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Tagged: India

Conference Report: KFG Annual Conference “Making Boundaries”

While the topic of boundaries has received considerable scholarly attention, this conference focussed on the dynamic processes of making, maintaining and modifying or crossing boundaries and brought together scholars from various disciplines discussing case studies from Europe, the Mediterranean and South Asia from Antiquity to today…

Conference Report: Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead

Dealing with the dead and death is a topic that attracts scholars of every period. The universal question of transitioning from one state-of-being into the other represents a basic process applicable to every human being. As we all die one day and become part of the dead, their whereabouts and treatment will eventually affect every one of us. That is why this conference’s topic Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead has a natural attraction to it because all of us will die one day and join the ranks of the dead…

Book release of Accessing Water by Sara Keller

After the workshop organised in 2021 at the Augustinerkloster in Erfurt, Sara Keller edited a volume entitled Accessing Water in the South Asian City. The book published by Primus and released this August contains an introduction by Sara Keller and 9 chapters in a broad range of disciplines by Julia A.B. Hegewald, Julia Shaw, Jutta Jain-Neubauer, Nicolas Morelle, Padma Sunder Joshi, Prakhar Vidyarthi, Akil Amiraly, Heather O’Leary and Laura Verdelli…

2025 Entries in “Religion & Urbanity Online”

In 2025, there were 16 new entries in the database “Religion and Urbanity Online” so far. They cover the time span from antiquity to modernity, cities as different as Aleppo, Singapore and Sens, and approach religion and urbanity from a range of disciplines, including history, anthropology, literature studies and the history of religions. Enjoy reading!

कालीकट की सड़कों पर चलते हुए (I)

जैसा कि इस ब्लॉग के पाठक पहले से जानते हैं, मैं  अक्सर कालीकट आती रहती हूं। शहर का आधिकारिक नाम “कोष़िकोड” है (मलयालम में: കോഴിക്കോട്), लेकिन इस शब्द का यूरोप वालों के लिए उच्चारण करना कठिन है, इसलिए हम इसे कालीकट ही कहेंगे। कहा जाता है कि अरब व्यापारियों ने इसे यह नाम (क़ालिक़ूट) दिया था।

Indo-German Exchanges in Religion and Aesthetics: Insights from Dr. Isabella Schwaderer

This interview marks the beginning of a series in which Ahmad Ali will be engaging with scholars working on India at the Max-Weber-Kolleg. He is a student of Religionswissenschaft at the University of Erfurt, currently working on the project “Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations”.

The Seasons of Maritime Life

Port towns host unique forms of urban life, and they are often seen as particularly vibrant and dynamic cities. Maritime metropolises on all continents, such as Shanghai, New York, Bombay, Hamburg or Marseille, have gained a reputation of being exceptionally busy, diverse and connected places. This is also true of maritime cities of the past, and archaeology and history tell us that historical port towns were already busy, diverse and connected places…

Workshop: Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead (15-16 May 2025)

Critical studies of death (thanatology) have illuminated how human societies organize spaces of burial according to gender, race, class, sexual preference, and religion. Informed by these works “Necrogeographies of the Marginal Dead” introduces how studies of death, especially of persons within groups excluded from systems of power in the living world, illuminate how the structures of power exceed life extending into the afterlives of the dead…

Walking through the streets of Calicut (IV)

For a long time now, I’ve wanted to walk the streets of Calicut again. During my last visits (in March 2023 and January 2024), I didn’t really get around to it because I was in Feroke (on the southern bank of the Chaliyar river) for most of the time. Only once did I allow myself to drive into the city for a few hours to stock up on spices. I usually take an auto rickshaw (or tuk tuk), an incredulous choice for my fellow Indians. Couldn’t I, the European, afford a proper taxi?…