Talk:Elaine Fisher

By Anirudha Patel

Elaine Fisher is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University as of September 2022. According to her university profile, her research interests include Śaiva traditions of peninsular India, her research reconstructs notions of religious subjectivity and the religious public in early modern Hinduism.

As per her bio, she has published no books, papers or research pertaining to Hindus, rights of Hindus, the impact or relationship between Islam and Hinduism / Hindutva 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."

Publications

Book

1. Fisher, Elaine. Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India. University of California Press, 2017.

Papers

1. Fisher, Elaine. “Śaivism after the Śaiva Age: Continuities in the Scriptural Corpus of the Vīramāheśvaras.” Religions, 2021.
2. Fisher, Elaine. “The Tangled Roots of Vīraśaivism: On the Vīramāheśvara Textual Culture of Srisailam.” History of Religions, 2019. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/703521.
3. Fisher, Elaine. “A Microhistory of a South Indian Monastery: The Hooli Bṛhanmaṭha and the History of Sanskritic Vīraśaivism.”
4. Fisher, Elaine. “Public Space, Public Canon: Situating religion at the dawn of modernity in South India.”
5. Fisher, Elaine. “Translating Vīraśaivism: The Early Modern Monastery as Transregional Religious Network.”
6. Fisher, Elaine. “Remaking South Indian Saivism: Greater Śaiva Advaita and the Legacy of the Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita Vīraśaiva Tradition.” International Journal of Hindu Studies, 2017.
7. Fisher, Elaine. “A New Public Theology: Sanskrit and Society in Seventeenth-century South India.”
8. Fisher, Elaine. “'A Śākta in the Heart': Śrīvidyā and Advaita Vedānta in the Theology of Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita.”
9. Fisher, Elaine. “Public Philology: Text Criticism and the Sectarianization of Hinduism.”
10. Fisher, Elaine. “Just Like Kālidāsa: The Śākta Intellectuals of Seventeenth-century South India.”
11. Fisher, Elaine. “Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita and the Saubhāgyacandrātapa: A Study of the Role of Śrīvidyā among Prominent Intellectual Families.”

Conference Papers

1. Fisher, Elaine. “Hinduism in Translation: The Monastic Lineages of the Pañcārādhya Vīraśaivas Across Regions.” Presented at the American Oriental Society Annual Meeting, March 2016.
2. Fisher, Elaine. “Transregionalizing a Religion: Monastic Networks and the Transformation of Tamil Śaivism.” 2015.
3. Fisher, Elaine. “On Philosophers and Plagiarists: Crafting a Vedānta for South Indian Śaivas.” Madison Conference on South Asia, 2015.
4. Fisher, Elaine. “Contesting Advaitas: Non-Dualism Among the Śaivas of the Early Modern Tamil Country.” 2013.