1 ANAND VIVEK TANEJA Department of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt

Anand Vivek Taneja CV

ANAND VIVEK TANEJA Department of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University 301C, Garland Hall, VU Box #351585 Nashville, TN 37235 Tel: 646-238-9589, Email: [email protected]

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 current 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, Carla Bellamy, Manan Ahmed.

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

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

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

2013- Assistant Professor (Tenure Track), Islamic Traditions of South Asia, Department of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University.

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.

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PUBLICATIONS

Books

In progress Islam, Nature, and History in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi (provisional title). Manuscript to be completed by December 2014.

In Peer Reviewed Journals

In progress “Of birds, stones and other Muslim saints: The shifting moral and ecological landscapes of urban north India.”

2013 “Jinnealogy: Everyday life and Islamic theology in post-Partition Delhi,” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3 (3): 139-65.

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

2014 “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.

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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

2014 Review of Ruth Vanita, Gender, Sex and the City, in Indian Economic and Social History Review, forthcoming.

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

2013 “Apotropaic Mnemonics: Forgetful archives, everyday life, and the post- colonial condition in Delhi”. On panel, The Bureaucratic and the Profane: Conceptualizing the metaphysics of governance, chaired by Seema Golestaneh. 112th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago.

2013 “Of Stones, Birds and Other Muslim Saints: The Shifting Moral and Ecological Landscapes of Urban North India”. On panel, Other than Human: Affective Spaces and Animals in Contemporary India, chaired by Anand V. Taneja. 42nd Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison.

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. 110th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal.

2011 “On the Ambivalence of the Suddenly ‘Old’ towards (Unexpectedly) ‘New’

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Delhi: Reading Bashiruddin Ahmad’s Vaqi’at-e Darulhukumat Dehli”. On panel, Urban Spaces and Emotions, chaired by Margrit Pernau. 40th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison.

2011 “Vanished Pirs and Absent Kings: Spirits, Saints and Stories around Delhi’s Medieval Monuments.” Public Lecture at the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage, Delhi.

2010 “Of Saints and Justice in the Ruins of Delhi.” On panel, Fractured Genres: The Afterlives of Medieval Indo-Persian Histories, chaired by A. Sean Pue. 39th Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison.

2009 “’What Grace Lovers Find From Idols’: The Ambivalence of Idols in Indo- Muslim Poetics.” On panel, Iconoclash and the Archaeology of Violence Towards Images, chaired by Severin Fowles. 74th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Anthropology, Atlanta.

2008 “’Muslimness’ in Hindi Cinema: The Ambiguity of the (Anti)National Self.” On panel, Talking Back: Muslims, Media and Marginalization in South Asia, chaired by Carla Bellamy. 107th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco.

2007 “The Commonwealth Games and the Ghosts of the Medieval: Delhi 2010.” Invited lecture at the Pratt Institute School of Architecture, New York.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

Vanderbilt University

2014 Introduction to Islam, Devotional Traditions of South Asia

2013 Introduction to Islam

Columbia University

2012-13 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.

2009 Major Debates in the Study of Africa. Assisted Prof. Mahmood Mamdani. Independent lecture on “Islamic” slavery and notions of personhood.

2009 Pre-Columbian Histories of Native America. Assisted Prof. Severin Fowles.

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2008 Religion in Modernity. Assisted Prof. Nathaniel Roberts. Independent lectures on Possession.

2008 Introduction to South Asian History and Culture. Assisted Prof. Smita Jassal. Independent lectures on Muslim Reform Movements in 19thcentury India and Partition.

2007 The Interpretation of Culture. Assisted Prof. Ellen Marakowitz.

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.

Teaching Syllabi/Courses Designed (available on request)

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

FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

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

2013 “Village Cosmopolitanisms: Or, I See Kabul from Lado Sarai.” An invited essay on Chapati Mystery, a reputed South Asian history blog. http://goo.gl/usZKbD

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2012 “Between Cultural Memory and History, the Jinn Lives On,” interview in The Sunday Guardian, Delhi, 23rd 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

2013 Other than Human: Affective Spaces and Animals in Contemporary India, at the 42nd Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison; with Manan Ahmed, Radhika Govindarajan, Sundhya Walther.

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.

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PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

Organization: Organizing Committee, Local Islams Workshops, Department of Religious Studies, Vanderbilt University.

Co-organizer, Overlook Seminar Series, HACTOR program, Vanderbilt University.

Manuscript Review: Contributions to the History of Concepts (CHoC), Anthropology and Humanism.

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

American Anthropological Association

American Academy of Religion

LANGUAGES

English, Hindi – Native Fluency and Superior Literacy. Urdu – Fluency and Literacy. Persian – Reading and Writing Comprehension. Punjabi – Comprehension.