Talk:Archana Venkatesan

By Sachi Anjunkar

Archana Venkatesan is a Professor of Religious Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Davis. She is also the interim Director of the Davis Humanities Institute^[1] ^[2] ^[3] as of September 2022. According to her profile, her research interests include Tamil Vaishnava (Alvar) poetry, South Indian performance, Women and Goddess traditions in India.

As per her bio, she has published no books, papers, or research pertaining to Hindus, the rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva, India, or the Indian Government in the context of BJP government.

In 2021, she along with Hibatullah Akhundzada, the supreme leader of the Taliban, co-signed a letter supporting "Dismantling Global Hindutva" Conference, as an academic and scholar and made the allegation

"the current government of India [in 2021] has instituted discriminatory policies including beef bans, restrictions on religious conversion and interfaith weddings, and the introduction of religious discrimination into India’s citizenship laws. The result has been a horrifying rise in religious and caste-based violence, including hate crimes, lynchings, and rapes directed against Muslims, non-conforming Dalits, Sikhs, Christians, adivasis and other dissident Hindus. Women of these communities are especially targeted. Meanwhile, the government has used every tool of harassment and intimidation to muzzle dissent. Dozens of student activists and human rights defenders are currently languishing in jail indefinitely without due process under repressive anti-terrorism laws."^[4]

On November 5, 2017, she signed the letter submitted by the South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) to the California State Board of Education^[5] where she:

She misrepresented scholarship stating "Mythological terms substitute for historical ones for example the 'Indus Valley Civilization' (a fact-based geographic term) appears to be replaced with a religiously-motivated and ideologically charged term 'Indus-Saraswati/Sarasvati Civilization'. The Saraswati is a mythical river"^[6]^[7]^[8]
Implied that Christians and Muslims existed in Ancient India, prior to the founding of these religions

Publications related to India[edit]

Books[edit]

Venkatesan, Archana. Endless Song: The Tiruvaymoli of Nammalvar. Penguin Classics, 2020.
Venkatesan, Archana. A Hundred Measures of Time: Nammalvar’s Tiruviruttam. Penguin Classics, 2014.
Venkatesan, Archana. The Secret Garland: Translations of Tiruppavai and Nacciyar Tirumoli. American Academy Texts and Translations Series, Oxford University Press, 2010.

Journal Articles[edit]

Venkatesan, Archana. The Other Trinity: Alternate Histories of Carnatic Music. International Journal of Hindu Studies, Winter 2018, pp. 122-166.
Venkatesan, Archana. Making Saints, Making Communities: Nāyaki Svāmikaḷ and the Saurashtras of Madurai. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, vol. 37, no. 4, Dec. 2014, pp. 1-18.
Venkatesan, Archana. Āṇṭāḷ of a Thousand Names: The Making of a Goddess the Śrīvaiṣṇava Way. In Voyages of the Body and Mind: Selected Female Icons from India and Beyond, edited by Anita Ratnam and Ketu H. Katrak, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014, pp. 10-18.
Venkatesan, Archana. A Tale of Two Cēvais: Araiyar Cevai and Kaittala Cevai at the Antal Temple in Srivilliputtur. Journal of Vaishnava Studies, Spring 2013.
Venkatesan, Archana. A Different Kind of Antal Story: The Divyasuricaritam of Garudavahana Pandita. International Journal of Hindu Studies, Aug. 2013.
Venkatesan, Archana. Ecstatic Seeing: Adorning and Enjoying the Body of the Goddess. In Introducing Hinduism in Practice, edited by Pratap Penumala, Equinox Press, 2012.
Venkatesan, Archana. Love and Longing in the Time of Rain: A Response to Anne Monius’s Ecologies of Human Flourishing: A Case Study from Pre-Colonial South India. In Ecologies of Human Flourishing, edited by Don Swearer, Harvard University Press, 2011.
Venkatesan, Archana. How to Love God Like a Woman: Some Thoughts on Loving God in the Srivaisnava Sampradaya. Journal of Hindu Christian Studies, vol. 20, 2007.
Venkatesan, Archana. Who Stole the Garland of Love: Antal Stories in the Srivaisnava Tradition. Journal of Vaishnava Studies, March 2007.

Encyclopedia Entries[edit]

Venkatesan, Archana. Entries on Aesthetics, Drama, and Television and Radio. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Hinduism, edited by Denise Cush, Catherine Robson, and Lynn Foulston, Routledge Press, 2007.

References[edit]

↑ Archana Venkatesan page on the Department of Religious Studies, UC Davis accessed September 21, 2022
↑ Archana Venkatesan page on the Department of Comparative Literature, UC Davis accessed September 21, 2022
↑ Archana Venkatesan page on ResearchGate accessed September 21, 2022
↑ "Letter of Support", Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference website, accessed August 7, 2022
↑ 2017 South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) Letter to the California State Board of Education
↑ Chakrabarti, Dilip, and Sukhdev Saini. The Problem of the Sarasvati River and Notes on the Archaeological Geography of Haryana and Indian Punjab. Aryan Books International, 2009.
↑ Danino, Michel. The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books, 2010.
↑ McIntosh, Jane R. A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Westview Press, 2002, p. 24. where she stated "Suddenly it became apparent that the “Indus” Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the development of the civilization, the “lost Saraswati” River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity. Many people today refer to this early state as the “Indus-Saraswati Civilization” and continuing references to the “Indus Civilization” should be an abbreviation in which the “Saraswati” is implied. There are some fifty sites known along the Indus whereas the Saraswati has almost 1,000. This is misleading figure because erosion and alluviation has between them destroyed or deeply buried the greater part of settlements in the Indus Valley itself, but there can be no doubt that the Saraswati system did yield a high proportion of the Indus people’s agricultural produce"

[1] Archana Venkatesan page on the Department of Religious Studies, UC Davis accessed September 21, 2022

[2] Archana Venkatesan page on the Department of Comparative Literature, UC Davis accessed September 21, 2022

[3] Archana Venkatesan page on ResearchGate accessed September 21, 2022

[4] "Letter of Support", Dismantling Global Hindutva Conference website, accessed August 7, 2022

[5] 2017 South Asia Faculty Group (SAFG) Letter to the California State Board of Education

[6] Chakrabarti, Dilip, and Sukhdev Saini. The Problem of the Sarasvati River and Notes on the Archaeological Geography of Haryana and Indian Punjab. Aryan Books International, 2009.

[7] Danino, Michel. The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati. Penguin Books, 2010.

[8] McIntosh, Jane R. A Peaceful Realm: The Rise and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Westview Press, 2002, p. 24. where she stated "Suddenly it became apparent that the “Indus” Civilization was a misnomer—although the Indus had played a major role in the development of the civilization, the “lost Saraswati” River, judging by the density of settlement along its banks, had contributed an equal or greater part to its prosperity. Many people today refer to this early state as the “Indus-Saraswati Civilization” and continuing references to the “Indus Civilization” should be an abbreviation in which the “Saraswati” is implied. There are some fifty sites known along the Indus whereas the Saraswati has almost 1,000. This is misleading figure because erosion and alluviation has between them destroyed or deeply buried the greater part of settlements in the Indus Valley itself, but there can be no doubt that the Saraswati system did yield a high proportion of the Indus people’s agricultural produce"

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