Hinduism Unit and Religion and Popular Culture Unit

Walk into an airport bookstore in South Asia or North America and you'll find the narrative worlds of Hinduism packaged between the covers of paperback after paperback. This panel asks: How are Hindu stories currently being told in popular literature? How are they being sold to mass-market readers? How do present-day patterns of "telling and selling" shift to accommodate different languages, genres, and imagined readers? We welcome papers that address the presentation of Hindu myths, narratives, figures, and ideas in contemporary popular literature produced in various regions, languages (including English), and genres (adult, YA series, children's books, comics, etc.)