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ALEXANDER ROCKLIN
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CV

​Alexander Rocklin—Visiting Assistant Professor, College of Idaho
[email protected]
 
Education
    University of Chicago Divinity School                                            2014
        PhD, History of Religions, awarded with distinction
        Dissertation Committee:
        Advisor: Wendy Doniger
        Readers: Stephan Palmié
                        Muzaffar Alam
 
    University of Chicago Divinity School                                            2007
        MA, Religious Studies
 
    Pitzer College Nepal                                                                         February-June 2002
 
    Wesleyan University, Middletown CT                                            2003
        BA, Major in the Study of Religion
 
Doctoral Examinations                                                                     May 2011
    South Asian Religions
        Examiners: Wendy Doniger and Muzaffar Alam
    Religions of the Caribbean
        Examiners: Stephan Palmié and Wendy Doniger
    Contemporary Theory
        Examiners: Matthew Kapstein and Christian Wedemeyer
    Colonialism and Globalization
        Examiner: Malika Zegal
 
Publications
     Monographs:
          The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad, (University of North Carolina Press, Spring 2019).
    Peer Reviewed Articles:
         “‘A Hindu is white although he is black’: Hindu Alterity and the Performativity of Religion and Race between the US and the Caribbean,” Comparative             Studies in Society and History, vol. 58, no. 1, January 2016.
        “Obeah and the Politics of Religion’s Making and Unmaking in Colonial Trinidad.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. vol. 83, no. 3, Sept. 2015.
        “Imagining Religions in a Trinidad Village: The Africanity of the Spiritual Baptist Movement and the Politics of Comparing Religions.” New West Indian             Guide, vol. 86 no. 1 & 2 (2012).
    Invited Contributions:
        “Diaspora in Trinidad.” Oxford Bibliographies in Hinduism. Ed. Tracy Coleman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
        “Hinduism in Trinidad and Tobago,” Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions, Ed. Henri Gooren. Springer, 2015.
    Articles:
        “Pninelungenlied: The Siegfried Myth in Nabokov's Pnin.” The Nabokovian 50 (Spring 2003).
    Book Reviews:
        N. Fadeke Castor. Spiritual Citizenship: Transnational Pathways from Black Power to Ifá in Trinidad. New West Indian Guide, 93: 1&2 (2019).
        C. S. Adcock's The Limits of Tolerance: Indian Secularism and the Politics of Religious Freedom, History of Religions, 54: 02 (November 2014).
    Manuscripts under Review and in Preparation:
        Becoming Hindu: The Imposture of Religion and the Power of India in the Afro Atlantic World, (Manuscript in preparation).
        “African Hindus and the Witchcraft of Hindu Religion in the Caribbean,” (Article in preparation for special issue of The Journal of Religion).
    Online Publications:
        “The intimacies of ‘religion,’” Religion Bulletin, Bulletin for the Study of Religion,  (March 21, 2016).
        “Haunting Violence: Obeah and the Management of the Living and the Dead in Colonial Trinidad.” Religion and Culture Web Forum. University of
        Chicago, (November, 2013). Responses by Paul Christopher Johnson and Aisha Khan.
        “Religion Beyond the Pale.” Sightings, The Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, University of Chicago (January 13, 2013).
 
Teaching Experience
    Visiting Assistant Professor, College of Idaho                                           Fall 2018-present
        Into to World Religions, Ghosts, Zombies, and the Unquiet Dead, Buddhism, Hinduism
    Visiting Assistant Professor, Willamette University                                  Fall 2015-2018
        Intro to Religious Studies, Religion in America, Hinduism, Race and Religion, Intro to Islam, Individual Directed Study in Colonialism and Secularisms, Religion
        in Latin America

    Instructor, Northwestern University                                                           Winter 2015
        Introduction to Hinduism
    Instructor, Teaching Fellow, University of Chicago                                   Spring 2013
        Designed and taught undergrad course Race and Religion in the Americas
    Instructor, Teaching Fellow, Graham School, U of Chicago                    Winter 2013
        Designed and taught Islam in America through Literature
    Teaching Assistant, Many Ramayanas                                                         Winter 2010
    Teaching Assistant, Classical Theories of Religion                                       Fall 2010
           
Grants and Fellowships Awarded
    American Academy of Religion Individual Research Grant                       May-Aug 2019
    NEH Summer Institute: Challenges of Teaching World Religions             July 2017
    William Rainey Harper Dissertation Fellowship                                          2013-2014
    Martin Marty Center Dissertation Fellowship                                             2012-2013
    Alma Wilson Teaching Fellowship                                                                 2012-2013
    IIE Graduate Fellowship for International Study, Mellon Foundation     2011-2012
    Fulbright-Hayes DDRA                                                                                     2011-2012 (Cancelled)          
    COSAS Pre-Dissertation Research Fellowship                                             Summer 2010
    FLAS Urdu Year Fellowship (declined to take other funding)                   2008-2009
    FLAS/AIIS Urdu Fellowship                                                                              Summer 2008   
    FLAS Hindi Year Fellowship                                                                             2007-2008
    FLAS Hindi Fellowship                                                                                      Summer 2007
 
Presentations
    Co-organizer and presenter, “Draupadi through the Fire: The Performativity of Religion, Normative Hinduism, and the Decline of Old Style Firewalking
        in Colonial Trinidad,” Panel: Contesting Identity and Authority in Caribbean Hinduism, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2018.
    “Hindu Cosmopolitanism of the Afro-Atlantic: Popular Healing and the Complexity of Racial Religious Identifications in Colonial Trinidad.” The
        Transnational Religious Expression: Between Asia and North America Seminar, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2018.
    Organizer, chair, and presenter, “Religion, Race, and the Secular in the (Post)Colonial Caribbean” panel, Caribbean Studies Association Conference, June
        2018.
    Co-organizer and presenter, “Constructing and Contesting Race in Hindu Religions” panel, Hinduism Unit and Religion, Colonialism, and
        postcolonialism Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2017.
    Organizer, chair, and presenter “Queering Religion in the Caribbean and Beyond” panel, Caribbean Studies Association Conference, June 2017.
    “The Efficacy of Elsewhere: Hindu Identification, Obeah, and Politics of Categorization in the Colonial Caribbean.” Association of Caribbean Historians      
   
    Conference, May 2017.
    “Black Mohammedans, White Hindoos, and Tiger Mahatmas: Racial Passing and the Imposture of Religion in the Early Twentieth Century US.” Panel:
        Race, identity, and Hindu religions in North America. American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2016.
    “Race-Making among the Quick and the Dead; or, the Racecraft of Hindoo Magic.” Co-Sponsored Panel: Afro-American Religious History Group and
        Critical Theory and Discourses on Religion Group, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2016.
    “African Hindus and the Witchcraft of Hindu Religion in the Caribbean.” Invited paper at The African Religions in the Americas Conference, University of
        Chicago, May 20th and 21th 2016.
    “Making Laborers into Sadhus: The Politics of the Category Religion in a Plantation Economy.” Panel Co-sponsored session, Law, Religion, and Culture
        Group and Religion, Colonialism, and Postcolonialism Group, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2015.
    “‘All the world loves a lover’: Gender, Affect, and Discipline in the Physical Cultural Program of the Hindu Mahasabha in Colonial Trinidad.” Panel:
        ‘Affective Blooms’: Feelings, Intimacies, and Bodies in Hindu Traditions, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2015.
    “Philosophical Hindus and the Racecraft of Witches: African Trinidadian Popular
    Healing and the Complexity of Racial Religious Identification in Colonial Trinidad.” New Scholarship on the Black Atlantic Symposium, University of Utah,
        October 2015.
    “Outlawing Ritual: Religion, Labor, and the Politics of Classification in Colonial Trinidad.” Panel: Rendering the Sacred Illegal: Conflicts over Space in
        South Asia and its Diaspora, Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin Madison, October 2015.
    “Spirits and Science: Western Esotericism, Obeah, and the Politics of African Trinidadian Popular Healing in Colonial Trinidad.” Panel: The Afro-
        American Religious History Group and Western Esotericism, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 2014.
    “The Devil Gone Mad: Psychology of Religion and the Regulation of Spirit Possession in Colonial Trinidad.” Panel: “What Possessed You:
         Sovereignties, Selves, and Spirits,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, December 2014.
    “Racial Conversions: Afro-Trinidadian Hindus and Myths of Racial Origins.” Panel: “Racial and Religious Border Crossings:  Negotiating Muslim, Hindu,
        and Afro-Christian Identifications in the Caribbean,” Caribbean Studies Association Conference, June 2014.
    “Passing as Religion: The Colonial Secular and Religious Conversion in 19th Century Trinidad.” Is the Postcolonial Postsecular? Conference Syracuse
        University Department of Religion, September 2013.
    “Cow Spirits and Sun Worshippers: Obeah and the Politics of (Not-)Religion Making.” Panel: “Orisha, Obeah and Kali Mai: Narratives of Ethnicity,
        Religion and Development in Trinidad and Guyana,” Caribbean Studies Association Conference, June 2013.
    "Translating Religion: Labor, Conversion, and Ritual.” University of Chicago Workshop on Latin America and the Caribbean. November 2012.
    “Outlawing Religion: Contesting Religion, Labor, and the Politics of Classification in 19th Century Trinidad.” Panel: “Empire and Alterity,” delivered at
        SAGSC: South Asia Graduate  Student Conference, Spring 2010.
 
Relevant Work Experience
    Editorial Assistant, History of Religions journal                             2009-2011
    Field Coordinator, CASA, Chiapas, Mexico                                     Sept 2003-June 2004
    Member, Chiapas Independent Media Center                                 Oct. 2003-June 2004
 
Professional Membership
    American Academy of Religion
    Caribbean Studies Association
    Association of Caribbean Historians
 
Languages
    Hindi, Urdu, Spanish: basic speaking and advanced reading knowledge
    German, French: basic reading knowledge
 
Areas of Interest
    South Asian religions, Religions of the Caribbean, African American religions, Contemporary Theory, Critical Race Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Religion
    and Nationalism, History of the Study of Religion, History of Anthropology
 
References
    Wendy Doniger, Professor, History of Religions, University of Chicago, [email protected]
    Stephan Palmié, Professor, Anthropology, University of Chicago, [email protected]
    Muzaffar Alam, Professor, SALC, University of Chicago, [email protected]
    Stephen Patterson, Professor and Chair, Religious Studies, Willamette University, [email protected]

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