Brian Pennington
Director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society and Professor of Religious Studies
Department: Center for the Study of Religion, Culture and Society
Email: bpennington4@elon.edu
Phone number: (336) 278-5988
Brief Biography
Brian K. Pennington is a historian of modern Hinduism and theorist of interreligious relations. His primary research interests are in colonial-era religion in India, the history of religion in South Asia, religion and violence, and contemporary religious change in India. He is the author of Was Hinduism Invented?: Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion (Oxford UP 2004/2007), editor of Teaching Religion and Violence (Oxford UP 2012), and co-editor, with Amy L. Allocco of Ritual Innovation: Strategic Interventions in South Indian Religion (SUNY Press, 2018). His current book in progress, entitled God's Fifth Abode: Entrepreneurial Hinduism in the Indian Himalayas, is based on over a decade of field research in the pilgrimage city of Uttarkashi.
Pennington has served three terms on the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion (AAR), including on its Executive Committee. He has also been a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Hindu-Christian Studies, the Executive Committee for the Conference on the Study of Religions of India (CSRI), which he currently chairs, and as President of the American Academy of Religion, Southeast Region. He is Area Advisor for Modern Hinduism for Oxford Bibliographies.
News & Notes
Education
Ph.D., Emory University (History of Religion and Theology)
M.T.S., Candler School of Theology, Emory University
B.A., Georgetown UniversityEmployment History
Elon University 2014-
Maryville College, Maryville, TN 1998-2014
University of Tennessee, Chattanooga 1997-98
Courses Taught
Publications
Recent publications include:
BOOKS
Co-editor with Amy L. Allocco, Strategic Interventions: Ritual Innovation in South Asian Religion Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2018.
Editor, Teaching Religion and Violence. American Academy of Religion Teaching Religion Series. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Was Hinduism Invented?: Britons, Indians, and the Colonial Construction of Religion. Oxford University Press, 2005; paperback ed., 2007.
BOOK CHAPTERS
“A Divine Dust-up: Diverging Trajectories of Local Gods in Garhwal,” in Sweetening and Intensification: Currents Shaping Hindu Practices, edited by Amy L. Allocco and Xenia Zeiler. Albany: SUNY Press (forthcoming 2025).
“The Interreligious Studies Agenda: Three Dilemmas,” in The Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies, edited by Lucinda Mosher, 15-23. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2022.
“Mentored Undergraduate Research: A Signature Pedagogy for Interreligious Studies,” with Amy L. Allocco, in The Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies, edited by Lucinda Mosher, 358-69. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2022.
“(Neo)liberal Challenges,” in Interreligious Studies: Dispatches from a Field, edited by Hans Gustafson, 178-84. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2020.
"Constructing Interreligious Studies: Thinking Critically about Interfaith Studies and the Interfaith Movement," co-authored with Amy L. Allocco and Geoffrey Claussen, in Towards a Field of Interfaith Studies, eds. Eboo Patel, Jennifer Peace, and Noah Silverman. (forthcoming, Beacon Press, 2018).
"Village Widow/Town Priestess: Innovating Ritual Power in a Pilgrimage Economy,” in Ritual Innovation in South Asia, eds. Pennington and Allocco, 171-89. Albany, NY SUNY Press, 2018.
"Reform and Revival, Innovation and Enterprise. A Tale of Modern Hinduism." In The Protestant Reformation in a Context of Global History Religious Reforms and World Civilizations, eds. Heinz Schilling and Silvana Seidel, 149-72. Bologna: Societa` editrice il Mulino, 2017.
“Hinduism in North India,” in Hinduism in the Modern World, ed. Brian A. Hatcher, 31-47. New York: Routledge, 2016.
ARTICLES
“An Elusive Himalayan Secularism: Managing Pilgrimage in Garhwal, 1817-2021.” International Journal of Hindu Studies (forthcoming 2025)
“The Haunt of Authenticity: Rupa Viswanath’s The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion and the Social in Modern India.” Roundtable of papers invited by Modern Asian Studies (forthcoming).
“The Unseen Hand of An Underappreciated Law: The Doniger Affair and Its Aftermath.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84/2 (June 2016): 323-336.
“The Pitfalls of Trying to Be Different,” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 26 (2013): 10-17.
Presentations
Recent presentations and lectures include:
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Vanishing Images and Invisible Inscriptions: Trace Himalayan Histories of North India.” International Society for Academic Research on Shamanism, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy, June 5-8, 2024.
“Hindu-Christian Relations, Hindu-Christian Studies, and the Institutions that Sustain Them.” Society for Hindu-Christian Studies, San Antonio, TX, November 17, 2023.
“An Elusive Himalayan Secularism: Managing Pilgrimage in Garhwal, 1817-2021.” European Association for the Study of Religion, Vilnius, Lithuania, September 7, 2023.
“Engaged Hindu Publics and the Politics of Religious Difference on Campus” (Roundtable Participant), American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver, CO, Nov. 21, 2022.
“Contingent Labor and the American Academy of Religion,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, November 20, 2021.
“A Divine Dust-up: Diverging Trajectories of Local Gods in Garhwal,” Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison (virtual conference), October 23, 2021.
"Sketching the Landscape for Public Religion Scholarship," Luce Foundation grant report with Andrew Monteith, Anandi Silva Knuppel, and Pamela D. Winfield, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, online, November 28-December 20, 2020.
"Building A 'Public-Focused' Future for Non-Sectarian Undergraduate Religious Studies Programs," Luce Foundation grant report with Laura Ammon, Ann M. Burlein, Anandi Silva Knuppel, Amanda Mbuvi, Andrew Monteith, Pamela D. Winfield, Joseph Witt, and Cuong Mai, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, online, November 28-December 20, 2020.
“Economies of Modern Hinduism and the Ethics of their Interpretation,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, November 23, 2019.
“The River and the Markets: Assessing Entrepreneurial Religion along the Ganga,” South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Religion and Culture, Dhaka, Bangladesh, June 13, 2019
"Having it Both Ways: Critique and Complicity in the Further Service of Secularity," American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Nov. 17-21, 2017.
“The Once- and Never-Dead: The Garhwali Devta of Uttarakhand, India,” Deities, Spirits, and Demons in Vernacular Beliefs and Rituals in Asia, Tartu, Estonia, Nov. 8-10, 2017.
"A Refuge for the Millennium: Contested Histories of Uttarkashi (Uttarakhand, India)," South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Culture and Religion, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, July 9-12, 2017.
"Cultivating Critical Thinking and Self-reflection about Diversity through Short-term Study Abroad," With Amy L. Allocco, AsiaNetwork, Chicago, IL, Apr. 7-9, 2017.
“Questioning the Serpent King: Performance, Pilgrimage and Memory in the Hindu Himalayas,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, Nov. 17-22, 2016
“The Haunt of Authenticity: Rupa Viswanath’s 'The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion and the Social in Modern India,'” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, Nov. 17-22, 2016
"Thinking Critically with Interfaith Studies/Thinking Critically about Interfaith Studies," with Geoffrey Claussen and Jeffrey Pugh, Interfaith Studies: Curricular Programs and Core Competencies Conference sponsored by Interfaith Youth Core, Thousand Oaks, CA, Mar. 13-15, 2016.
“Unstable Tradition: Heritage and the Religious in the Garhwal Himalaya of North India,” South- and Southeast Association for the Study of Religion and Culture Biannual Meeting, Colombo, Sri Lanka (June 2015)
“God’s Fifth Abode: Entrepreneurial Hinduism in the Indian Himalayas,” Association for Asian Studies Conference, Chicago (March 2015)
“Climate Change, Natural Disaster, and Anti-theodicy in the Indian Himalayas,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA (November 2014)
INVITED LECTURES
“A Himalayan Tsunami: Risk, Disaster, and Retribution in the Land of the Gods,” Tel Aviv University, Department of East Asian Studies, June 7, 2022.
“Religion, Risk, and Climate Collapse in the Uttarakhand Himalayas,” University of Vienna, Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, March 25, 2022.
“The Best-laid Plans of Mice and (Holy) Men: Failure and Entrepreneurial Hinduism in the Indian Himalayas,” University of Heidelberg, South Asia Institute, June 7, 2019.
“Lies, Failures, and Disasters: Entrepreneurial Religion in an Era of Globalization and Climate Change,” Illinois Wesleyan University, April 10, 2019.
“Religion, Heritage, and Memory in a Developing State.” Shri Jai Narain Post Graduate College, Lucknow University. Lucknow, UP, India, Jan. 25, 2018.
“Ethnography in Historical Method." Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University. Srinagar, Uttarakhand, India, Jan. 23, 2018.
"Interreligious Education and the Interfaith Movement: The Promise and Perils of a Complicated Partnership." Keynote address for the High Impact Learning and Interreligious Encounter conference, College of Charleston. Charleston, SC, Mar. 24-25, 2017
“Reform and Revival; Innovation and Enterprise: A Tale of Modern Hinduism.” Plenary address for the conference, “The Protestant Reformation in a Context of Global History: Religious Reforms and World Civilizations,” sponsored by the Italian-German Historical Institute, Trento, Italy, Oct. 29, 2016.
“Making a Himalayan Abode: Conflict, Aspiration and Power at a Garhwal Shrine.” Keynote address for the conference, “To Take Place: Culture, Religion, and Home-making in and beyond South Asia.” University of Madras, Chennai, India, July 28, 2016.
“Questioning Heritage: Folk Performance in the Garhwali Himalayas.” Dr. Tmt. Sri Indhrani Sridharan Endowment Lecture. Etiraj College for Women. Chennai, India, July 22, 2016.
“Thinking Critically about Interreligious Encounter: The Case of Modern Hindus and Christians.” Department of Christian Studies, University of Madras, Chennai, India, July 7, 2015.