Shows
Tangram23 - STRESS ! (en direct et en public)Un épisode de Tangram en direct et en public ? Quel stress ! Ça tombe bien : c’est le thème. Dans cet épisode, enregistré au Ground Control à Paris lors du festival Double•Science, on va entendre des gens qui souffrent dans leur tête, leur corps et leur travail. Mais on ira aussi voir du côté des religions asiatiques pour voir si elles n’auraient pas des solutions pour nous déstresser (et aussi pour soigner notre karma par la même occasion !)Intervenants :Arnaud Mias, professeur de sociologie à l'Université Paris Dauphine-PSL...2025-06-201h 10
Sensing the SacredAlcohol in Early India: James McHughWhen you think of alcoholic drinks in world history, you might think of French wine, Japanese sake, Russian vodka...But what about India? Although it’s not well represented in global histories of alcohol, in fact Indian history overflows with drinking cultures and a diverse array of alcoholic drinks. We learn about all this—and more—through the pioneering research of James McHugh, Professor of South Asian religions at the University of Southern California. His new book, An Unholy Brew: Alcohol in Indian History and Religions, is the first-ever academic monograph on alcohol in early India. But it’s not just...2022-02-111h 01Sensing the SacredInterpreting the Pew Report on Religion in India: Neha SahgalWould it surprise you to learn that most people in contemporary India believe in god? That Śiva is the most popular Hindu deity? That while half of Indians meditate weekly, only a third have ever practiced yoga? These are just a few of the findings of the Pew Research Center’s report on religious life in India. Published this past summer, the Pew report is a major milestone in the study of South Asian religions. It represents the most extensive publicly available data ever collected on religion in Indian society—including the intersection with politics, caste, and identity. One of th...2021-11-1755 min
Sensing the SacredSanskrit, Indo-Muslim History, and Twitter: Audrey TruschkeSanskrit is known as the classical language of India, especially Hindu traditions. But over its 3000 year history, Sanskrit was widely used in other Indian religions, as well. And not only religions. Sanskrit was a lingua franca in Early India—a window onto cosmopolitain, literary, intellectual, and political cultures of the past. On this episode, Finnian talks with Audrey Truschke, a historian of South Asia at Rutgers University, who has made her name studying Sanskrit texts and Islamic power on the subcontinent. Her most recent book, “The Language of History: Sanskrit Narratives of Indo-Muslim Rule” (Columbia UP), presents a ”history of Sansk...2021-07-2857 min
Trending Globally: Politics and PolicyHindu Nationalism, Contested Histories, and Challenging the Fascism BlueprintAudrey Truschke is a scholar who has gotten in some very hot water lately. She’s regularly harassed on Twitter, she’s facing a lawsuit, and she’s received death threats. ‘What’s she an expert in?’ you might ask. Public health? Election law? Critical Race Theory? Nope.Ancient Sanskrit. On this episode we’re sharing part of a new podcast from Watson. It’s called ‘Sensing the Sacred’ and it’s hosted by Finnian Gerety, a visiting assistant professor of religious studies and contemplative studies at Watson’s Center for Contemporary South Asia.Finnian and Sarah talk...2021-07-2721 minSensing the SacredYoga and Meditation Studies: Karen O’Brien-Kop and Suzanne NewcombeWhat comes to mind when you hear the word “yoga”? A sequence of postures, maybe; perhaps a seated meditation. But this Sanskrit word has a history going back millennia. Yoga has been—and continues to be—a label for many different doctrines and practices; a spiritual path claimed by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, Sikhs, and many other groups; and a potent symbol in religion, politics and culture around the world. Growing from roots in early Indian asceticism, Yoga today is a truly global phenomenon. At the same time, yoga’s success has also fostered the rise of yoga and meditation...2021-06-0846 minSensing the SacredMantras, Healing, and Tantra in Jainism: Ellen GoughSome years before the Buddha lived, another renunciant teacher rose to prominence in ancient India. Known as Mahavira, “the great hero,” he practiced the most difficult austerities. Preaching non-violence, he aimed to transcend his body and escape rebirth. When he finally reached liberation, he became known as the Jina—the victor. His followers, the Jains, worshipped Mahavira as the last in a series of enlightened teachers. Although its numbers are relatively small, Jainism remains a vibrant faith in India up to the present day—making it one of the oldest surviving religions in South Asia. On this episode, Finnian speaks w...2021-04-1945 minSensing the SacredHindu Street Shrines: Borayin LariosIf you’ve ever walked along city streets in India, chances are you’ve noticed Hindu street shrines. These are public spaces where people worship deities, saints, and spirits. Wayside shrines come in all shapes and sizes, from humble altars to full-on temples. You could think of them as crowd-sourced devotion: they seem to arise organically in response to the urban environment—at the base of a tree or near a busy intersection. The shrines usually house a sacred object, some incarnation of spiritual presence: a statue, an image, a stone. Going about their days, Hindus pause here to pray...2021-04-1136 minSensing the SacredIslam and Political Imagination in Early Modern Afghanistan: Tanvir Aktar AhmedThe Mughal Empire was an Islamic dynasty that ruled much of South Asia from the 16th-19th centuries. It was one of the grandest empires the world has ever known. But the Mughals did not rely on military might alone to consolidate their rule. They also used works of literature—stories that evoked peoples, cultures, and far-flung landscapes. Through stories, regional factions competed for influence at the Mughal court—and sought to define themselves. My guest today is Tanvir Aktar Ahmed, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at Brown University. Tanvir works at the intersection of Isla...2021-04-0237 minSensing the SacredReligion, Democracy, and Hindu Nationalism: Ashutosh VarshneyIn the past decade, India has seen the resurgence of Hindu nationalism, a political ideology of “Hindu-ness,” expressed by the neo-Sanskrit term Hindutva. Hindutva envisions India—a country where Hindus are the majority in terms of numbers—as a rightfully Hindu nation; Hindu nationalists feel threatened by minority groups, especially India’s Muslims. Riding this momentum is the current prime minister, Narendra Modi, who’s fanned the flames of identity politics throughout his career and now governs with a Hindutva worldview, with policies that critics call anti-Muslim. To learn more, I sat down with Ashutosh Varshney, Sol Goldman Professor of Internati...2021-03-2634 minSensing the SacredSensing the Sacred TrailerWelcome to Sensing the Sacred, a new podcast from the Center for Contemporary South Asia at the Watson Institute at Brown University. There’s so much fascinating scholarship about South Asian religions across disciplines—religious studies, history, anthropology, critical theory, political science. With Sensing the Sacred, we aim to bridge these boundaries and bring you interdisciplinary conversations on a wide range of topics. I hope you’ll join me, Finnian Gerety, as I talk to colleagues from around the world about Hindu nationalism, street shrines in India, stories of saints in Afghanistan, mantras and astrology in Jainism—just to name a f...2021-03-1901 min
The Yogic Studies Podcast1. Finnian Gerety | Vedic Ritual, OṂ, and Early YogaIn this first-ever Yogic Studies Podcast episode, we speak with Dr. Finnian Gerety (Brown University) about his background as a musician, his journey to Indology and Sanskrit studies at Harvard University, his fieldwork among Nambudiri Brahmins in the south-Indian state of Kerala, the Sāma Veda performative tradition, his short film "Mantras 2 the Max", the origins of sacred sound and the syllable OṂ, the practice of OṂ at the time of death, OṂ in the Yogasūtras of Patañjali, and the practice of "Embodied Philology."Speaker BioDr. Finnian M.M. Gerety is a hist...2020-05-111h 36