Meena Khandelwal, professor of anthropology at the University of Iowa, is a feminist anthropologist known for her pioneering research on Hindu celibacy and monastic life that puts gender at the center. Her book Women in Ochre Robes (SUNY Press 2004) focuses on the everyday lives of women initiated into sannyasa – one of several Hindu renunciant traditions. These women walk away from marriage, family ties, wealth, caste, and professional status for a life of celibacy and spiritual discipline. Khandelwal’s research suggests that sexuality and celibacy are mutually constructed and that abstinence should be accounted for in the field of sexuality studies. She co-edited a volume with Sondra Hausner and Ann Grodzins Gold entitled Women’s Renunciation in South Asia (Palgrave Macmillan 2006). A South-Asian edition of this book was published with the title Nuns, Yoginis, Saints and Singers (Zubaan 2007). Khandelwal has also studied transnational aspects of Hindu renunciation and published on the topic of foreign swamis who have migrated to India (“Foreign Swamis at Home in India” 2007) as well as cosmopolitanism and spiritual tourism in Rishikesh – yoga capital of the world (“The Cosmopolitan Guru” 2012).
This lecture, organized by Julia Kowalski, Associate Professor of Global Affairs and Liu Institute faculty fellow, is free and open to the public.
Sponsored by the South Asia Group at the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies, with support from the Kellogg Institute for International Peace Studies, both part of the Keough School of Global Affairs.
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Originally published at asia.nd.edu.