Co-being, A Praxis of the Public: Lessons from Hindu Devotional (Bhakti) Narrative, Arendt, and Gandhi
Most controversies about religious representation enact conceptions of the public that construct boundaries which stridently mark insiders and outsiders, friends and foes, or practice and theory. This article begins with a controversy in California over representations of Hinduism in middle-school t...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
[2017]
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| In: |
Journal of the American Academy of Religion
Year: 2017, Volume: 85, Issue: 1, Pages: 199-223 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
USA
/ School book
/ Controversy
/ Hinduism
/ Depiction
/ Publicity
B Bhakti poetry / Arendt, Hannah 1906-1975 / Gandhi, Mohandas Karamchand 1869-1948 / Community / The Other / Tolerance |
| RelBib Classification: | AG Religious life; material religion BK Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism KBQ North America |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | Most controversies about religious representation enact conceptions of the public that construct boundaries which stridently mark insiders and outsiders, friends and foes, or practice and theory. This article begins with a controversy in California over representations of Hinduism in middle-school textbooks. A legal settlement closed the controversy but brought little sense of closure. Asking more broadly why publics fail, I put together, through deliberate anachronism, elements of a praxis of the public taking from political philosopher Hannah Arendt and bhakti poets of the Hindu tradition from the sixth century to the sixteenth century. This alternative praxis of the public creates “co-being,” a state of society achieved by reimagining how we occupy space, how we own things and ideas, and how we form pacts. Gandhi’s ashram, in concept and practice, exemplifies how an unlikely commonality is a possible one and is in fact the foundation of a meaningful and sustainable public. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4585 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: American Academy of Religion, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfw040 |