RISA/SARI 40th Anniversary Roundtable

This roundtable is a celebration and examination of the 40-year history of the Religions in South Asia Unit (RISA) of the AAR, which became the South Asian Religions Unit (SARI) in 2022. With panelists including former co-chairs from the 1990s until now, one of the founding members of the listserv, and recent and current steering committee members, this panel revisits the histories of the RISA/SARI Unit and offers a space to think collectively with the broader SARI community about what the Unit is and where we as a Unit and online community hope to go in the coming years. This roundtable opens up an important space that is otherwise unavailable in the annual business meeting of the Unit to hold extended discussion as a scholarly community. As we survey our first forty years, this panel asks, what are we inspired to become by our 50th anniversary?