This presentation will draw on well-known Latin American writers on epistemicide and use their work to rationalize the need for Dharma Studies, Hindu Studies, and South Asia scholars to be alert to epistemic violence, which harms the planetary community. The scholar-practitioner has a particular responsibility not to silence the voice of the tradition which carries its epistemologies—but any such reclamation must be done critically.
I consider myself a practitioner of Yoga according to Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra, which begins with a distinction between interpretation (explanation in terms of propositional attitudes) and the explicatory method of Yoga, which renders explicit inferential relations (YS I 2-4). This is not simply an object of my research: every research advance I have made as a philosopher and scholar is an application of Yoga, and what this research reveals is that the wide spread failure in the academy to shed White Supremacy and its colonial artefacts (like the categories of religion and spirituality) is a result a choosing the anti-logic methods of interpretation. My Yoga practice now facilitates making the harms of Western colonialism transparent in my scholarship, while facilitating my own recovery as a racialized scholar.
"Great! I wanted a real Vedantin on my committee." These words, pronounced by a Hindu student about my role in his studies, opened complex questions for me as a convert and moderately conservative Catholic theologian. In my presentation, I will reflect on these questions, including my emerging self-acceptance as a Vedantin Catholic . . . but probably not as a Hindu Catholic.
As undergraduates at the University of Notre Dame, Jeffery Long and Patrick Beldio studied many of the same subjects, took courses with many of the same professors, and participated in some of the same social justice initiatives on campus. Though our tenures overlapped by three years, we only met many years after college. As we now compare notes on our personal inner journeys as scholar-practitioners of two different Dharma traditions, we find that while we have both departed from conventional Catholic boundaries, we find that, instead of a sharp rejection, our spiritual growth has included deeper levels of appreciation for the tradition of our upbringing.
Our presentations will focus on the traditions to which our journeys have led us–the Ramakrishna Vedanta tradition in the case of Jeffery and the Sufi tradition of Meher Baba in the case of Patrick–and the ways in which our Catholic upbringings have played a positive role in our respective journeys.
I have been a practitioner for about 10 years before having embarked on the academic path. Entering academia, I naturally wanted to study the topics close to my heart, but also wanted to rationalize my experiences as a practitioner. I have faced various obstacles generated by both non practicing academics as well as by fellow practicing scholars, and it has taken me time to define my path. However, gradually I was able to find my own path and at present I am encouraged by both academia and my tradition. Moreover, being situated as such, I believe that I am in a position to contribute to both academia and my own tradition.
Although Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, and Sikh communities express the paradigm of Dharma/Dhamma/Dharam uniquely, this shared principle can "support" partnerships among various communities. Through my research and experience community initiative, I will explore how Dharma could help forge bonds among Indic communities and forge new frontiers in scholarship.
“Are you an ‘emic’ (insider) or an ‘etic’ (outsider) student/scholar of Indic religions?” As the students from the Indian Diaspora enter the field of the academic study of Indian religions, they face this question in their careers, both from the etic side (co-students and teachers) and from the emic side (their selves). As I progressed through my career, this question kept incorporating more dimensions and newer challenges. In this paper, I reflect upon this issue with my experiences and potential suggestions to reconcile this emic and etic perspectives dichotomy. Can one transcend the emic and etic boundaries and develop a global perspective? Can one’s background merge with one’s academic training to reconcile “insiderism” and “outsiderism” and replace them with a peripheral perspective about a tradition? Can one study and teach different world traditions from a common ground?
Strongly motivated by religious interests, I could be described as a “pluralist” about common truths, and believe that religions should dialogue with, and hopefully learn from each other. Intercultural philosophical dialogue is more critical than faith-based theology of religions, and reductionistic, humanistic and social scientific theories.
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| Nirinjan Khalsa | nirinjan.khalsa@lmu.edu | View |