The Department of Anthropology Lunch Seminar: “The Place of Wonder” by Tulasi Srinivas, Nov. 1

The Boston University Department of Anthropology

presents the next lecture in its Fall 2018 Lunch Seminar Series

“The Place of Wonder”

Lecture presented by Tulasi Srinivas

In this talk Tulasi Srinivas explores a wonderful world where deities jump fences and priests ride in helicopters to present a joyful, imaginative, yet critical reading of modern religious life in urban India. Drawing on nearly two decades of fieldwork with priests, residents, and devotees, and her own experience of living in the high-tech city of Bangalore, Srinivas finds moments of creativity where ritual enmeshes with global modernity to create wonder—a feeling of amazement at being overcome by the unexpected and sublime- to rethink anthropological understandings of ritual. Interrogating the place of creativity in ritual life Srinivas brings the visceral richness of wonder into the anthropological gaze, and pursues an interrogation of wonder and the adventure of writing true to its experience.

Tulasi Srinivas is Professor of Anthropology at the Institute of Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College. She is a currently a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies. Srinivas is the author of Winged Faith: Rethinking Globalization and Religious Pluralism Through the Sathya Sai Movement (Columbia 2010) and Curried Cultures: Food, Globalization and South Asia ( California 2012).

THURSDAY, November 1st 11:45 am – 1:30 pm

African Studies Seminar Room

232 Bay State Road, 5th floor, Boston University

Those wanting lunch must contact Corky White at corky@bu.edu by Monday October 29th at 5 pm