Dr. Rita D. Sherma
BOOKS
Religion and Sustainability (2022)
Interreligious Resources, Interdisciplinary Responses
This volume brings sustainability studies into creative and constructive conversation with actions, practices, and worldviews from religion and theology supportive of the vision and work of the UN SDGs. It features more than 30 chapters from scholars across diverse disciplines, including economics, ethics, theology, sociology, ritual studies, and visual culture.
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Contemplative Studies & Hinduism (2021)
Meditation, Devotion, Prayer, and Worship
This book is one of the first wide-ranging academic surveys of the major types and categories of Hindu contemplative praxis. It explores diverse spiritual and religious practices within the Hindu traditions and Indic hermeneutical perspectives to understand the intricate culture of meditative communion and contemplation, devotion, spiritual formation, prayer, ritual, and worship.
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Woman and Goddess in Hinduism (2011)
Reinterpretations and Re-envisionings
The essays in this outstanding volume successfully avoid the common pitfalls of, on the one hand, objectifying and exoticizing the various Hindu categories and concepts with which they engage, and on the other, of deploying these same categories and concepts in a simplistic and uncritical manner. The hermeneutics of intersubjectivity that the authors skillfully apply to their materials should be a model for future work in the field of Hindu studies." - Jeffery D. Long, Associate Professor of Religion and Asian Studies, Elizabethtown College, and author of A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism and Jainism: An Introduction
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Books
Hermeneutics and Hindu Thought (2008)
Toward a Fusion of Horizons
The advent of Hindu Studies coincides with the emergence of modern hermeneutics. Despite this co-emergence and rich possibilities inherent in dialectical encounters between theories of modern and post-modern hermeneutics, and those of Hindu hermeneutical traditions, such an enterprise has not been widely endeavored. The aim of this volume is to initiate such an interface. Essays in this volume reflect one or more of the following categories: (1) Examination of challenges and possibilities inherent in applying Western hermeneutics to Hindu traditions. (2) Critiques of certain heuristics used, historically, to “understand” Hindu traditions. (3) Elicitation of new hermeneutical paradigms from Hindu thought, to develop cross-cultural or dialogical hermeneutics.
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Journal of Dharma Studies
Asian & Transcultural Religion, Philosophy, & Ethics
The mission of the Journal of Dharma Studies: Asian and Transcultural Religion, Philosophy, & Ethics is to employ theoretical and empirical methodologies for the intersubjective understanding of, and real-world applications of the conceptual resources, textual sources, and experiential practices—including ritual, social, ethical, liturgical, contemplative, or communitarian—to foster critical-constructive reflections on Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions (what is now referred to as Dharma Studies).
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Journal of Vaiṣṇava Studies
The Journal of Vaishnava Studies (JVS) was founded in 1992 by Steven J. Rosen and is a biannual, interdisciplinary refereed publication dedicated to the in-depth study of Vaishnava traditions of India, from ancient times to the present. It is the official publication of the Institute for Vaishnava Studies.
JVS is the longest running academic journal in the field of Hindu studies in North America, with almost three decades of unbroken publications. In serving the academic community, it has published nearly 700 articles (a small percentage of which are book reviews), contributed by scholars from the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia.
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