, Delhi
University, India.
1988
Gold Medal, Kunda Datar Award for Master of Arts in Sociology, Delhi
University, India.
1986
Gold Medal, Best Woman Student, Madras Christian College, Madras, India.
PUBLICATIONS
Monographs
2008
In the Presence of Sai Baba: Body, City, and Memory in a Global Religious
Movement. Worldwide hardback edition, Leiden/Boston: Brill; South Asian
paperback edition, Hyderabad: Orient Longman (Reviewed in American Ethnologist,
Contemporary South Asia, The Hindu, Practical Matters, Material Religion, Religion).
2004
Landscapes of Urban Memory: The Sacred and the Civic in India’s High-Tech City.
Revised Indian edition. Hyderabad: Orient Longman (Reviewed in Economic and
Political Weekly, The Hindu, Down to Earth).
2001
Landscapes of Urban Memory: The Sacred and the Civic in India’s High-Tech
City. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. (Reviewed in Urban Affairs
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Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Semiotics, American
Ethnologist, Contemporary South Asia, American Anthropologist, Journal of
Contemporary Religion and Journal of Asian Studies).
1998
The Mouths of People, the Voice of God: Buddhists and Muslims in a Frontier
Community of Ladakh. Delhi: Oxford University Press. (Reviewed in The Tibet
Journal, The Hindu, Ladakh Studies Bulletin).
Articles
2012
“Urban Forms of Religious Practice.” In Vasudha Dalmia and Rashmi Sadana, ed.
Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press: 67-79.
2008
“Spaces of modernity: Religion and the urban in Asia and Africa.” (With Mary
Hancock). In Mary Hancock and Smriti Srinivas, ed. Symposium on Religion and the
Formation of Modern Urban Space in Asia and Africa, pp. 617-709. International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Vol. 32 (3): 617-630.
2008
“The Karaga festival: A performative archive of an alternate urban ecology.” In Aditi
De, ed. Multiple City: Writings on Bangalore. New Delhi: Penguin Books India: 133139.
2007
Extract from Landscapes of Urban Memory: The Sacred and the Civic in India’s HighTech City.In Beantown Boomtown: Bangalore in the World of Words, Jayanth
Kodkani and R. Edwin Sudhir, eds. New Delhi: Rupa and Co: 280-288.
2005
“Warrior goddess versus bipedal cow: Sport, space, performance and planning in an
Indian city.” (With James Heitzman). In James Mills, ed. Subaltern Sports: Politics
and Sport in South Asia. London: Anthem Press: 139-171.
2004a
“Sai Baba movement.” In Lindsay Jones, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion. 2nd ed. Vol.
12. New York: Macmillan Reference USA: 8026-8029.
2004b
“Cities.” (With James Heitzman). In Lindsay Jones, ed. Encyclopedia of Religion.
2nd ed. Vol. 3. New York: Macmillan Reference USA: 1801-1812.
2002a
“Another Mahabharata: Bangalore’s Karaga performance and oral epic.” Parampara,
November: 1-3.
2002b
“Bangalore.” (With James Heitzman). In Melvin Ember and Carol R. Ember, eds.
Encyclopedia of Urban Cultures. Vol. 1. Bethel, Conn.: Grolier: 285-292.
2002c
“Cities of the past and cities of the future: Theorizing the Indian metropolis of
Bangalore.” In John Eade and Christopher Mele, eds. Understanding the City:
Contemporary and Future Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell: 247-277.
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2001
“The advent of the avatar: The urban following of Sathya Sai Baba and its
construction of tradition.” In Vasudha Dalmia, Angelika Malinar and Martin Christof,
eds. Charisma and Canon: Essays on the Religious History of the Indian Subcontinent.
Delhi: Oxford University Press: 293-309.
1999a
"The Brahmin and the fakir: Suburban religiosity in the cult of Shirdi Sai Baba."
Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 14, No.2, May: 245-261.
1999b
"Hot bodies and cooling substances: Rituals of sport in a science city." Journal of
Sport and Social Issues, Vol. 23, No. 1, February: 24-40.
1999c
“Inhabiting the body of the goddess: Urban form within the festival of Draupadi in
Bangalore.” In Jackie Assayag, ed. The Resources of History: Tradition, Narration
and Nation in South Asia. Paris and Pondichéry: École française d’ Extrême-Orient
and Institut français de Pondichéry: 347-359.
1999d
“Remembering the city: The incarnation of the goddess and the boundaries of the
metropolis.” .Special issue, Jackie Assayag and Gilles Tarabout, eds. Possession in
South Asia: Speech, Body and Territory. Purusartha, no. 21: 357-382.
1999e
“Sai Baba: La double utilisation de l’écriture et de l’oralité dans un mouvement
religieux moderne en Asie du Sud.” Diogenes, No. 187, Juillet-Septembre: 114-129.
Translated and reprinted as: “Sai Baba: The double utilization of written and oral
traditions in a modern south Asian religious movement.” Diogenes, No. 187, Vol.
47/3: 88-99.
1997a
“The household, integration and exchange: Muslims and Buddhists in the Nubra
valley.” In Henry Osmaston and Nawang Tsering, eds. Recent Research on Ladakh 6.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers: 251-280.
1997b
“Witch possession in Nubra valley: The analysis of a case.” In Thierry Dodin and
Heinz Räther, eds. Recent Research on Ladakh 7. Universitat Ulm: Ulmer
Kulturanthropologische Schriften: 457-478.
1996
“On the religious imagination of the city.” Seminar (445): 43-47.
1995a
“Conjunction, parallelism and cross-cutting ties among the Muslims of Ladakh.” The
Tibet Journal, Vol. XX, No.3, Autumn: 71-95.
1995b
“The dialogic mode, role reversal and fieldwork.” In Clive Thomson and Hans Raj
Dua, eds. Dialogism and Cultural Criticism. London, Canada: Mestengo Press: 111148.
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1994a
“The kindred and political patriliny: Two styles in extra-local integration in Nubra
valley, Ladakh.” Sociological Bulletin, 43(2) September: 193-213.
1994b
“New economic policy, voluntary organizations and rural poor.” (With G.S. Aurora et
al.) Economic and Political Weekly, April 2: 787-788.
1993
“Hope on the horizon: A rapprochement.” Frontline, November 19: 52-55.
1991
“The lost horizon? Problems in a strategic spot.” Frontline, October 26 - November 8:
81- 87.
CONFERENCES and INVITED PRESENTATIONS
“Highways to Heaven: Exploring the Terrain of an Indian New Age.” The Ohio State University
Center for the Study of Religion fourth At-Large Lecture of Religion, Columbus, Ohio, March 2,
2012.
“Utopian Settlements, Californian Vedanta, Huxley, Isherwood and Friends.” Paper presented at
the panel on “California Dreaming: South Asian Religions Encounter the Counter-Culture.”
American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Francisco, November 22, 2011.
“On the Life Positive: The Cultural and Spatial Registers of the Indian New Age.” Invited
presentation, Anthropology Department Colloquium, University of California, Davis, March 8,
2010.
“On the Life Positive: The Cultural and Spatial Registers of the Indian New Age.” Invited
presentation, Hindu Studies Colloquium, Dept. of Religion, University of Toronto, October 29,
2009.
“Mapping Suburbanization and Spirituality in Bangalore.” Paper presented at the panel on
“Technology, Sacrality and Maps of the South Asian City,” Annual South Asia Conference,
University of Wisconsin, Madison, October 23, 2009.
“Four Options to Create your own Heaven on Earth: The Cultural and Spatial Registers of Indian
Urban Religiosity.” Invited paper for the symposium on “Place/No Place: Spatial Aspects of
Urban Asian Religiosity,” Syracuse University, USA, October 2-4, 2009.
“Towards a Eutopia of Global Knowledges.” Invited paper, conference on “The Politics of
Academic Knowledge in a Global Era: Nationalism, Cosmopolitanism, and Market Values,”
organized by the International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University, and the
Institute for History, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary, July 17-19, 2007.
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“The Sense of Sai: Visuality, Virtuality and the Senses in the Transnational Sathya Sai Baba
Movement.” Invited lecture, Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of
Oxford, Oxford, UK, November 10, 2006.
“Darshan as Ritual in the Sai Baba Movement.” Invited lecture in the series on Ritual in South
Asia, South Asia Institute, University of Heidelberg, Germany, 7th July, 2005.
“Performing Devotion, Performing Citizenship: The Sathya Sai Baba Movement in Postcolonial
Nairobi.” Invited lecture in the Plenary Session, International Sociological Association
Conference, RC 21, Cities as Social Fabric, Paris, France, June 30th-July 2, 2005.
“Visuality, Virtuality, and Devotional Culture: Darshan in the Sathya Sai Baba Movement.”
Invited lecture at the Center for South Asia, University of Washington, Seattle, USA, March 9,
2005.
“Body culture, performance and planning in an Indian city.” Paper presented at the conference
on “Gendering Urban Space in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia” organized by the
American University in Cairo and the SHEHR-network, Cairo, Feb 26-27, 2005.
“The sight of the guru: The visual, the virtual, and the global in the Sathya Sai Baba movement.”
Invited talk, Department of Religious Studies and the Institute of Global Studies, Arizona State
University, Feb. 14, 2005.
“Somatic regimes of ‘darshan’ in the Sathya Sai Baba movement.” Paper presented at the panel
on “New Sensoriums of the Self” at the Cultural Studies Association (America) Conference,
Northeastern University, Boston, May 5-9, 2004.
“Models of the sacred and the city in South Asia.” Paper presented at the panel on “Theorizing
the South Asian City” at the 19th Annual South Asia Conference, University of California,
Berkeley, February 13-14, 2004.
“Architecture and the construction of a new self in the Sathya Sai Baba movement.” Paper
presented at the panel on “Languages of the Self and the Construction of Transcendence:
Contemporary Religious Communities and Identities in India” at the conference on “Religions in
the Indic Civilization,” Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and the International
Association for the History of Religions, New Delhi, India, Dec. 18-21, 2003.
“Warrior goddess versus bipedal cow: Sports and ecology in an Indian city.” Paper presented at
the conference on “Contested Urban Futures,” University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, USA, Nov.
6-9, 2003.
“The visual and the virtual: The global re-imagining of faith in the Sai Baba movement.” Paper
presented at the symposium on “Traversing Boundaries: Comparative Perspectives on South
Asia and the Middle East,” University of California, Davis, USA, April 16, 2003.
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“The visual and the virtual: Situating 'darshan' in the Sathya Sai Baba
movement." Paper presented at the symposium on “Global Saints, Local Lives: Images and
Icons in Urban Space,” UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History, Los Angeles, USA, April
12, 2003.
“Sacred geographies, urban boundaries: The spatial mnemonics of the Sai Baba movement in
Bangalore city.” Paper presented at the session on “Streets, Pathways, Passages and Highways,”
the Annual Association for Asian Studies Meeting, New York City, USA, March 27-30, 2003.
“Reconstructing space and memory: The Sai Baba movement in Bangalore city, India.” Paper
presented at the session on “Public Memory and Urban Space: An International Perspective,” the
First Biennial Urban History Conference, Pittsburgh, USA, September 26-28, 2002.
“Seeing and being seen: The dynamics of darshan in the Sai Baba movement.” Invited public
lecture sponsored by the Philosophy Colloquium and the Friends of India Association, Ohio
University, Athens, USA, April 25-26, 2002.
“Transnational networks and the global imagining of faith in the Sai Baba movement.” Paper
presented at the French Institute for Research in Africa (with the support of the British Institute
in Eastern Africa), Nairobi, Kenya, December 13, 2001.
“Urban frontiers and ritual geographies: The spatial mnemonics of the Sai Baba movement in
Bangalore City.” Paper presented at the session on “Streets, Pathways, Passages and Highways,”
the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Washington D.C., USA, November
28-December 2, 2001.
“The abundance of memory: Transnational networks and the Sathya Sai Baba movement in
Atlanta.” Paper presented at the session on “Mahagurus and their Movements in a Global
Context,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, USA, Nov. 17-20, 2001.
“Cities of the past and cities of the future: Theorizing the city of Bangalore.” Paper presented at
the conference, Locating the City, sponsored by the Illinois Institute of Technology, International
Center for Advanced Studies (New York University), and Center for the Study of Transitional
Societies (Bilkent University), Antalya, Turkey, May 2001.
“Creating an urban armature: Models of the city and environmental degradation in Bangalore,
India.” Paper presented at the conference on Wounded Cities, sponsored by City University of
New York and Werner-Gren, New York, USA, April 2001.
“Sant, guru and avatar: Iconic representations and the politics of modernity in the Sai Baba
movement.” Paper presented at the 29th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, USA, October 2000.
“Public space and performance in Bangalore, India.” Paper presented at the City and Regional
Planning Lecture Series, Ohio State University, Columbus, USA, April 2000.
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“Civic performance and the transformation of public space in globalizing Bangalore.” Paper
presented in the seminar on Convivencia: Performance and Democracy in Plural Societies,
Mershon Center, Ohio State University, Columbus, USA, February 2000.
“Gardeners as urbanists: Alternative paradigms of the new Silicon Valley of India.” Poster
presentation at the 98th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago,
USA, November 1999.
“Millenarian visions in the city: The Sai Baba movement and its urban constituency in
Bangalore, India.” Paper presented at the 28th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, USA, October 1999.
“Performing urban memory: The gardeners’ city in globalizing Bangalore, India.” Paper
presented at the South Asia seminar, George Washington University, Washington D.C., USA,
May 1999.
“Performance, spectacle, and sport: Modeling community and public space in globalizing
Bangalore, India.” Paper presented at the Department of Sociology, University of Maryland,
College Park, USA, April 1999.
“Interrogating the civic: Performance and public memory in the new Silicon Valley of India.”
Paper presented at the International Center, University of Iowa, Iowa City, USA, April 1999.
“Traditions in the transmission of the charisma of Shirdi Sai Baba.” Paper presented at the
Department of Religion, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, March 1999.
“Sacred theatres and civic models in a science city: Urban spectacles in Bangalore, India, in the
late 20th century.” Paper presented at the South Asia Seminar, Concordia University, Montreal,
Canada, March 1999.
“Rituals of citizenship: Models of the civic in a science city.” Paper presented at Bard College,
New York, USA, November 1998.
“Theaters of the civic: Contesting sexuality, space and the sacred in Bangalore, India.” Paper
presented at the International Center for Advanced Studies, New York University, New York
City, USA, December 1997.
“Sufi saints, celibate warriors and the goddess: Constructing civic identity and urban topos in
Bangalore, India.” Paper presented at the Hagorp Kevorkian Institute, Center for Near Eastern
Studies, New York University, New York City, USA, October 1997.
“The advent of the avatar: The urban constituency of worship of Sathya Sai Baba and its
conception of tradition.” Paper presented at the seminar on Charisma and Canon: The Formation
of Religious Identity in South Asia, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany, May 1997.
9
“Inhabiting the goddess: Urban form within the festival of the Karaga in Bangalore.” Paper
presented at the seminar on Resources of History: Transmission or Invention? French Institute of
Pondicherry, Pondicherry, India, January 1997.
“The urban festival of the Karaga: Public religion in Bangalore, India.”
Paper presented at the following U.S. universities:
The South Asian Studies Program, University of Iowa, Iowa City, August 1996;
The South Asia Center, Cornell University, Ithaca, September 1996;
The South Asia Center, Syracuse University, Syracuse, September 1996;
Colgate University, Hamilton, September 1996; and
South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, September 1996.
“Urban religiosity and history in the cult of Sai Baba of Shirdi.” Paper presented at the Center of
Indian and South Asian Studies, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Unite Associete
CNRS, Paris, France, September 1996.
“Traditions in the transmission of the cult of Sai Baba of Shirdi: Sant, guru and avatar.” Paper
presented at the seminar on Knowledge and Language, Central Institute for Indian Languages,
Mysore, India, January 1996.
“The brahmin and the fakir: The routinization of the cult of Shirdi Sai Baba in urban South
India.” Paper presented at the seminar on Religious Imagination and Practices in the City,
Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India, December 1995.
“Witch possession in the Nubra valley: The analysis of a social drama.” Paper presented at the
7th International Association of Ladakh Studies Colloquium, Bonn, Germany, June 1995.
“The brahmin and the fakir: The structure of the Shirdi Sai Baba cult in urban south India and its
modern transformation.” Paper presented at the Department of Indology, University of Tübingen,
Tübingen, Germany, June 1995.
“Gender and political economy: Some reflections.” Paper presented at the seminar on Women,
Livelihood, and the Environment organized by the Co-ordination Unit (World Conference on
Women, Beijing), Hamdard University, Delhi, India, November 1994.
“The kindred and political patriliny: Two styles in extra-local integration in Nubra valley,
Ladakh.” Paper presented at the conference organized by the Himalayan Research and Cultural
Foundation, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, India, March 1994.
“Gender and political economy of knowledge: Levels of discourse on the structural adjustment
policy.” Paper presented at the seminar on Structural Adjustment Policy in India, Institute for
Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India, October 1993.
“The household, integration and exchange: Muslims and Buddhists in Nubra valley, Ladakh.”
Paper presented at the 6th International Association of Ladakh Studies Colloquium, Leh, India,
August 1993.
10
“Security and the Ladakhi frontier.” Paper presented at the Symposium on Security, Centre for
the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India, April 1993.
“The dialogic mode, role-reversal and fieldwork: The case of Ladakh.” Paper presented at the
Indo-Canadian Symposium on Bakhtin and Culture Theory, Central Institute of Indian
Languages, Mysore, India, December, 1992.
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