BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Center for the Study of Religion - UCLA - ECPv6.17.3.1//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://religion.ucla.edu
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Center for the Study of Religion - UCLA
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Los_Angeles
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20210314T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20211107T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20220313T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20221106T090000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0800
TZOFFSETTO:-0700
TZNAME:PDT
DTSTART:20230312T100000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0700
TZOFFSETTO:-0800
TZNAME:PST
DTSTART:20231105T090000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220209T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220209T170000
DTSTAMP:20220208T225101Z
CREATED:20220106T193225Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220208T225101Z
UID:5519-1644422400-1644426000@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Caste Marketing: How Hindu Rituals Sell Brahminical Supremacy
DESCRIPTION:“Caste marketing” can be understood in several ways: a description of how companies market products based on a caste profile of their users or “caste” groups as targeted market. This lecture will focus on the latter and delve into the ways Hindu ritual websites embed savarna (dominant-caste) focused terms\, symbols\, deities\, rituals\, and ideas into their websites such that they become digital repositories of “caste ideology” (Jaiswal 1998). In this sense\, collectively\, these ritual websites become another form of what Thenmozhi Soundarajan has called “digital brahminism”. The terms “caste” and “brahmin” do not appear on these sites\, rather we see “Vedic” and “pandit” appealing to the sense of “caste innocence” held by many liberal\, dominant caste members of South Asian/Hindu diaspora communities. This research shows how Hindu ritual websites use these subtle caste markers to reinforce savarna Hindu traditions as an unmarked “normal” (casteless). \n  \nEvent Co-Sponsored by the UCLA Center for India and South Asia \n  \n\nDr. Dheepa Sundaram (she/her/hers) is an Assistant Professor of Hindu Studies at the University of Denver which sits on the unceded tribal lands of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people. She is a scholar of ritual\, nationalism\, and digital culture in South Asia. Her research examines the formation of Hindu virtual religious publics through online platforms\, social media\, apps\, and emerging technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Specifically\, she is interested in how online mechanisms of meaning-making like hashtags operate through the aggregation of capital\, relying on power\, privilege\, and access to be successful. Much of her work thinks about the savarna logics of virtual platforms and how caste-oppressed\, Adivasi\, and minority religious communities are characterized\, minimized\, and effaced within these spaces. Her current monograph project titled Globalizing Dharma: The Making of a Global Hindu Brand examines how commercial ritual websites fashion a new\, digital canon for Hindu religious praxis\, effectively “branding” religious identities through a neoliberal “Vedicizing” of virtual spaces. \n  \n[gravityform id=”119″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/caste-marketing-how-hindu-rituals-sell-brahminical-supremacy/
LOCATION:Zoom
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR