Ann Grodzins Gold

Chair and Thomas J. Watson Professor, Religion

Degree

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Chicago (1984)

Specialties

Sustained ethnographic engagement with religion and culture in provincial North India

Courses

REL 121 Pilgrimage
REL 185 Hinduism
REL 283 India''s Religious Worlds
REL 324 Religion and Storytelling
REL 384 Goddesses, Women, and Power in Hinduism
REL 395 Religons and the Natural Environment
REL 689 Memory, Culture, Religion
REL 692 Other People''s Religions
REL 696 Gender and Religion: Theory and Practice
REL 699 Writing Religions and Cultures: Ethnographic Practice

Biography

Gold''s research and teaching are rooted in sustained ethnographic engagement with religion and culture in provincial North India. Her fieldwork and writings concern diverse topics: pilgrimage, women''s rituals and expressive traditions, environmental history, and most recently landscape and identity in a small market town. Gold is the recipient of two book prizes and numerous research awards -- most recently (2014-15) back-to-back fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Humanities Center. She has authored or edited seven books and has published over fifty scholarly articles, essays, and chapters. Gold served in 2005-2007 as William P. Tolley Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Humanities and in 2005-2008 she was Director of the South Asia Center in the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs. Gold is Courtesy Professor of Anthropology in the Maxwell School

Publications

2014  Shared Knowledges: Family, Fusion, Friction, Fabric (with Bhoju Ram Gujar, Madhu Gujar and Chinu Gujar). In Coming to Terms: Reinserting Research Assistants into Ethnography''s Past and Present. Ethnography (in press).

2014  "Sweetness and Light: The Bright Side of Pluralism in a North Indian Town." In Religious Pluralism, State and Society in Asia, edited by Chiara Formichi, 113-137. Religion in Contemporary Asia series. London: Routledge (in press).

2013  A thousand Nagdis.  Anthropology Today 29(5):22-27.

2013 "Ainn-Bai''s sarvadharm yatra: A mix of experiences." In Lines in Water: Religious Boundaries in South Asia, edited by Tazim R. Kassam and Eliza Kent, 300-329.  Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.

2012  "Scenes of Rural Change."  In The Cambridge Companion to Modern Indian Culture, edited by Vasudha Dalmia and Rashmi Sadana, 13-29. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2012 "Yogic Language in Village Performance: Hymns of the Householder Naths" (co-authored with Daniel Gold), 289-305.  In Yoga in Practice, edited by David White.  Princeton: Princeton University Press.

2011   "Awakening Generosity in Nath Tales from Rajasthan." In Yogi Heroes and Poets: Histories and Legends of the Nāths, edited by David Lorenzen and Adrian Muñoz, 91-108. Albany: SUNY Press.

2010  "Damayanti''s String: Epic Threads in Women''s Ritual Stories."  In Damayanti and Nala: The Many Lives of a Story, edited by Susan S. Wadley, 109-129.  New Delhi: Chronicle Books.

2010  "Why sacred groves matter: Post-romantic claims."  In Village Matters: Relocating Villages in the Contemporary Anthropology of India, edited by Diane P. Mines and Nicolas Yazgi, 107-129.  Delhi: Oxford University Press.

2009  Tasteless Profits and Vexed Moralities: Assessments of the Present in Rural Rajasthan.  Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 15(2):365-385.

2008  "Showing Miracles in Rajasthan: Proof and Grace."  In Miracle as Conundrum in South Asian Religious Traditions, edited by Corinne Dempsey and Selva Raj, 85-103.  Albany: SUNY Press.

2008  Deep Beauty: Rajasthani Goddesses above and below the Surface.  International Journal of Hindu Studies 12(2):153-179.

2008  "Blindness and sight: Moral vision in Rajasthani narratives." In ''Speaking Truth to Power'': Religion, Caste, and the Subaltern Question in India,  edited by Manu Bhagavan  and Anne Feldhaus, 62-77.  Delhi: Oxford University Press.

2008  "Gender."  In Studying Hinduism: Key Concepts and Methods, edited by Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby, 178-193.  London: Routledge.

2007  "Contentment and Competence: Rajasthani Children Talk about Work, Play and School " (with Bhoju Ram Gujar).  In Childspace: An Anthropological Study of Children''s Use of Space, edited by Karen Malone, 193-212. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company.

2006  "Love''s Cup, Love''s Thorn, Love''s End: The Language of Prem in Ghatiyali."  In Love in South Asia: A Cultural History, edited by Francesca Orsini, 303-330. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

2004  The Long-tailed Rat.  Asian Folklore Studies 63 (2): 243-265.