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Conference on South Asian Philosophy & Religion
Monday May 25, 2026 - Tuesday May 26, 2026
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The inaugural Conference on South Asian Philosophy & Religion will be held on May 25th at UTM (MN2260) and May 26th at St. George (Faculty of Social Work, SK720). The conference brings together graduate students working on South Asia from philosophy and religious studies for interdisciplinary dialogue across methodological boundaries. This year’s program features sixteen presentations by graduate students from universities across North America and the United Kingdom, covering South Asian traditions including Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, and Jainism.
On May 26th, from 3:00 to 5:00 PM (SK720), Professor Bhrigupati Singh will deliver the keynote address, “Varieties of Doubt: Spiritual Afflictions and Healing in South Asia.”
This event is generously supported by the Office of the Vice-Principal Academic and Dean (UTM), the Jackman Humanities Institute, the School of Graduate Studies, and the Centre for South Asian Studies.
Please contact Sarang Patel (Department for the Study of Religion) or Nirali Patel (Department of Philosophy) if you would like to attend the conference panels online.
Monday, May 25, 2026 (UTM, MN2260)
10:00-11.45 Panel 1 (Chair: Elisa Freschi)
- Diyaree Nath (Yale University): SubjectObject Non-identity in Sāṁkhya and Advaita Vedānta: Reconsidering Contemporary Consciousness Science
- Tarryn Harding (University of Chicago): Nāgārjuna’s Doctrine of Śūnyatā and “Joint-Carving.”
- Sagar Rao (Princeton University): Do I have a good reason to seek liberation? Motivation and Soteriology for Dharmic Religions
12:00-1:00 – Lunch
1:00-2:00 – Student and faculty walk
2.15-4.00 Panel 2 (Chair: Jack Beaulieu)
- Shamim Hossain (University of North Carolina): Muslim Religious Movements in South Asia
- Samyak Modi (UC Riverside): Jain Identity vs. the Colonial Other in the Īsāimata Samīkṣā
- Kimberly Conyers (Loyola Marymount University) – Latent Luminosity: The Siddhis and the Causal Continuum of Cognition in Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtras
4.00-4.15 – Break
4.15-6.00 Panel 3 (Chair: Karen Ruffle)
- Chris Emms (McMaster University): Buddhist Monastic Law and Novice Precepts
- Faizan Rashid (UMass Amherst): On the Problem of Theologico-Political in Islamic Political Thought
- Malik Aslam (Wilfrid Laurier University): From Grammar to Norm: South Asian Coherence Hermeneutics and the Problem of Legal Subjecthood
Tuesday, May 26, 2026 (St. George, SK720)
10.00-12.00 Panel 4 (Chair: J. Barton Scott)
- Sanghyeon Kim (University of New Mexico): Toward a Buddhist Model of the Novice/Expert Problem: Reading the Final Chapter of Śāntarakṣita’s Tattvasaṃgraha and Kamalaśīla’s Pañjikā
- Sharvi Maheshwari (University of Oxford): From Local Goddesses to Sanskritic Icons: Ritual, Text, and Lived Religion in Bhaktapur
- Nooran Charan (Stanford University): Where Caste Meets Affirmative Action: Students’ Frames on the Reservation Policies in Indian Higher Education.
- Mukti Patel (University of Chicago): A History of the Study of Hinduism at the
University of Chicago Divinity School
12.00-1.15 – Lunch
1.15-2.45 Panel 5 (Chair: Ajay Rao)
- Chris Schmitz (University of Calgary): How Text Classification Shapes the God a Devotee Worships
- Sarah Speck (Loyola Marymount University): What Makes Speech Successful? The Shifting Criteria of Efficacy from the Ṛg Veda to the Upaniṣads
- Kanika Chawla (SUNY Binghamton): Śāntarakṣita on Mental Simples and Phenomenal Unity: A Critique of Yogācāra Sākāravāda and Nirākāravāda.
3:00-5:00 Keynote
- Bhrigupati Singh (SOAS): Varieties of Doubt: Spiritual Afflictions and Healing in South Asia
