This talk addresses the core question, "to what does the term 'religion' refer?" and argues that we must work anew at thinking through the category.

John Nemec is Professor of Indian Religions and South Asian Studies in the Department of Religious Studies of the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books that engage Hindu traditions in their premodernity, in particular the traditions of the Kashmir Valley associated with the god Śiva.  Nemec serves as Editor of the Religion in Translation Series of the American Academy of Religion, and was a Trustee of the American Institute of Indian Studies from 2020-2023. He holds a Ph.D. degree in South Asia Studies from the University of Pennsylvania (2005), an M.Phil. in Classical Indian Religions from the University of Oxford (2000), an M.A. in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara (1997), and a B.A. in Religion from the University of Rochester (1994). A Fulbright Scholar in India in the 2002-2003 academic year and Directeur d'études invité (DEI) at the École Pratique des Hautes Études (Paris) in the spring of 2016, and he will be the Shivdasani Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies in the Fall of 2023.

Free and open to the public. Sponsored by the religion department.