Elaine M Fisher
Biographic Data
| ID | 3768757 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Elaine M Fisher |
| GIVEN NAMES | Elaine M |
| FAMILY NAME | Fisher |
| SIGNATURE | FISHER E M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Stanford University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 56 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 15 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1975 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Outline of a Critical Phenomenology of Religion
In recent years, the US has witnessed an explosion of populist Christian nationalism fueling the rise of the Trump presidencies, relying heavily on the mass dissemination of charismatic forms of religious experience. Until very recently, scarcely a mention of these independent charismatic evangelical networks, such as the New Apostolic Reformation, had surfaced in religious studies scholarship. What factors within our disciplinary framework might…
The Transformation of Tamil Religion: Ramalinga Swamigal (1823–1874) and Modern Dravidian Sainthood . By Srilata Raman
The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India. By Manan Ahmed Asif
What does religion have to do with how we periodize Indian history—ancient, medieval, and modern? According to Manan Ahmed Asif’s The Loss of Hindustan, the two are virtually inextricable today on account of the perspective on the past we have inherited from British colonialism. According to the facile narrative that structures introductory textbooks and survey courses on South Asian religions, the Indian subcontinent was once a predominantly Hin…
Śaivism after the Śaiva Age: Continuities in the Scriptural Corpus of the Vīramāheśvaras
This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the Śaiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of Śaivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Vīraśaivism has yet to be systematically approached through a philological analysis of its precurso…
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India
art, history, philology or textual studies, philosophy, religion, and the interpretive social sciences
The Tangled Roots of Vīraśaivism: On the Vīramāheśvara Textual Culture of Srisailam
Hindu pluralism: A prehistory
Sectarianism is a term that has become firmly ingrained in Western scholarly literature on Hinduism for more than a century-and with a definition that, at best, may seem peculiarly idiosyncratic, and at worst dangerously misleading. In emplotting theistic difference as deviance, previous scholarship has gone too far in erasing the variegated textures of the Indic religious landscape, layers of difference that persist unabated to this day beneath …
Public Space, Public Canon: Situating religion at the dawn of modernity in South India
What is 'early modern' about religion in South India? In theorizing early modernity in South Asia, the category of religion has been viewed with scepticism, perhaps to avoid painting India as the exotic 'Other' that failed to modernize in the eyes of Western social theory. And yet, Western narratives, drawn from secularization theory, fail to do justice to our historical archive. As a vehicle for approaching the experience of religion in early mo…
Remaking South Indian Śaivism: Greater Śaiva Advaita and the Legacy of the Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita Vīraśaiva Tradition
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India
In Hindu Pluralism, Elaine M. Fisher complicates the traditional scholarly narrative of the unification of Hinduism. By calling into question the colonial categories implicit in the term "sectarianism," Fisher's work excavates the pluralistic textures of precolonial Hinduism in the centuries prior to British intervention. Drawing on previously unpublished sources in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, Fisher argues that the performance of plural religio…
A Śākta in the Heart’: Śrīvidyā and Advaita Vedānta in the Theology of Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita
In both his literary endeavours and his theological oeuvre, Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita, much like his grand-uncle, the famed polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, was an avowed Śaiva. Devoting his intellectual energies above all to the propagation and defense of Śaivism, Nīlakaṇṭha inherited his grand-uncle’s legacy not only as court intellectual but also as public theologian. His devotional hymns and triumphalist Śaiva mahākāvyas, rich with devotional sentiment, co…
Public philology: Text criticism and the sectarianization of Hinduism in early modern south India
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, south India had witnessed a widespread sectarianization of its religious landscape. We observe a growing polarization among religious institutions, the social and economic networks they mediated, and religious discourse across genres, whether Sanskrit or vernacular, whether devotional poetry or systematic theology. The present article examines the textual culture that emerged from the intersectarian dis…
Just Like Kalidasa: The Sakta Intellectuals of Seventeenth-century South India
Beginning in the seventeenth century, the Smārta intellectual community of South India entered into an unprecedented alliance with Śaṅkarācārya monastic institutions and their corresponding esoteric lineage, the Śrīvidyā school of Śākta tantrism. Among the prominent intellectuals of this period, Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita, grand-nephew of the renowned polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, and a number of his associates began to cultivate devotional relationships wit…
Prevalent Attitudes and School Policy toward Non-standard Dialects
We, as teachers, usually find it difficult to accept the oral language patterns that some of our pupils bring to school. "We are prone to inject an element of morality into our pseudo-standard of English." (Cheney 1976, p.58).As Hall (1959) so ably comments, "Our native speech is inextricably bound to our perception of friends, community, religion, nation and other peoples."Basically, non-standard dialects are viewed either as a deficit form of s…
"A Condensed "Teachers' Bible
I feel that there is an immediate need for teachers coming into contact with a new Aboriginal community to evaluate themselves not only professionally, but also socio-culturally.The hazards and pitfalls of acculturation interchanges are too numerous and complicated to enumerate, and it is incumbent upon the new teacher to 'establish' himself (or herself) initially in the new environment. The community is only too cognizant of the behaviour and ac…
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India
In Hindu Pluralism, Elaine M. Fisher complicates the traditional scholarly narrative of the unification of Hinduism. By calling into question the colonial categories implicit in the term "sectarianism," Fisher's work excavates the pluralistic textures of precolonial Hinduism in the centuries prior to British intervention. Drawing on previously unpublished sources in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, Fisher argues that the performance of plural religio…
Just Like Kalidasa: The Sakta Intellectuals of Seventeenth-century South India
Beginning in the seventeenth century, the Smārta intellectual community of South India entered into an unprecedented alliance with Śaṅkarācārya monastic institutions and their corresponding esoteric lineage, the Śrīvidyā school of Śākta tantrism. Among the prominent intellectuals of this period, Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita, grand-nephew of the renowned polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, and a number of his associates began to cultivate devotional relationships wit…
Remaking South Indian Śaivism: Greater Śaiva Advaita and the Legacy of the Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita Vīraśaiva Tradition
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India
art, history, philology or textual studies, philosophy, religion, and the interpretive social sciences
The Tangled Roots of Vīraśaivism: On the Vīramāheśvara Textual Culture of Srisailam
Public Space, Public Canon: Situating religion at the dawn of modernity in South India
What is 'early modern' about religion in South India? In theorizing early modernity in South Asia, the category of religion has been viewed with scepticism, perhaps to avoid painting India as the exotic 'Other' that failed to modernize in the eyes of Western social theory. And yet, Western narratives, drawn from secularization theory, fail to do justice to our historical archive. As a vehicle for approaching the experience of religion in early mo…
"A Condensed "Teachers' Bible
I feel that there is an immediate need for teachers coming into contact with a new Aboriginal community to evaluate themselves not only professionally, but also socio-culturally.The hazards and pitfalls of acculturation interchanges are too numerous and complicated to enumerate, and it is incumbent upon the new teacher to 'establish' himself (or herself) initially in the new environment. The community is only too cognizant of the behaviour and ac…
"A Condensed "Teachers' Bible
I feel that there is an immediate need for teachers coming into contact with a new Aboriginal community to evaluate themselves not only professionally, but also socio-culturally.The hazards and pitfalls of acculturation interchanges are too numerous and complicated to enumerate, and it is incumbent upon the new teacher to 'establish' himself (or herself) initially in the new environment. The community is only too cognizant of the behaviour and ac…
Prevalent Attitudes and School Policy toward Non-standard Dialects
We, as teachers, usually find it difficult to accept the oral language patterns that some of our pupils bring to school. "We are prone to inject an element of morality into our pseudo-standard of English." (Cheney 1976, p.58).As Hall (1959) so ably comments, "Our native speech is inextricably bound to our perception of friends, community, religion, nation and other peoples."Basically, non-standard dialects are viewed either as a deficit form of s…
Just Like Kalidasa: The Sakta Intellectuals of Seventeenth-century South India
Beginning in the seventeenth century, the Smārta intellectual community of South India entered into an unprecedented alliance with Śaṅkarācārya monastic institutions and their corresponding esoteric lineage, the Śrīvidyā school of Śākta tantrism. Among the prominent intellectuals of this period, Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita, grand-nephew of the renowned polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, and a number of his associates began to cultivate devotional relationships wit…
Public philology: Text criticism and the sectarianization of Hinduism in early modern south India
By the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, south India had witnessed a widespread sectarianization of its religious landscape. We observe a growing polarization among religious institutions, the social and economic networks they mediated, and religious discourse across genres, whether Sanskrit or vernacular, whether devotional poetry or systematic theology. The present article examines the textual culture that emerged from the intersectarian dis…
A Śākta in the Heart’: Śrīvidyā and Advaita Vedānta in the Theology of Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita
In both his literary endeavours and his theological oeuvre, Nīlakaṇṭha Dīkṣita, much like his grand-uncle, the famed polymath Appayya Dīkṣita, was an avowed Śaiva. Devoting his intellectual energies above all to the propagation and defense of Śaivism, Nīlakaṇṭha inherited his grand-uncle’s legacy not only as court intellectual but also as public theologian. His devotional hymns and triumphalist Śaiva mahākāvyas, rich with devotional sentiment, co…
Remaking South Indian Śaivism: Greater Śaiva Advaita and the Legacy of the Śaktiviśiṣṭādvaita Vīraśaiva Tradition
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India
In Hindu Pluralism, Elaine M. Fisher complicates the traditional scholarly narrative of the unification of Hinduism. By calling into question the colonial categories implicit in the term "sectarianism," Fisher's work excavates the pluralistic textures of precolonial Hinduism in the centuries prior to British intervention. Drawing on previously unpublished sources in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Telugu, Fisher argues that the performance of plural religio…
Hindu pluralism: A prehistory
Sectarianism is a term that has become firmly ingrained in Western scholarly literature on Hinduism for more than a century-and with a definition that, at best, may seem peculiarly idiosyncratic, and at worst dangerously misleading. In emplotting theistic difference as deviance, previous scholarship has gone too far in erasing the variegated textures of the Indic religious landscape, layers of difference that persist unabated to this day beneath …
Public Space, Public Canon: Situating religion at the dawn of modernity in South India
What is 'early modern' about religion in South India? In theorizing early modernity in South Asia, the category of religion has been viewed with scepticism, perhaps to avoid painting India as the exotic 'Other' that failed to modernize in the eyes of Western social theory. And yet, Western narratives, drawn from secularization theory, fail to do justice to our historical archive. As a vehicle for approaching the experience of religion in early mo…
The Tangled Roots of Vīraśaivism: On the Vīramāheśvara Textual Culture of Srisailam
Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South India
art, history, philology or textual studies, philosophy, religion, and the interpretive social sciences
The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India. By Manan Ahmed Asif
What does religion have to do with how we periodize Indian history—ancient, medieval, and modern? According to Manan Ahmed Asif’s The Loss of Hindustan, the two are virtually inextricable today on account of the perspective on the past we have inherited from British colonialism. According to the facile narrative that structures introductory textbooks and survey courses on South Asian religions, the Indian subcontinent was once a predominantly Hin…
Śaivism after the Śaiva Age: Continuities in the Scriptural Corpus of the Vīramāheśvaras
This article makes the case that Vīraśaivism emerged in direct textual continuity with the tantric traditions of the Śaiva Age. In academic practice up through the present day, the study of Śaivism, through Sanskrit sources, and bhakti Hinduism, through the vernacular, are generally treated as distinct disciplines and objects of study. As a result, Vīraśaivism has yet to be systematically approached through a philological analysis of its precurso…
Outline of a Critical Phenomenology of Religion
In recent years, the US has witnessed an explosion of populist Christian nationalism fueling the rise of the Trump presidencies, relying heavily on the mass dissemination of charismatic forms of religious experience. Until very recently, scarcely a mention of these independent charismatic evangelical networks, such as the New Apostolic Reformation, had surfaced in religious studies scholarship. What factors within our disciplinary framework might…
The Transformation of Tamil Religion: Ramalinga Swamigal (1823–1874) and Modern Dravidian Sainthood . By Srilata Raman
Philosophy (10 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (8 works) · Religious studies (8 works) · History (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Theology (7 works) · Art (6 works) · Literature (6 works) · Hinduism (5 works) · Law (5 works)