Abstract:

In recent decades, a great deal of attention has been devoted to critiquing nineteenth and early twentieth century Indological work and its Orientalist assumptions, distortions, and biases. These processes of self-reflection have produced crucial methodological and theoretical revision and have propelled us into an academic era of ‘posts’, including post-colonial and post-Orientalist alongside post-modern. This essay contemplates what has risen from the ashes of previous generations of Western Indological discourse and where these ‘posts’ seem to have led us with respect to academic research on Hindu traditions. What kinds of changes have taken place during the last two or three decades, and what new opportunities might they present for the future? What trends have emerged, and what do they suggest about what we have been constructing, and might fruitfully construct in the future, out of all these posts? What might be the present and near future state of Hindu studies in Western academic settings?

Author: Tracy Pintchman