Eliza F Kent
Biographic Data
| ID | 141391 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eliza F Kent |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eliza F |
| FAMILY NAME | Kent |
| SIGNATURE | KENT E F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Skidmore College |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0659-612X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 46 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Can Tamil Sacred Groves Survive Neoliberalism
A recurring theme in the scholarship surrounding Indian sacred groves has been fear of their imminent destruction. Many scholars argue that Sanskritization, or the desire to emulate the religious styles of Brahmanical castes, is the main driver of sacred grove degradation because it leads to the construction of buildings inside the grove at the expense of trees and other flora. Construction was financed not by residents pooling their resources, a…
Accidental Environmentalists
In the highlands of Ethiopia, the only remaining stands of native forest are around churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Though hailed as community-conserved areas by environmentalists, we argue that the conservation of such forest is not intentional, but rather an indirect result of the religious norms, beliefs and practices surrounding the sites. In actuality, the religiosity surrounding church forests maintains the purity of the…
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India
Wayside shrines are a ubiquitous feature of urban India. A site for community building and income-generation for their mostly poor and working class patrons, they are increasingly a source of anxiety for middle class residents who fear their capacity to morph quickly into full-fledged temples. Through a comparison of two roadside shrines, one that was successful at attracting a group of followers and one that was not, the paper analyzes the rheto…
Ethiopian Church Forests: A Hybrid Model of Protection
The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion: An “Insider’s” Appreciation
Lines in Water: Religious Boundaries in South Asia
This collection examines the projections and fantasies conflict and cooperation, and borrowing and purifying that takes place around religious boundaries in South Asia and in the South Asian diaspora
Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India
In recent years, India's "sacred groves" have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine and anthropologists. As small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity's exclusive use, their maintenance has led to the conservation of pockets of abundant flora in areas otherwise denuded by deforestation. Based on fieldwork conducted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over seven years, the book not only …
What are you going to do with a degree in that: Arguing for the humanities in an era of efficiency
In an era in which the imperatives of global economic competition prompt institutions of higher education to promote vocational practicality and efficiency over all else, advocates of the humanities have struggled to articulate the distinctive value and contribution of our disciplines. This article seeks to develop an argument directed not at fellow academics, but at friends and parents who ask incredulously, ‘What are you going to do with a degr…
Secret Christians of Sivakasi: Gender, Syncretism, and Crypto-Religion in Early Twentieth-Century South India
Journal Article Secret Christians of Sivakasi: Gender, Syncretism, and Crypto-Religion in Early Twentieth-Century South India Get access Eliza F. Kent Eliza F. Kent E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 79, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 676-705, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfr005 Published: 12 April 2011
A Road Runs Through It: Changing Meanings in a Sacred Grove in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu
In many Tamil villages, sacred groves are maintained in part because of the perception of the forest as an abode of forces both dangerous and crucial to the vitality of settled life. However, one scheduled tribe community, the Malaivazhmakkal Gaunders, or ‘Mountain-dwelling farmers,’ seems to have largely dispensed with such a view. In its place is a vision of nature dominated by pragmatism and rationalism, which regards as illogical and old-fash…
Guest Editor's Introduction: Forests of Belonging: The Contested Meaning of Trees and Forests in Indian Hinduism
This special issue takes a new approach to the study of religion and nature in Indian Hinduism by drawing on recent ethnography to examine the meanings that priests, pilgrims and ordinary devotees attribute to forests and trees today. Attentive to the rapidly changing social and ecological environment of contemporary India, these studies investigate how people relate to forests and trees that are in various ways set apart, whether as a natural pa…
Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India
In recent years, environmentalists and scholars of religion have shown an enormous interest in the pan-Indian phenomenon of “sacred groves,” small forests or stands of trees whose produce is set aside for the exclusive use of a deity. This article seeks to contribute to scholarship on sacred groves by considering the meanings that Tamil villagers in the Madurai region attach to them. First, I describe the answers that people give when asked why t…
Books and Bodices: Material Culture and Protestant Missions in Colonial South India
Historians of nineteenth-century Christian missions have frequently noted the tension between the impulse to convert and the temptation to civilize. To the extent that the conditions under which British missionaries lived and worked in India were already overdetermined by the fact of British colonial rule, these two impulses were, in practice, deeply intertwined. However, one can discern two distinctive strains of argumentation in the discourse g…
Representing caste in the classroom: Perils, pitfalls and potential insight
The editors of the June 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion formulated a dilemma facing many of us who teach about Hinduism with the question: Who speaks for Hinduism? We could easily extend this question to the other religions represented in the papers here—who speaks for Jainism? Who speaks for Islam? Who speaks for Buddhism?—or to any religious tradition taught in North American schools. Among the issues raised in tha…
Kerala Christian Sainthood: Collisions of Culture and Worldview in South India . Corinne G. Dempsey
In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V. S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India . Susan Billington Harper
Religions in Conflict: Ideology, Cultural Contact, and Conversion in Late Colonial India. Antony Copley
Tamil Bible Women and the Zenana Missions of Colonial South India
Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India
In recent years, India's "sacred groves" have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine and anthropologists. As small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity's exclusive use, their maintenance has led to the conservation of pockets of abundant flora in areas otherwise denuded by deforestation. Based on fieldwork conducted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over seven years, the book not only …
Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India
In recent years, environmentalists and scholars of religion have shown an enormous interest in the pan-Indian phenomenon of “sacred groves,” small forests or stands of trees whose produce is set aside for the exclusive use of a deity. This article seeks to contribute to scholarship on sacred groves by considering the meanings that Tamil villagers in the Madurai region attach to them. First, I describe the answers that people give when asked why t…
What are you going to do with a degree in that: Arguing for the humanities in an era of efficiency
In an era in which the imperatives of global economic competition prompt institutions of higher education to promote vocational practicality and efficiency over all else, advocates of the humanities have struggled to articulate the distinctive value and contribution of our disciplines. This article seeks to develop an argument directed not at fellow academics, but at friends and parents who ask incredulously, ‘What are you going to do with a degr…
Tamil Bible Women and the Zenana Missions of Colonial South India
Secret Christians of Sivakasi: Gender, Syncretism, and Crypto-Religion in Early Twentieth-Century South India
Journal Article Secret Christians of Sivakasi: Gender, Syncretism, and Crypto-Religion in Early Twentieth-Century South India Get access Eliza F. Kent Eliza F. Kent E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 79, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 676-705, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfr005 Published: 12 April 2011
A Road Runs Through It: Changing Meanings in a Sacred Grove in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu
In many Tamil villages, sacred groves are maintained in part because of the perception of the forest as an abode of forces both dangerous and crucial to the vitality of settled life. However, one scheduled tribe community, the Malaivazhmakkal Gaunders, or ‘Mountain-dwelling farmers,’ seems to have largely dispensed with such a view. In its place is a vision of nature dominated by pragmatism and rationalism, which regards as illogical and old-fash…
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India
Wayside shrines are a ubiquitous feature of urban India. A site for community building and income-generation for their mostly poor and working class patrons, they are increasingly a source of anxiety for middle class residents who fear their capacity to morph quickly into full-fledged temples. Through a comparison of two roadside shrines, one that was successful at attracting a group of followers and one that was not, the paper analyzes the rheto…
Guest Editor's Introduction: Forests of Belonging: The Contested Meaning of Trees and Forests in Indian Hinduism
This special issue takes a new approach to the study of religion and nature in Indian Hinduism by drawing on recent ethnography to examine the meanings that priests, pilgrims and ordinary devotees attribute to forests and trees today. Attentive to the rapidly changing social and ecological environment of contemporary India, these studies investigate how people relate to forests and trees that are in various ways set apart, whether as a natural pa…
Tamil Bible Women and the Zenana Missions of Colonial South India
Religions in Conflict: Ideology, Cultural Contact, and Conversion in Late Colonial India. Antony Copley
In the Shadow of the Mahatma: Bishop V. S. Azariah and the Travails of Christianity in British India . Susan Billington Harper
Kerala Christian Sainthood: Collisions of Culture and Worldview in South India . Corinne G. Dempsey
Books and Bodices: Material Culture and Protestant Missions in Colonial South India
Historians of nineteenth-century Christian missions have frequently noted the tension between the impulse to convert and the temptation to civilize. To the extent that the conditions under which British missionaries lived and worked in India were already overdetermined by the fact of British colonial rule, these two impulses were, in practice, deeply intertwined. However, one can discern two distinctive strains of argumentation in the discourse g…
Representing caste in the classroom: Perils, pitfalls and potential insight
The editors of the June 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion formulated a dilemma facing many of us who teach about Hinduism with the question: Who speaks for Hinduism? We could easily extend this question to the other religions represented in the papers here—who speaks for Jainism? Who speaks for Islam? Who speaks for Buddhism?—or to any religious tradition taught in North American schools. Among the issues raised in tha…
Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India
In recent years, environmentalists and scholars of religion have shown an enormous interest in the pan-Indian phenomenon of “sacred groves,” small forests or stands of trees whose produce is set aside for the exclusive use of a deity. This article seeks to contribute to scholarship on sacred groves by considering the meanings that Tamil villagers in the Madurai region attach to them. First, I describe the answers that people give when asked why t…
A Road Runs Through It: Changing Meanings in a Sacred Grove in Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu
In many Tamil villages, sacred groves are maintained in part because of the perception of the forest as an abode of forces both dangerous and crucial to the vitality of settled life. However, one scheduled tribe community, the Malaivazhmakkal Gaunders, or ‘Mountain-dwelling farmers,’ seems to have largely dispensed with such a view. In its place is a vision of nature dominated by pragmatism and rationalism, which regards as illogical and old-fash…
Guest Editor's Introduction: Forests of Belonging: The Contested Meaning of Trees and Forests in Indian Hinduism
This special issue takes a new approach to the study of religion and nature in Indian Hinduism by drawing on recent ethnography to examine the meanings that priests, pilgrims and ordinary devotees attribute to forests and trees today. Attentive to the rapidly changing social and ecological environment of contemporary India, these studies investigate how people relate to forests and trees that are in various ways set apart, whether as a natural pa…
Secret Christians of Sivakasi: Gender, Syncretism, and Crypto-Religion in Early Twentieth-Century South India
Journal Article Secret Christians of Sivakasi: Gender, Syncretism, and Crypto-Religion in Early Twentieth-Century South India Get access Eliza F. Kent Eliza F. Kent E-mail: [email protected] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Volume 79, Issue 3, September 2011, Pages 676-705, https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfr005 Published: 12 April 2011
What are you going to do with a degree in that: Arguing for the humanities in an era of efficiency
In an era in which the imperatives of global economic competition prompt institutions of higher education to promote vocational practicality and efficiency over all else, advocates of the humanities have struggled to articulate the distinctive value and contribution of our disciplines. This article seeks to develop an argument directed not at fellow academics, but at friends and parents who ask incredulously, ‘What are you going to do with a degr…
Lines in Water: Religious Boundaries in South Asia
This collection examines the projections and fantasies conflict and cooperation, and borrowing and purifying that takes place around religious boundaries in South Asia and in the South Asian diaspora
Sacred Groves and Local Gods: Religion and Environmentalism in South India
In recent years, India's "sacred groves" have attracted the attention of NGOs, botanists, specialists in traditional medicine and anthropologists. As small forests or stands of trees set aside for a deity's exclusive use, their maintenance has led to the conservation of pockets of abundant flora in areas otherwise denuded by deforestation. Based on fieldwork conducted in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu over seven years, the book not only …
Ethiopian Church Forests: A Hybrid Model of Protection
The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion: An “Insider’s” Appreciation
Accidental Environmentalists
In the highlands of Ethiopia, the only remaining stands of native forest are around churches of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. Though hailed as community-conserved areas by environmentalists, we argue that the conservation of such forest is not intentional, but rather an indirect result of the religious norms, beliefs and practices surrounding the sites. In actuality, the religiosity surrounding church forests maintains the purity of the…
Bus-Stop Sami: Transient Temples in Urban South India
Wayside shrines are a ubiquitous feature of urban India. A site for community building and income-generation for their mostly poor and working class patrons, they are increasingly a source of anxiety for middle class residents who fear their capacity to morph quickly into full-fledged temples. Through a comparison of two roadside shrines, one that was successful at attracting a group of followers and one that was not, the paper analyzes the rheto…
Can Tamil Sacred Groves Survive Neoliberalism
A recurring theme in the scholarship surrounding Indian sacred groves has been fear of their imminent destruction. Many scholars argue that Sanskritization, or the desire to emulate the religious styles of Brahmanical castes, is the main driver of sacred grove degradation because it leads to the construction of buildings inside the grove at the expense of trees and other flora. Construction was financed not by residents pooling their resources, a…
Philosophy (14 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (9 works) · Art (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Religious studies (8 works) · Geography (7 works) · History (7 works)