Karen Pechilis, http://www.drew.edu/religiousstudies/faculty/karen-pechilis
Chair and Professor of Religious Studies
Professor of Asian and Comparative Religions
NEH Distinguished Professor of Humanities
Director of the Humanities Program, 2004-2008
Ph.D., The University of Chicago, 1993
Contact
Faulkner House Room 9
Telephone: (973)408-3124
Fax: (973)408-3991
E-mail: kpechili@drew.edu
Biography
Professor Pechilis explores issues of interpreting the embodied self through poetry,
biography, and practice in devotional traditions of Hinduism. She understands
`devotion’ to be a site for the intersection of wonder and self-expression, and for an
exquisitely participatory impetus, especially in the arts and letters. Over the past
twenty years she has conducted research in Chennai (Madras), south India through
grants from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Fulbright Program, and the
Asian Cultural Council. Her published work, both independent and collaborative,
engages many scholarly discussions about the making of religious tradition, including
interpretive history, translation, cultural analysis, and feminist and gender studies.
Professor Pechilis’ courses on Asian religions explore historical processes in the
development of religions, including master narratives and alternatives to them. Annual
core courses include Religions of India and Religions of China and Japan. Elective
courses include Women in Asian Religions, Religion in Modern Novels from India, and
Classical Devotional Arts of India. Her comparative courses engage a central theme with
which to explore similarities and differences across Asian and Abrahamic traditions.
Courses include pilgrimage, marriage in world religions, and eastern and western art.
For four years (2004-08), Professor Pechilis directed the Humanities Program at Drew,
an innovative interdisciplinary program designed especially for college
students. Professor Pechilis’ special interest was to foreground global contacts among
cultures considered in Humanities Program courses. All courses in the program are
team-taught by the Director and a professor with subject expertise; many Humanities
disciplines contribute to the program. Each semester the program offers a course on a
period in Western history. Each fall the program offers a course that recognizes
contributions of cultures across the globe to world and Western history (Africa, Asia,
Latin America, Middle East). Each spring the program offers a half-semester current
issues course that considers a timely topic from multi-disciplinary perspectives including
Arts, Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences. The Humanities Program website is
at: http://depts.drew.edu/hum/.
Recent Publications & Professional Activities
Interpreting Devotion: The Poetry and Legacy of a Classical Female Bhakti Saint of
India. This book theorizes bhakti as a devotional subjectivity that is created in the
poetry of Karaikkal Ammaiyar and contoured in an authoritative medieval biography of
her as well as present-day festival celebrations in her honor. Forthcoming Dec. 2011 at
Routledge.
“Current Approaches to Bhakti,” pp. 107-121 in Jessica Frazier, ed., The Continuum
Companion to Hinduism. London: Continuum Publishing, 2011
“Spreading Śakti,” pp. 97-120 in Tracy Pintchman and Rita D. Sherma, eds., Woman
and Goddess in Hinduism: Reinterpretations and Re-envisionings. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2011
Special Section on “Encounters in Ethnography Today” in Method and Theory in the
Study of Religion 21:1 (2009). Convener and Contributor of Introduction and Article,
“Experiencing the Mango Festival as a Ritual Dramatization of Hagiography” (pp. 1-2,
50-65)
Special Section on “Feminist Theory and the Study of South Asian Religions” in the
Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 24:1 (Sp 2008): 5-71. Convener and Contributor
of Introduction and Article, “Chosen Moments: Mediation and Direct Experience in the
Life of the Classical Tamil Saint, Karaikkal Ammaiyar” (pp. 5-11, 11-31)
Special Issue on “Bodily Transformations Across Indian Religions.” International Journal
of Hindu Studies 10:2 (August 2006). Guest Editor and Contributor of Introduction and
Article, “The Story of the Classical Tamil Woman Saint, Karaikkal Ammaiyar: A
Translation of Her Story from Cekkilar’s Periya Puranam” (pp. 173-86)
The Graceful Guru: Hindu Female Gurus in India and the United States. Oxford
University Press, 2004. Editor and Contributor of Introduction (“Hindu Female Gurus in
Historical and Philosophical Context” pp. 3-49) and Article on “Gurumayi: The Play of
Shakti and Guru” (pp. 219-243)
The Sensuous and the Sacred: Chola Bronzes from South India. Vidya Dehejia with
essays by Richard H. Davis, R. Nagaswamy and Karen Pechilis Prentiss. American
Federation of Arts and University of Washington Press, 2002. Contributor of Article
“Joyous Encounters: Tamil Bhakti Poets and Images of the Divine” (pp. 65-79)
The Embodiment of Bhakti. Oxford University Press, 1999. Author
Steering Committee, Conference on the Study of Religions of India, 2010-Present
Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession, American Academy of Religion
2003-2008
Book Review Editor, International Journal of Hindu Studies, June 2006-Present
Translations of Classical Tamil Language Texts into English:
Tevaram (devotional poetry), in The Embodiment of Bhakti (OUP 1999): 157-188
Tiruvarutpayan (couplets on divine grace), in The Embodiment of Bhakti: 189-209
Tirumuraikantapuranam (story of the making of a canon), in International Journal of
Hindu Studies 5:1 (April 2001): 1-44
Periya Puranam-Story of Nantanar (hagiography), in Eleanor Zelliot and Rohini MokashiPunekar, eds., Untouchable Saints: An Indian Phenomenon (New Delhi: Manohar,
2005): 95-107
Periya Puranam-Story of Karaikkal Ammaiyar (hagiography), in International Journal of
Hindu Studies 10:2 (September 2006)
The poetry of female saint and author Karaikkal Ammaiyar and new translation of her
hagiography in Interpreting Devotion (see above)