Fellows 2011-2012

Academic year 2011- 2012 sees one OCHS fellow and two Shivdasani Fellows. The Shivdasani Fellowship exists to enable outstanding scholars of Indian nationality to come and study and teach at Oxford University.

Shivdasani Fellow

Michaelmas:  Professor Bilimoria 

Purushottama Bilimoria, PhD is Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Studies at Deakin University in Australia and Senior Research Fellow, University of Melbourne. Visiting Professor and Lecturer at University of California, Berkeley and Dominican University, San Anselmo, and Shivadasani Fellow of  Oxford University. His areas of specialist research and publications cover classical Indian philosophy and comparative ethics; Continental thought; cross-cultural philosophy of religion, diaspora studies; bioethics, and personal law in India. He is an Editor-in-Chief of Sophia, Journal of Philosophy of Religion, Springer. He also edits a book series with Springer on Sophia: cross-cultural studies in Culture and Traditions, Recent publication is Indian Ethics I, Ashgate 2007; OUP 2008, and Sabdapramana: Word and Knowledge (Testimony) in Indian Philosophy (revised reprint), Delhi: DK PrintWorld 2008; ‘Nietzsche as ‘Europe’s Buddha’ and Asia’s Superman, Sophia, vol 47/3 2008; Postcolonial Philosophy of Religion (with Andrew Irvine, Ken Surin et al) Springer 2009. Teaches and publishes on Hindu religious philosophies. Also works on political philosophy, pertaining to ethics of rights, theories of justice, capabilities, education and gender issues in third world, particularly South Asian, contexts.

Professor Bilimoria is a highly engaging and cheerful individual and it was inspiring to see the amount of ground he covered in six short weeks. He personally tutored 11 students on a wide range of topics and engaged with several professors in various colleges. He also authored several papers and prepared a syllabus on ‘Gandhi and the Civil Rights Movement in America 1893-1993’ for a course he will be teaching in University of California- Berkeley.

Lectures he conducted at the Oxford Centre For Hindu Studies:

• The Logical Illumination of Mīmāṃsā and Nyāya (to Navyanyāya) - The evolution of thinking, metaphysics and theology  (apauruṣeya, apūrva, padārthas, Īśvara, vādavivāda, hetutarka)
• Hinduism’s Transnational Diasaporias*: the view from Oceania - (*aporias of diaspora)
• Indian Practical Ethics: Law, Gender, Justice, Ecological and Bioethical Challenges 

Hilary: Professor M Narasimhachary 

Founder Professor & Head (Retired), Department of Vaishnavism, University of Madras, India. His specialist subjects include the Pre-Ramanuja Religion and Philosophy, Pancharatra Agama Literature, Telugu and Sanskrit Literature and popularisation of Sanskrit as a spoken tongue. He has published a number of articles and monographs in academic journals on topics such as the Samskrita Svapnah, Bhakti & Prapatti in Srivaishnava Philosophy and the Pancaratra-kantakoddhara. Important Publications include: The Contribution of Yaamuna to Visistadvaita [Pub; Jayalakshmi Publications, Hyderabad]; Critical Edition and Study of Yaamuna's Aagamapraamaanya [pub: Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda]; and an English translation of Sri Vedanta Desika's Padukasahasram and all of his 32 Stotras. Prof. Narasimhachary received the Certificate of Honour for Proficiency in Sanskrit from the President of India for the year 2004.

Lectures and Seminars to be conducted at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies:

• Post-Ramanuja Developments in Shri Vaishnavaism
• Readings in Ramanuja’s Sribhashya
• Readings in Kavya

OCHS Visiting Fellow

Hilary: Andrea Arci 

Andrea Acri is from Parma, Italy. He holds a Laurea degree in Oriental Languages and Cultures (Sanskrit) from the University of Rome ‘Sapienza’, and an MA degree in Southeast Asian Languages and Literatures (Old Javanese) from Leiden University (the Netherlands). Before receiving his PhD from the same University in early 2011, he was awarded a J. Gonda Fellowship in Indology at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS, Leiden). He was then granted an Australia Endeavour Award for Postdoctoral Research and a Visiting Fellowship at the School of Culture, History and Language of the College for Asia and the Pacific, the Australian National University (Canberra). 

His main research interests are Śaivism in the Indian Subcontinent and the Indonesian Archipelago (Java and Bali), Hinduism and Indian philosophies, Sanskrit and Old Javanese languages and literatures, and various aspects of the intellectual history of the Indic world. He is the author of Dharma Pātañjala; A Śaiva Scripture from Ancient Java; Studied in the Light of Related Old Javanese and Sanskrit Texts (Gonda Indological Studies XVI, Egbert Forsten Publishing House, 2011), and co-editor (with Helen Creese and Arlo Griffiths) of From Laṅkā Eastwards: The Rāmāyaṇa in the Literature and Visual Arts of Indonesia (KITLV Press, 2011).