Vasudha Narayanan
Distinguished Professor
Ph.D. University of Bombay
Hinduism in India & the Diaspora

Office: 107 Anderson Hall
Phone: (352) 392-1625
Email: vasu@ufl.edu
Web Page: http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/vasu/

Vasudha Narayanan is Distinguished Professor, Department of Religion, at the University of Florida and a past President of the American Academy of Religion (2001-2002). She was educated at the Universities of Madras and Bombay in India, and at Harvard University. Her fields of interest are the Sri Vaishnava tradition; Hindu traditions in India, Cambodia, America; Hinduism and the environment; and gender issues. She is currently working on Hindu temples and Vaishnava traditions in Cambodia.

She is the author or editor of seven books and over ninety articles, chapters in books, and encyclopedia entries. Her research has been supported by grants and fellowships from several organizations including the Centre for Khmer Studies (2007); the American Council of Learned Societies (2004-2005); National Endowment for the Humanities (1987, 1989-90, and 1998-99), the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation (1991-92), the American Institute of Indian Studies/ Smithsonian, and the Social Science Research Council. She was the president of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies from 1996-1998.

Vasudha Narayanan’s books include:
The Life of Hinduism (2007) co-edited with John Stratton Hawley (2007) Hinduism (2004) The Vernacular Veda: Revelation, Recitation, and Ritual (1994); The Way and the Goal: Expressions of Devotion in the Early Srivaisnava Tradition (1987); The Tamil Veda: Pillan's Interpretation of the Tiruvaymoli (1989; co-authored with John Carman);

Articles and Chapters in books include:
"The Hindu Tradition" in World Religions: Eastern Traditions, ed. by Willard Oxtoby;
“Weaving Garlands of Tamil Poems” in An Anthology of Krishna-Resources, edited by Edwin Bryant (2007),“Performing Arts, Reforming Rituals,” in Women’s Lives, Women’s Rituals in the Hindu Tradition, edited by Tracy Pintchman (2007); “Sacred Land, Sacred Service: Hindu Adaptations to the American Landscape” in A Nation of Religions: The Politics of Pluralism in Multi-religious America, edited by Stephen Prothero (2006); “Heterogenous Spaces and Modernities: Hindu Rituals to Sacralize the American Landscape.” Journal of Vaishnava Studies (Spring 2005); “Sacred land, Common ground, Contested territory: The Healing Mother of Velankanni Basilica and the Infant Jesus Shrine in Bangalore” in Journal of Hindu Christian Studies, Vol.17, Fall, (2004) ; “Gurus and Goddesses, Deities and Devotees” in The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States, edited by Karen Pechilis (2004); her 2002 American Academy of Religion presidential address "Embodied Cosmologies: Sights of Piety, Sites of Power," in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 71/3 (Fall 2003); "'One Tree is Equal to Ten Sons': Some Hindu Responses to the Problems of Ecology, Population and Consumption" in Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 65/2 (June 1997); "Water, Wood, and Wisdom: Ecological Perspectives from the Hindu Traditions." Daedalus, 130/4 (Fall 2001); and "Vaishnava Traditions in Cambodia," in Festschrift for Dennis Hudson, Journal of Vaishnava Studies, 11/1 (September 2002 )

Dr. Narayanan and the University of Florida have created the nation’s first Center for the Study of Hindu Traditions (CHiTra) to encourage the research, teaching and public understanding of Hindu culture and traditions. Click here to read the University of Florida News article about CHiTra.

For more information, see Vasudha Narayanan's Web page.