Vortrag: The [Hindu] Radhasoami tradition […] in a globalized World, Hamburg, 21.01.2015

Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets, Universität Hamburg, lädt ein zum Vortrag von

Prof. Diana Dimitrova (University of Montreal)
‚The Radhasoami Tradition – Religious and Cultural Identity in a Globalized World‘.

Der Vortrag findet am 21.01.15 um16:15 Uhr im Hörsaal K, Universitätshauptgebäude, Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1.

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Abteilung für Kultur und Geschichte Indiens und Tibets

The Radhasoami Tradition:
Religious and Cultural Identity in a Globalized World

This presentation focuses on the Radhasoami movement in transnational space, specifically in the United States. The focus is on issues pertaining to religion and identity. It discusses the quest of Radhasoami-South Asian-Americans for identity in a new world and for keeping the links with the homeland, and explores the role of media in shaping migrants’ sense of identity, community, space and time. Diana Dimitrova considers several aspects of the globalization of the Radhasoami movement in North America and its complex links with the homeland in South Asia. The religious culture of the Radhasoami movement in India would be unthinkable without the supremacy of the guru as teacher, the community of the sants (saints, poets who seek moka, liberation, in terms of loving devotion and service to a non-manifest god) and the satsag (the spiritual community of the sants). However, with the migration of many members of the Radhasoami to the United States and the creation of centers in North America, the Radhasoami community encountered a major challenge, namely the physical absence of the guru, the need to recreate the satsaṁg and to create sacred space and time under the new circumstances. New media and advanced internet technologies enable the members of the Radhasoami movement in the United States to maintain all contacts with those members of the community who remain in India.

Diana Dimitrova obtained her Ph.D. in South Asian Studies and English philology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and was formerly professor at Michigan State University, Loyola University Chicago, and Emory University (USA) as well as the University of Frankfurt (Germany). She is the author of Western Tradition and Naturalistic Hindi Theatre (Peter Lang, 2004) and Gender.