Anand vivek taneja

Department of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University

301C, Garland Hall, VU Box #351585

Nashville, TN 37235

Tel: 646-238-9589, Email: anand.v.taneja@vanderbilt.edu

Research Bio

I am a historically informed anthropologist working on Islam in urban South Asia. I locate the cultural and social life of urban north India in a complex of ethical orientations, relations to nature and remembered ways of being linked to the pre-colonial past. My book-project focuses on the ritual practices, dream-lives and social worlds that Hindu and Muslim communities have built around medieval Islamic ruins in contemporary Delhi, where jinns and “invisible” saints are venerated. In recent publications, I link the resurgence of jinn veneration in popular Islamic theology to the tenor of everyday life in post-Partition Delhi and understand the dreams and visions of saints seen at various medieval ruins as the imaginal embodiment of a certain historical experience of Islam in India. I have experience teaching and have developed syllabi for courses in Film Studies, the Anthropology of Religion, Islam, modern South Asian History and classic Western thought.

Areas of Specialization

Historical and Contemporary Islam in South Asia, Anthropology of Religion, Interfaith Relations, Everyday Life and Post-Colonial Urbanism, Urdu Antiquarian Literature, Bombay Cinema.
EDUCATION

2013 PhD, Anthropology, Columbia University in the City of New York. Dissertation: Nature, History, and the Sacred in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi. UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF: Partha Chatterjee (chair), Brinkley Messick, Michael Taussig.

2004 MA, Film and Mass Communication, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi.

2001 BA (Honors), History, Ramjas College, Delhi University, New Delhi.

2012-13 Preceptor, Columbia College Center for the Core Curriculum.

2004-06 Research Scholar, Publics and Practices in the History of the Present, SARAI-Center for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi.

PUBLICATIONS

In Peer Reviewed Journals

2013 “Jinnealogy: Everyday Life and Islamic Theology in Post-Partition Delhi,” under review.

2012 “Saintly Visions: Other Histories and History’s Others in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 49 (4), December 2012: 557-590.

In Edited Volumes

2013 “Thursdays at Firoz Shah Kotla: Of Jinns and Justice in the Ruins of Delhi,” in Delhi’s Twentieth Century, edited by Ravi Sundaram. Delhi: Oxford University Press, under review.

2012 “On the Ambivalence of Suddenly ‘Old’ Towards (Unexpectedly) ‘New’ Delhi: Reading Bashiruddin Ahmad’s Waqi’at-e Darulhukumat Dehli,” The Book Review 36(1), January 2012: 8-10.

2009 “Muslimness in Hindi Cinema,” in Seminar 598, “Circuits of Cinema,” edited by Aarti Sethi. Seminar, June 2009. http://goo.gl/iS8NY

2008 “History and Heritage Woven in the New Urban Fabric: The Changing Landscapes of Delhi's 'First City'. Or, Who Can Tell the Histories of Lado Sarai?” in Patterns of Middle Class Consumption in India and China, edited by Christophe Jaffrelot and Peter van der Veer, 157-169. Los Angeles: Sage.

2008 “Lost in La Mancha: Terry Gilliam, Holy Fools, Pirates, and the Mullah,” in Cervantes and Don Quixote: Proceedings of the Delhi Conference on Miguel de Cervantes, edited by Vibha Maurya and Ignacio Arellano, 393-414 . Hyderabad: Emesco Books.

2005 “Begum Samru and the Security Guard,” in Sarai Reader 05: Bare Acts, edited by Jeebesh Bagchi, Lawrence Liang, Geert Lovink, Monica Narula and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, 287-296. Delhi: Centre for the Study of Developing Societies.

Book Reviews

2012 Review of Christopher Pinney, Photography and Anthropology, in The Book Review 36 (3), March 2012: 53.

2011 Review of Ravi Sundaram, Pirate Modernity: Delhi’s Media Urbanism, in Contemporary South Asia 19(3): 347-48.

2010 Review of Ira Bhaskar and Richard Allen, Islamicate Cultures of Bombay Cinema, in Economic and Political Weekly, 45(4), January 12, 2010: 30-32.

2009 Review of Ranjani Mazumdar, Bombay Cinema: An Archive of the City, in Contemporary South Asia, 17(2): 232-33.

PRESENTATIONS AND LECTURES

2012 “Jinnealogy: Everyday Life and Islamic Theology in post-Partition Delhi.” Invited talk at the Nehru Memorial Musuem and Library, Delhi.

2011 “The Vanishing of Memory: Everyday Life and Islamic Theology in post-Partition Delhi.” On panel, City Stories: The Spectral and Virtual Spaces of South Asia, chaired by Kamran Ali. 110^th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal.

2011 “On the Ambivalence of the Suddenly ‘Old’ towards (Unexpectedly) ‘New’ Delhi: Reading Bashiruddin Ahmad’s Vaqi’at-e Darulhukumat Dehli”. On panel, Urban Spaces and Emotions, chaired by Margrit Pernau. 40^th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison.

2013 Introduction to Islam. Designed and taught a historical and anthropological overview of Islamic traditions.

2012 Contemporary Civilization. Designed and taught an introductory two semester course to core texts in philosophy, religion and political theory from Plato to the Qur’an to Locke.

2011 The Rise of Civilization. Assisted Prof. Terence d’Altroy in this survey course on early settled cultures from Mesopotamia to the Andes. Lead discussion sections with students.

2009 Major Debates in the Study of Africa. Assisted Prof. Mahmood Mamdani in a survey course on the epistemology and politics of colonial and post-colonial Africa. Lead discussion sections with students, and gave an independent lecture on “Islamic” slavery and notions of personhood.

2009 Pre-Columbian Histories of Native America. Assisted Prof. Severin Fowles in a course on the complex histories and philosophies of the pre-conquest Americas. Led discussion sections for students.

2008 Religion in Modernity. Assisted Prof. Nathaniel Roberts in a course on the academic debates about the place of religion in the modern world from the early 20^th century to the contemporary moment. Gave independent lectures on Possession.

2008 Introduction to South Asian History and Culture. Assisted Prof. Smita Jassal in this course on modern India based largely on reading primary texts. Lead discussion sections with the students, and gave independent lectures on Muslim Reform Movements in 19^th century India and Partition.

2007 The Interpretation of Culture. Assisted Prof. Ellen Marakowitz in this introductory course to anthropological theory and the history of anthropology. Led discussion sections with students.

Delhi University

2010 Languages of the Media. Designed, coordinated and taught a graduate-level course on filmic language and film theory to MA students of the Department of Germanic and Romance Studies.

Introduction to Islam, Contemporary Civilization, Rethinking the Sacred in a Post-Secular World, Islamic(ate) Traditions of South Asia, The Modern Unmaking of India.

2012 Columbia University Preceptorship for teaching Contemporary Civilization.

2011 Moses Asch Fellowship in Cultural Anthropology.

2009 Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.

2006 Faculty Fellowship, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University, 5-year term.

2003 Student Stipend for Research on The City, SARAI, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.

2001 Principal’s Medal for Outstanding Student, Ramjas College, Delhi University.

PUBLIC OUTREACH: PRINT, ONLINE AND BROADCAST MEDIA

2012 “Between Cultural Memory and History, the Jinn Lives On,” interview in The Sunday Guardian, Delhi, 23^rd September, 2012. http://goo.gl/F7Jdt

2012 “Sewer Gas,” The State Vol. 1, April 2012. A speculative essay on manholes, miasma and modernity. http://goo.gl/gjtJX

2010 “Delhi in the 1910’s,” commemorative issue of Time Out Delhi, “New Delhi Turns One Hundred,” Dec. 24-Jan. 6, 2010. http://goo.gl/S94Ej

2010 “Heavenly Verses,” Outlook Traveller, September 2010. A travelogue about Iran. http://goo.gl/3B0Sf

2010 “Buraq and the Hauz-e Shamsi. Or, the Residue of Dreams.” Essay accompanying Vishal Rawley’s public art installation as part of the Beam Me Up collaborative art project. http://goo.gl/ef9a0

2010 “Two Overheard Conversations, Delhi 2010,” on the Kafila blog, April 8, 2010. A short essay on everyday speech and historical trauma. http://goo.gl/jg5hF

2004 Mongrel Cities, a video art project with Aarti Sethi, Iram Ghufran and Taha Mehmood. Produced by the Sarai Media Lab, Delhi.

2003 The Past is a Foreign Country, a documentary with Akshay Singh and Sakina Ali. Produced by the AJ Kidwai Mass Communication Research Center, Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi.

PANELS ORGANIZED

2011 Heritage and The City, public panel with historians, conservationists, planners, religious leaders and journalists; with the Delhi Urban Platform and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, at Humayun’s Tomb, Delhi.

2009 The Ruination of the Social and the Social Life of Ruins, interdisciplinary workshop co-organized with Darryl Wilkinson at Columbia University; with John Collins, Shannon Dawdy, Peter Fritzsche, Vyjayanthi Rao, Ann Stoler.

2008 Negative Archaeology: Much Ado About Nothing, session co-organizer with Severin Fowles and Seema Golestaneh, Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference, Columbia University.

2012 Manuscript review for the journals Contributions to the History of Concepts (CHoC) and Anthropology and Humanism.