Dr Rich Freeman, Study of Religions, Duke University. Dr Freeman is an Anthropologist who has worked for many years in Kerala and is fluent in Malayalam. Dr Freeman’s work is particularly valuable because he combines textual knowledge of the Kerala traditons, both through Malayalam and Sanskrit, with ethnography. His initial focus of research was the teyyam dance tradition on which he is the world’s leading expert and he has published on the history of Malayalam religious literature and continues to work on the tantric traditions of Kerala.
Prof. Sumathi Ramaswamy is Professor of History at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. Prior to this appointment, she was Professor of History at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. She studied for her MA and M.Phil. in ancient Indian history at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She also has a Master’s in Anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, and graduated with a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891–1970 (University of California Press, 1997) and The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories (University of California Press, 2004). She has also edited a volume entitled Beyond Appearances? Visual Practices and Ideologies in Modern India (Sage, 2003), and has recently completed a book manuscript entitled The Goddess and the Nation: Picturing Mother India that is part of a larger project on empire, nationalism, and cartographic culture.
Prof. Gaya Charan Tripathi was born at Agra (India). He went to school and pursued higher studies at Agra, Pune, and Benares. He has a Masters in Sanskrit (1959) from the University of Agra with a Gold Medal and first position in the University. He received his Ph.D. from the same University in 1962 on Vedic Deities and their subsequent development in the Epics and the Puranas supported by a Fellowship of the Ministry of Education. He is a Fellow of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) for Higher Studies in Germany. He has a Dr.Phil. from the University of Freiburg/Br (1966) in History of Religions, Comparative Indo-European Philology, and Latin (besides Indology) as elective subjects in the grade Summa cum Laude. D.Litt. in Ancient Indian History and Culture from the University of Allahabad on ‘A critical Study of the daily Puja Ceremony of the Jagannatha Temple in Puri’ (published under the title ‘Communication with God’). He has taught at the Universities of Aligarh, Udaipur, Freiburg (twice), Tuebingen (twice), Heidelberg, Berlin, Leipzig, and British Columbia (Vancouver). He is Chief Indologist and Field Director of the Orissa Research Project (1970–5) of the German Research Council (DFG), and has been Principal of the Ganganatha Jha Research Institute, Allahabad, for over twenty years. He is presently Professor and Head of the Research and Publication wing of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Delhi. He has contributed around ninety papers in English, German, Sanskrit, and Hindi to various Indian and International Journals on Religion, Philosophy, History, Literature, and Vedic/Puranic studies. Published 22 books on subjects mostly pertaining to religions and literature of India. His specialisations are: Indian Religions and Philosophy, Vishnuism (especially Pancharatra school), Vedic sudies, Sanskrit Literature, Grammar, and Philology, Cult practices of Orissa, and Gaudiya Vishnuism.
Shashiprabha Kumar is presently Chairperson, Special Centre for Sanskrit Studies, JNU, New Delhi. She is an acclaimed Sanskrit Scholar, well versed in classical Indian Philosophy, particularly the system of Vaisesika, which was her area of Ph.D. research. Dr Kumar received the Sri Ramakrishna Sanskrit Award (World Education Foundation, Canada, 2003) for her distinguished and outstanding contribution to Sanskrit research and teaching, and Shankar Puraskar award (K.K.Birla Foundation, New Delhi, 1998) for her first book, Vai'sesika Dar'sana mein Padartha-Nirupana. She has won many other prestigious awards and fellowships. She has written fourteen books and has contributed more than sixty research papers to reputed journals and edited volumes. She has participated in several international conferences and seminars as well as lecturing in India and abroad.
Prof. Sangeetha Menon has been working in Consciousness Studies for over eighteen years. Her core research interests are Indian ways of thinking in classical philosophical schools, Indian psychology and Indian dramaturgy, and current discussions on consciousness. Her doctorate thesis was ‘The concept of consciousness in the Bhagavad Gita’. After graduating in science (zoology) she took her postgraduate degree in philosophy from University of Kerala. A gold-medallist and first-rank holder for postgraduate studies, she received national University Grants Commission fellowship for her doctoral studies. Since 1996, she has worked as Fellow at the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), in the campus of Indian Institute of Science.
She has co-organised national and international conferences including ‘Scientific and Philosophical Studies in Consciousness’ (1998, NIAS), ‘Science and Metaphysics: Consciousness and Genetics’ (2002, NIAS), ‘Science and Beyond’ (2003, NIAS), and ‘Consciousness, Experience and Ways of Knowing’ (2006,NIAS).
Her book Dialogues: Philosopher meets the Seer (2003, Srishti Publishers) is a set of nine dialogues with her spiritual teacher on socio-cultural issues of contemporary importance and the common concerns of science and spiritual quest. The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita is Menon’s latest book (2007, Blue Jay Books, New Delhi). Dr Menon has co-edited four books: Consciousness, Experience and Ways of Knowing: Perspectives from Science, Philosophy and the Arts (2006, NIAS), Science and Beyond: Cosmology, consciousness and technology in Indic traditions (2004, NIAS), Consciousness and Genetics (2002, NIAS) and Scientific and Philosophical Studies on Consciousness (1999, NIAS). She has several articles in peer-reviewed journals, and contributed chapters on a variety of issues relating to science and religion, self, mind, and consciousness. She contributed a chapter on ‘Hinduism and Science’ for the recently published Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (2006, OUP). She has also authored monographs on consciousness in the context of Indian thought. Presently she is engaged in writing a book on ‘Consciousness and Agency' as part of the Global Perspectives on Science and Spirituality award', received from Universite Interdisciplinaire de Paris, and Elon University supported by Templeton Foundation.
She has received national awards for her achievements in the field of consciousness and Indian contributions. She also received the Young Philosopher Award (2003) from the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, for her research work.
Graham M. Schweig is currently Associate Professor of Religion
and Director of the Indic Studies Program at Christopher Newport
University; he is also Visiting Associate Professor of Sanskrit
at the University of Virginia. Schweig is the author of Dance
of Divine Love: India's Classic Sacred Love Story: The Rasa Lila
of Krishna (Princeton 2005).
Prof. T.S. Rukmani has a distinguished academic record and has been teaching and researching mainly in the areas of Hinduism, Advaita Vedanta and Sankhya-Yoga for the past 40 years. She has taught in India, South Africa, where she held the first Chair for Hindu Studies and Indian Philosophy at University of Durban Westville, and joined the Department of Religion, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada, as Professor and Chair for Hindu Studies in 1996. Since the establishment of Delhi University 80 years ago, she is the only academic in its Department of Sanskrit to have been honored with the highest degree of D.Litt. In 1972, she was awarded the Ida Smedley International Fellowship to work as a post-doctoral fellow on comparative philosophy, under the guidance of the late Prof. B.K. Matilal, at Toronto University. Prof Rukmani has won many awards and her four-volume work on Vijnanabhiksu's Yogavarttika and her two-volume work on Sankara's Yogasutrabhasyavivarana have been widely acclaimed in scholarly circles as significant contributions to the furtherance of Yoga Philosophy. She has also written and edited seven other books dealing with different aspects of religion and philosophy and has published many research papers in academic journals, both in India and in other parts of the world. Prof. Rukmani has been active in "Women's Studies" and programs connected with women. She was President of the University Women's Association of Delhi for two years and was a member of the International Federation of University Women's Fellowship Committee in Geneva (Switzerland) for three years.
Prof. Mandakranta Bose studied Sanskrit in Calcutta (Smrti and Mimamsa) and in Oxford, focusing her research on the Natya-sastras. She taught religion and gender studies in the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Among her many publications are: Classical Indian Dancing: A Glossary (1970), Movement and Mimesis: The Idea of Dance in the Sanskritic Tradition (1991), Nartananirnaya: A Critical Edition (1991), Faces of the Feminine in Ancient, Medieval and Modern India (2000), Speaking of Dance: The Indian Critique (2001), The Ramayana Revisited (2004). Her most recent work, a critical edition, with translation, of Sangitanarayana, is in press. One of her recent research projects focuses on performances of the Ramayana and she continues to work on editing Sanskrit Sangitasastra texts. Prof Bose is the former director of the Centre for India and South Asia Research at the University of British Columbia, and is an Emeritus Professor there. She is at present teaching as a Visiting Professor at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada.
Himanshu Prabha Ray has degrees in Archaeology, Sanskrit and Ancient Indian History and teaches at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. In her research she adopts an inter-disciplinary approach for a study of the archaeology of religion in South Asia, this being evident in her most recent paper, "The Apsidal Shrine in Early Hinduism: Origins, Cultic Affiliation, Patronage", World Archaeology, 36,3, 2004: 343-359.
Her major publications include Monastery and Guild: Commerce under the Satavahanas, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1986; The Winds of Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Ancient South Asia, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994 (reissued as Oxford India Paperbacks, 1998, 2000); The Archaeology of Seafaring in Ancient South Asia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003 and edited volumes titled Tradition and Archaeology, New Delhi, Manohar, 1996 (with Jean-Francois Salles); Archaeology of Seafaring: The Indian Ocean in the Ancient Period, New Delhi, Indian Council of Historical Research Monograph I, 1999; Archaeology as History in Early South Asia, New Delhi, Aryan Books International, 2004 (with Carla Sinopoli).
The series of lectures and seminars at Oxford draws on her ongoing research on "The Archaeology of Sacred Space: The Hindu Temple in Peninsular India (2nd-1st century BC to 8th century AD)", which she hopes to complete during her tenure as Shivdasani Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies.
Ashok Aklujkar, the author of Sanskrit: an Easy Introduction to an Enchanting Language, received his M.A. degree in Sanskrit and Pali from the University of Poona and his Ph.D. degree in Sanskrit and Indian Studies from Harvard University. He has been teaching courses in Sanskrit language and in
the related mythological and philosophical literatures (occasionally also in Indian belles lettres in general) at the University of British Columbia since 1969. His published research is mostly in the areas of Sanskrit linguistic tradition and poetics. For the last several years he is engaged
in the ambitious project of preparing critical editions of the works of Bhartihari, a grammarian-philosopher, and of the commentaries elucidating those works. Advanced students have worked under Aklujkarę' guidance in the areas of Buddhist and Brahmanical philosophy, religion, and mythology.
Nilima Chitgopekar is an Associate Professor and currently the Head of the History Department at the Jesus & Mary College ( Delhi University).Having taught there for over two decades her teaching assignments include The History of Ancient India and The History Of the USA. Along with this undergraduate teaching Nilima has been teaching the post-graduate students in a separate campus. Having completed a Ph.D on Development of Shivaism in Madhya Pradesh c. AD 550-1200 she was fortunate to immediately start teaching a course that was relevant to the kind of research she was involved in. The course is entitled Development in Indian Religions and the topics that she covered include The Emergence and Spread of Tantrism, The Evolution of the Vaishnava Pantheon and Growth of Shivaism.
Nilima Chitgopekar's interest in the study of religion is exemplified in the methodology used in her book Encountering Shivaism The Deity the Milieu the Entourage ( Munshiram Manoharlal, 1998). Here she looks at the development of a sect at a particular point of time and in a specific geographical locale. She attempts a holistic approach to a wide variety of sources-iconography, scriptures such as the Puranas and inscriptions. Chitgopekar also works in areas of gender studies. She recently edited a volume Invoking Goddesses Gender Politics in Indian Religion (Har Anand, 2002).
Vasudha Narayanan is a Professor of Religion at the University of Florida and a past President of the American Academy of Religion (2001-2002). She was educated at the Universities of Madras and Bombay in India, and at Harvard University. Her fields of interest are the Sri Vaishnava tradition; Hindu traditions in India, Cambodia, America; Hinduism and the environment; and gender issues. She is the author and editor of six books and over ninety articles, chapters, and encyclopedia entries.
Her research has been supported by grants and fellowships from several organizations including the National Endowment for the Humanities (1987, 1989-90, and 1998-99), the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (1991-92), the Smithsonian, the American Institute for Indian Studies, and the Social Science Research Council. She was the president of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies from 1996-1998.
Her books The Hindu Tradition/s : An Introduction, and The Hindu Traditions in the United States: Temple Space, Domestic Space, and Cyberspace will be published soon in 2005. She is currently working on Hindu temples and Vaishnava traditions in Cambodia and her research is being funded by the American Council of Learned Societies (2004-2005). Previous publications include: The Vernacular Veda: Revelation, Recitation, and Ritual (1994); The Way and the Goal: Expressions of Devotion in the Early Srivaisnava Tradition (1987); (with John Carman) The Tamil Veda: Pillan's Interpretation of the Tiruvaymoli (1989); "The Hindu Tradition" in World Religions: Eastern Traditions, ed. by Willard Oxtoby (1996; rev. 2001); "'One Tree is Equal to Ten Sons': Some Hindu Responses to the Problems of Ecology, Population and Consumption" in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 65/2 (June 1997); "Brimming with Bhakti, Embodiments of Sakti: Deities, Devotees, Performers, Reformers and other Women of Power in the Hindu tradition" in Feminism in World Religions, ed. by Katherine Young (1998), 25-77; "Water, Wood, and Wisdom: Ecological Perspectives from the Hindu Traditions." Daedalus, 130/4 (Fall 2001); "Vaishnava Traditions in Cambodia," in Festschrift for Dennis Hudson, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 1/1 (September 2002); and her 2002 American Academy of Religion presidential address "Embodied Cosmologies: Sights of Piety, Sites of Power," in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 71/3 (Fall 2003).
Vasantha Rangachar is a Professor and currently the Chairperson of the department of History at Sri Krishnadevaraya University, Anantapur, and Andhra Pradesh. Having taught Indological studies for twenty-five years, she has also developed an Art & archaeological and a folk art museum at Sri Krishnadevaraya University. Her Ph.D. work " The Narayanasvami Temple at Melkote - a historical and archaeological study " (Government of Karnataka, 1992) has been acclaimed internationally as of very high standard. She authored books which include Folk Art and Culture (Government of India, HRD, New Delhi, 1996); PENUGONDA FORT - A Defense capital of the Vijayanagara Empire - History, Art and Culture, (Sharada Publishing House, Delhi, 1999); NAVA -NARASIMHA TEMPLES AT AHOBILAM (Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanams, Tirupathi, 2000); Symmetry and Proportion in Indian Vastu & Silpa, (D K Publishers 2004); Islamic Architecture of Deccan, (Sharada Publishing House 2004). She was the recipient of DAAD and CWIT fellowships.
Her area of interest extends to Indian board games and Chess. She has demonstrated in her research and talks that games and the playing of games are not at all simple objects of amusement but phenomena of high significance for cultural, political and even religious history. Her recent paper, "deciphering the board games invented by the Raja of Mysore ", unravels many puzzles, tricks and number patterns, which have tested the intellect of mathematicians for thousand of years. Her major scholarly research at present is the translation and critical edition of ' Caturanga Sarasarvasvam' , encyclopedic manuscript on the Indian games by the King of Mysore, Krishanaraja Wodeyar III. She has also carried out important field work in researching games played in contemporary society, and has made a great number of important discoveries.
K.Maheswaran Nair hails from Kerala, (Southern India) and is currently Professor, Department of Sanskrit, University of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram and also Hon. Director of the Centre for Vedanta Studies of the University of Kerala. Previously he worked at Govt. Sanskrit College, Thiruvananthapuram and Thrippunithura and also as Editor of the Dept. of Cultural Publications, Kerala. He has been teaching Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy for over three decades. His areas of research includes, dialectics in Vedanta and materialism, Patanjali's Yogasutra, The renaissance movement in Kerala, manuscript studies etc. He has published a number of articles and authored a number of books in Sanskrit, Malayalam and English which include Advaitasiddhi: A Critical study, Advaitavedanta Dialectics and Indian Philosophy, Manuscriptology, Chattambiswamikal:Jivithavum Krithikalum etc. He has also edited a number of books. He obtained his Ph.D. in Sanskrit from the University of Kerala and also holds a Masters Degree in Russian.
Daniela Rossella obtained her degree (promotion) in Sanskrit Language and Literature, magna cum laude, at the University of Milan, Italy, with an essay regarding the woman's condition in ancient India. She obtained her Ph.D. in 2000, magna cum laude, at the University of Rome, Italy, with an essay on women's characters in classical Indian poetry. Throughout her career, her work has followed two different, albeit parallel, trends: First, the women¹s position in India (both in past and the present) from the perspective of law, religion, literature, and sociology. Second, the study of Indian classical texts (epic, poetry, law, drama, innology, etc.), in order to reach a holistic vision of Indian civilisation. She has translated many Sanskrit texts, several of which had not yet been translated into any Western language, and written essays about classical Indian literature and about woman's position in ancient and modern Indian society. She has taken part, and will take part, to many international conferences and congresses. Since 1991, Dr Rossella has served as Department Assistant in the Oriental Studies Department of the University Milano, Italy. From the academic year 2001-2002 she serves also as Department Assistant in the Department of Philosophical, Linguistic, and Literary-Linguistic Sciences of the University of Perugia (Italy), and she also works as Master organizer and tutor at IULM, the Free University of Languages and Communications of Milano. Lectures, lessons, speeches, researches, tutorship of students are parts of her work. Actually, she is engaged in two again parallel projects: 1) the first translation into Italian of the renowned Vidyaakara¹s anthology (the Subhaasitaratnakosha), destined to become a part of a larger study concerning Indian poetry; 2) an investigation about the relationship between Indian devotional poetry and Indian classical amorous lyric, along with a comparison with some Western mystical currents and their profane counterparts. For reading the complete list of Daniela's publications, please visit her homepage here.
Nilima Chitgopekar is an Associate Professor and currently the Head of the History Department at the Jesus & Mary College ( Delhi University).Having taught there for over two decades her teaching assignments include The History of Ancient India and The History Of the USA. Along with this undergraduate teaching Nilima has been teaching the post-graduate students in a separate campus. Having completed a Ph.D on Development of Shivaism in Madhya Pradesh c. AD 550-1200 she was fortunate to immediately start teaching a course that was relevant to the kind of research she was involved in. The course is entitled Development in Indian Religions and the topics that she covered include The Emergence and Spread of Tantrism, The Evolution of the Vaishnava Pantheon and Growth of Shivaism.
Nilima Chitgopekar's interest in the study of religion is exemplified in the methodology used in her book Encountering Shivaism The Deity the Milieu the Entourage ( Munshiram Manoharlal, 1998). Here she looks at the development of a sect at a particular point of time and in a specific geographical locale. She attempts a holistic approach to a wide variety of sources-iconography, scriptures such as the Puranas and inscriptions. Chitgopekar also works in areas of gender studies. She recently edited a volume Invoking Goddesses Gender Politics in Indian Religion (Har Anand, 2002).
Her most recent publication is a small monograph The Book of Durga (Penguin, 2003). At present she is writing a book on Shiva.
Dr Godabarisha Mishra hails from Orissa, (Eastern India) and is currently a Professor, Department of Indian Philosophy, University of Madras, Chennai and earlier to it, worked at Kuppuswami Sastri Research Institute, Chennai as the Editor. He has been teaching Indian Philosophy especially Vedanta for over two decades. His areas of Research Interest include Buddhism, inter-school dialectics in Vedanta, and textual studies and editing of rare Sanskrit texts. He has contributed a number of articles in National and International Journals and authored a few books which include Anubhutiprakasa of Vidyaranya and Advaitamakaranda of Laksmidhara.
He had his Ph.D. degree in Sanskrit from University of Madras and also studied traditional texts in Advaita and Nyaya under noted traditional scholars. He was a Charles Wallece Fellow at the University of Oxford and gave a few lectures on the Tarkapada of Brahmasutrabhasya of Sankara in 1995.
Professor S., Ramaratnam (Ph.D. Sanskrit, University of Madras) is Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Vaishnava and Hindu Studies during Trinity Term 2003. He is Principal of the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College in Chennai (Madras), India. His wide range of publications and research interests include Sanskrit grammar and poetry, and the practice and theory of Hindu domestic ritual.
Dr M. Narasimhachary recently retired as the Head of the Department of Vaishnavaism at the University of Madras. His specialist subjects include the Pre-Ramanuja Religion and Philosophy, Pancharatra Agama Literature, Telugu and Sanskrit Literature and popularisation of Sanskrit as a spoken tongue. He has published a number of articles and monographs in academic journals on topics such as the Samskrita Svapnah, Bhakti & Prapatti in Srivaishnava Philosophy and the Pancaratra-kantakoddhara.
This year's TKG Fellowship has been awarded to Dr Vidya Sayinath of the University of Madras. Dr Sayinath acquired her degree of Doctorate in the System of Vedanta of Indian Philosophy. Her thesis refers to the epistemological aspect as elucidated by Sankara and Ramanuja. Her work highlights the significance of knowledge as expounded by the two philosophers, which served as the substratum for their Ontological structure. Presently she is engaged in the study of Ramanuja's Philosophy. This study examines the Concept of Devotion as the cementing factor of the various aspects of his System. Dr Sayinath writes articles on religion for various publications, including several articles for the Encyclopedia of Hinduism.
Deepak Sarma, Visiting Lecturer, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University (B.A., Reed College; M.A., University of Chicago, The Divinity School, Ph.D., University of Chicago, The Divinity School) is a Lecturer in Religious Studies and specializes in Hinduism and Indian Buddhism. His areas of teaching and research specialization include Indian philosophy, Vedanta, Hindu theology, and the comparative philosophy of religions. His expertise is in the Madhva School of Vedanta, of which he is a member, and he is a research scholar of the Purnaprajna Samshodana Mandiram, the research wing of the Purnaprajna Vidyapitham (a Madhva monastery), in Bangalore India. In addition to articles in the Journal of Indian Philosophy and The Journal of the American Academy of Religion, he is the author of An Introduction to Madhva Vedanta (Ashgate Pub. Ltd, to be released in December 2003) and Epistemologies and the Limitations of Philosophical Inquiry: Doctrine in Madhva Vedanta (Curzon-Routledge, forthcoming). Among his current projects, he is writing An Introduction to Vedanta (under contract with Columbia University Press). Sarma is the vice-president of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies and will become president in 2005. He has taught previously at Vanderbilt University and Connecticut College. He has held fellowships from the American Academy of Religion and the Fulbright Commission (USA-India).
Professor S., Ramaratnam (Ph.D. Sanskrit, University of Madras) is Visiting Scholar at the Oxford Centre for Vaishnava and Hindu Studies during Trinity Term 2003. He is Principal of the Ramakrishna Mission Vivekananda College in Chennai (Madras), India. His wide range of publications and research interests include Sanskrit grammar and poetry, and the practice and theory of Hindu domestic ritual.
Dr M. Narasimhachary recently retired as the Head of the Department of Vaishnavaism at the University of Madras. His specialist subjects include the Pre-Ramanuja Religion and Philosophy, Pancharatra Agama Literature, Telugu and Sanskrit Literature and popularisation of Sanskrit as a spoken tongue. He has published a number of articles and monographs in academic journals on topics such as the Samskrita Svapnah, Bhakti & Prapatti in Srivaishnava Philosophy and the Pancaratra-kantakoddhara.
Prof Charles S. J. White is Professor Emeritus and former chairman in the Department of Philosophy and Religion of the American University in Washington, D.C. He has Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in Hinduism and the History of Religions from the University of Chicago and an M.A. degree in Estudios Hispano-americanos y Creacion Literaria from La Universidad de las Americas in Mexico City. He has published translations and commentaries on Hindi literature, for example, The Caurasi Pad of Sri Hit Harivams and The Remaining Hindi Works of Sri Hit Harivams. He has also published numerous articles on the history of religions and Hinduism in general and, more especially, the medieval and modern saints of Hinduism and the history of Hindu holy men and women. His published articles, chapters and books include those on the Sai Baba Movement, Swami Muktananda, and Jnanananda Saraswati: Mother Guru of Chennai, India. He has also published a book about American followers of Ramakrishna Paramahansa. He recently published a book-length catalogue of the Adyar Library-The Institute for Vaishnava Studies-and-The American University Microfilm Collection of Vaishnava Literature with an explanatory essay about the project and a complete alphabetical index.
Clelia Bartoli, born in Palermo, Sicaly, in 1973, received her degree in hermeneutics, comparitive philosophy and ethics from the University of Florence in 1998. From that time until 2002 she taught in the Italian High School system and then began a Ph.D. in Human Rights from Palermo University, focusing on human rights issues in contemporary India.
Clelia is member of the board of directors of the Journal 'Kykeion' (Florence University Press). She has been published in a number of academic Journals, including 'Kyksion; Orientamenti Pedagogici; Problemi di Pedagogia'.
She co-authored, with F. Squarcini, 'Il Monoteismo Hindu. La Storia, i Testi, le Scuole, Pacini', Pisa 1997; and Clelia has two other volumes in print: 'Dovere e Piacere. Unoantologia filosofica, LibriLiberi', Firenze 2002, and 'Conoscenza e Immaginazione. Unoantologia filosofica, LibriLiberi', Firenze 2003.
Federico Squarcini, born in Pisa, Italy in 1967 has focused his studies on the History and Political Sociology of South Asian Religions. He has a degree (Laurea, magna laude) in History of Religions from University of Florence, and is a Ph.D. candidate in the Historical and Sociological Study of Religion at Bologna University. Federico is currently 'Cultore in materia' at the Chair of Sanskrit Language and Literature, University of Florence.
Federico conducts seminars at the Department of Sociology of the University 'La Sapienza' of Roma, and lectures in the Department of Oriental Studies of the University 'La Sapienza' of Roma; the Department of Oriental Studies dell'Istituto di Studi Orientali dell'Universita di Napoli and in the Department of Social Sciences in the University of Florence.
He is member of the board of directors for the Journal 'Religioni e Societa' (Edizioni Scien-tifiche Italiane), and member of the board of directors for the Journal 'Kykeion' (Florence University Press).
He wrote and edited the following volumes: F. Squarcini, C. Bartoli, 'Il Monoteismo Hindu. La Storia, i Testi, le Scuole', Pacini, Pisa 1997; E. Fizzotti, F. Squarcini (eds.), 'L'Oriente che non tra-monta. Movimenti religiosi di origine orientale' in Italia, LAS, Roma 1999; F. Squarcini (ed.), 'Verso l'India, Oltre l'India. Scritti e ricerche sulle tradizioni intellettuali sudasiatiche', Mimesis, Milano 2002.
Dr Guy L. Beck holds a PhD from Syracuse University and Masters Degrees in both Religious Studies and Musicology. He teaches courses in Asian Religions, Hinduism and World Music at Tulane University, New Orleans, USA. He is the author of 'Sonic Theology: Hinduism and Sacred Sound' and has published numerous articles and book chapters on aspects of Indian religion and music. Having studied North Indian music for six years in India, he is also an accomplished performer of Hindustani classical and devotional vocal music. He recently recorded a CD, 'Sacred Raga'. Current projects include a forthcoming edited volume of music in world religions with an accompanying CD.
Dr M. Narasimhachary recently retired as the Head of the Department of Vaishnavaism at the University of Madras. His specialist subjects include the Pre-Ramanuja Religion and Philosophy, Pancharatra Agama Literature, Telugu and Sanskrit Literature and popularisation of Sanskrit as a spoken tongue. He has published a number of articles and monographs in academic journals on topics such as the Samskrita Svapnah, Bhakti & Prapatti in Srivaishnava Philosophy and the Pancaratra-kantakoddhara.
Prof. Joseph O'Connell (Director of Academic Affairs 1999-2000) is Professor Emeritus in the Study of Religion at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. Since his Ph.D studies on 'Social Implications of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Movement' at Harvard University (USA) and Government Sanskrit College (Calcutta), he has researched, taught and published extensively on religion and society in India and Bangladesh, especially on Vaishnavas and Muslims in Bengal. He has edited or co-edited several volumes on Bengali studies and Gaudiya Vaishnavism.
Dr Kathleen O'Connell is a scholar of comparative literature (M.A., Jadavpur University, India) and modern Bengali culture (Ph.D. University of Toronto, Canada). She has published translations of short stories by Satyajit Ray, Bravo! Professor Shonku (Rupa 1985) and a history of Rabindranath Tagore's educational project at Santiniketan, Rabindranath Tagore: The Poet as educator (Visva-Bharati, 2002). She teaches courses on the humanism of Satyajit Ray and philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore at the University of Toronto. Currently she is preparing an anthology of Tagore's own writing on education and doing research on ideas about medicine in Bengal at the turn of the twentieth century.