Talks
invited lectures
“Disfiguring the Divine: Vyāsa’s Body between Polemic and Procession.” University Seminar on Writing and Religion, Columbia University. 2024.
“Love and other Cross-Cultural Conversations in Persian and Sanskrit.” Department of Religious Studies, Yale University. 2024.
“The Long Arcs of Ambedkar’s Buddhism.”Ambedkar’s Religion. Columbia University/Union Theological Seminary. New York, NY. 2023.
“Marks of the Pen: Bodily Branding and Scholarly Practice in Early Modern South Asia.” The Parekh Institute of Indian Thought, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. New Delhi, India. 2023.
“Courtly Debate and its Discontents.” Age of Vedānta Research Group. University of Chicago. Chicago, IL. 2023.
“An Ocean at River’s Edge: Reading the Vedas in Eighteenth Century Pandharpur.” Hebrew University of Jerusalem. 2022.
“Polemics and Power in Early Modern South Asia.” Stanford University. Stanford, CA. 2022.
“The Limits of Exegesis in Early Modern South Asia.” Practices of Commentary Collaborative Research Group. University of Toronto. Toronto, ON. 2020.
“Veda-Viplāvanam, or How to Break the Rules in Early Modern Vedānta.” Age of Vedānta Research Group. Stanford University. Stanford, CA. 2019.
“Khaṇḍana, Bhañjana, Dhikkāra: Rhetorics of Religious Controversy in early-modern India.” Institut Français de Pondichéry. Puducherry, India. 2018.
conference papers
“The Literary Underground of Mughal Benares.” 52nd Annual Conference on South Asia. Madison, WI. 2024.
“Reflections on the Yathoddeśa and Kāryakāla Problem in Sanskrit Linguistics.” 234th Annual Meeting of the AOS. Chicago, IL. 2024.
“The Poetics of Interreligious Love in Mughal Benares.” 51st Annual Conference on South Asia. Madison, WI. 2023.
“The Poetics of Interreligious Love in Mughal Benares.” 233rd Annual Meeting of the AOS. Los Angelas, CA. 2023.
“The Grammar of Devotion: Kāśīnātha Upādhyāya’s Viṭṭhalarṅmantrasārabhāṣya.” 232nd Annual Meeting of the AOS, 2022. Boston, MA.
“Branding the Sensuous Body: Taptamudrā and Material Practice in Early Modern South Asia.” Vaiṣṇava Material Culture, University of Toronto. Toronto, ON. 2021.
“Vedānta Commentaries: Between Continuity and Contemporary Practice,” with Elisa Freschi and Ajay Rao. Practices of Commentary. Institute for Advanced Study & University of Toronto. (online). 2021.
“The Hermeneutics of Exclusion: Ritual Branding and Scholastic Practice in Sixteenth Century Vedānta.” 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies. (online). 2021.
“Paean for a Critique of Heretics: Polemic and Community in Vādirāja’s Pāṣaṇḍakhandanastotra.” Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion. San Diego, CA. 2019.
“Critique and Catharsis in Western Kanara: The Anti-Jain Writings of Vādirāja Tīrtha.” 48th Annual Conference on South Asia. Madison, WI. 2019.
“Community and Critique, or the ‘Art of Verbal Abuse’ in Early Modern South Asia.” 2nd Annual Workshop on Reading, Writing, and Teaching South Asian Religions. University of Toronto Mississauga. Mississauga, ON. 2019.
“Mādhava the Many: Disambiguating Mādhava, Vidyāraṇya, and Bhāratītīrtha.” Age of Vedānta Research Intensive. Vancouver, BC. 2018.
“Delinquency and Dereliction in the Śāstras: Linguistic Authority in Early Modern Vedānta Polemic.” 17th World Sanskrit Conference. Vancouver, BC.
“Situating Arguments Against the Vaiṣṇava Initiation Practice of Ritual Branding.” 46th Annual Conference on South Asia. Madison, WI. 2017.
“Circumscribing Vaidikatva: Eligibility and the Language of Exclusion in Early Modern Religious Polemic.” 4th Biennial Conference on South Asian Religions. University of Toronto. Toronto, ON. 2017.
“Censure in Circulation: Tracing the Movement of Polemic Literature in Early Modern India.” Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP). University of Victoria. Victoria, BC. 2017.
“Economies of Speech: Patronage and Polemic in Early Modern India.” Canadian Society for the Study of Religion (CSSR)/Société Canadienne pour l’étude de la religion Annual Meeting, Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities. Ryerson University. Toronto, ON. 2017.