Alexander Rocklin—Visiting Assistant Professor, College of Idaho
alex.k.rocklin@gmail.com
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, don8@uchicago.edu
Stephan Palmié, Professor, Anthropology, University of Chicago, palmie@uchicago.edu
Muzaffar Alam, Professor, SALC, University of Chicago, alam@uchicago.edu
Stephen Patterson, Professor and Chair, Religious Studies, Willamette University, spatters@willamette.edu
alex.k.rocklin@gmail.com
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, don8@uchicago.edu
Stephan Palmié, Professor, Anthropology, University of Chicago, palmie@uchicago.edu
Muzaffar Alam, Professor, SALC, University of Chicago, alam@uchicago.edu
Stephen Patterson, Professor and Chair, Religious Studies, Willamette University, spatters@willamette.edu