02 Bio

[[Pxiii]] B. JASON SCHWARTZ PhD Candidate, Department of Religious Studies University of California, Santa Barbara Mail Code 3130 Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3130

EDUCATION

PhD University of California, Santa Barbara, 2023
Department of Religious Studies
Dissertation: Ending the Śaiva Age: The Rise of the Brāhmaṇa Legalist and the Universalization of Hindu Dharma
Advisor: David Gordon White
MA Columbia University, 2010, South Asian Studies
MA Thesis: Devoted to the Texts: Bhakti in the Śāstric Imagination of Premodernity
BA Bard College, 2004
Religious Studies

EMPLOYMENT

2023 – Postdoctoral Fellowship, Stanford University
Department of Religious Studies
Fall 2021, Spring 2019 Santa Clara University, Department of Religious Studies
Adjunct Faculty

PUBLICATIONS

In progress. “In the Kali Age We Are the Only Brahmins: The Religious and Political Authority of Non-Brahmin Goldsmiths over the Longue Durée.” Modern Asian Studies.
Forthcoming, 2023 “What the Kālamukhas Can Tell Us About Identity, Institutions, and Community in the Early Medieval Deccan.” In The Oxford Companion to Tantric Studies.
2018 “The King Must Protect the Difference: The Juridical Foundations of Medieval Religious Diversity.” Religions 9(4): 1–25.
2018 “Looking Past the Darśanas: Indian Philosophy and the Tantric Knowledge Systems.” In Purusottama Bilimoria, ed., History of Indian Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
In Press “Mataṅga Played his Flute.” In Raffaele Torella, ed., Essays on Tantra from the 15th Annual World Sanskrit Conference.

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2017 “Parabrahman among the Yogins: The Changing Place of Yoga in Advaita Vedānta.” International Journal of Hindu Studies 21(3): 345–389.
2012 “Caught in the Net of Śāstra: Devotion and its Limits in an Evolving Śaiva Corpus.” Journal of Hindu Studies 5(2): 210–231.

AWARDS AND HONORS

2016 – 2017 Ludo and Rosane Rocher Research Fellowship in Sanskrit Studies, American Institute of Indian Studies Junior Research Fellowship
2008 Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, Hindi

INVITED LECTURES

2019 “A Strong Whiff of Specious Reasoning: Scholastic Vedānta as social outcaste in twelfth-century Varanasi.” Age of Vedānta Conference, Stanford University, Nov. 15.
2017 “This Land is Śiva’s, You Cannot Touch it: The Juridical Foundations of Religious Diversity in Medieval India.” Center for the Institute of Developing Societies, New Delhi, August 17–19.
2017 “Teach the Tantras, Pay Your Taxes, Help the Desperate, Feed the People: Nondual Śaivism as a Social Institution in the Medieval Deccan.” Karnatak University, Dharwad, August 10.

SELECT CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

2023 “Pregnant with Possibilities: Hemādri’s Re-enchantment of the Śrāddha Ritual.” American Oriental Society Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, March 10–13.
2022 “Honor Them for They are Not Natural Men: Nonhuman Rights in Pre-modern Śaiva Political Theology.” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, Nov. 20.
2022 “The Path Beyond Caste: Alternative Models of Disciplinarity and Governmentality in the Western Deccan.” Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, Oct. 19.
2022 “On the Unmaking of Institutions: The Unpublished Pratiṣṭhāpaddhati of the Caturvargacintāmaṇi and its Real-world Impact.” American Oriental Society Annual Meeting, March 19.
2021 “An Elephant Let Loose in the City of the Gandharvas: The Vernacularization of Scholastic Philosophy in Early Medieval Maharashtra.” American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, Nov. 20–23.
2021 “Worshipping like Rāma in the Rāmarājya: The Caturvargacintāmaṇi’s Account of the Origin and Making of the Dharmanibandha.” American Oriental Society Annual Meeting, Virtual, March 14.

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2019 “The Knower in the Field: An Introduction to the Tantric Imaginaries of Medieval Maharashtra.” Society for Tantric Studies, Sept. 27–29.
2019 “Sovereign Journeys: Precedent and Sacred Performance in the Deccan.” Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Madison, Wisconsin, Oct. 17–20.
2019 “Skull Songs for Sophisticates.” American Oriental Society Annual Meeting, Chicago, March 15–18.
2018 “Bhakti is the Very Life Breath of Śiva’s Dharma: “Reappraising the History of Devotion and its Social Implications in Light of the Early Śaiva Sources.” American Academy of Religion. Annual Meeting, Chicago, Nov. 17–20.
2018 “Bhakti is the Very Life Breath of Our Dharma: Rethinking Early Modern Śaivism in Light of the Classical Sources.” Annual Conference on South Asia, Oct. 26.
2018 “Whatever He Speaks Becomes Mantra: The Evidence for the Śākta Transmissions Among the Kālamukhas of the Deccan.” 17th World Sanskrit Conference, Vancouver, July 9–13.
2018 “We Belong to the Jāti of the Gods: A Preliminary Study of the Śivadharmavivaraṇa, an Unpublished Work of Non-Brahminical Dharmaśāstra.” American Oriental Society Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, PA, March 16–18.
2018 “Honor them, for they are not Natural men: Non-Human rights and the politics of Freedom in the Unpublished Śivadharmavivaraṇa.” SAGSC XV The Annual South Asia Graduate Student Conference, University of Chicago, Chicago, March 1–2.
2017 “The King of the Yogis on the Tongues of the People: Linguistic and Cultural Translation in the Ocean of Discrimination and Nectar of Discrimination.” 46th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Madison, Wisconsin, October 26– 29, 2017.

SERVICE TO THE FIELD

2021–present Steering Committee, Tantric Studies Unit, American Academy of Religion

LANGUAGES

Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Old Marathi (reading), old Kannada (inscriptions), German (reading), French (reading)

PALEOGRAPHICAL SKILLS

Experience with Uttara Licchavi, Kuṭila, Śāradā, Grantha, Malayalam, Telugu, Nandināgarī scripts.

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