I am the program co-ordinator for the university's course offerings on religion and teach introductory courses on world religions, religion and popular culture, and death and grieving in world religions.
My research interests revolve around tracing the the history of Hindu and Muslim religious communities from the Mughal Period into the early decades of the twentieth century. My particular interest has been in tracing the history of the Hindu devotional community known as the Vallabha Sampradaya (popularly known as the Pushti Marga) as a case study to understand the dynamics of religious patronage in Northern and Western India.
My other interests revolve around the globalization of Hinduism by Hindu spiritual teachers and the changing styles around the performance of devotional music by professional classical and non-classical performers in the Indian subcontinent.
University of Ottawa: Postdoctorate in Religious Studies
Professional affiliations
Member of the Regional Bhakti Scholars Network
Member of the Canadian South Asian Studies Association-Association-canadienne d'études sud-asiatiques (CSASA-ACESA)
“A Community of Grace: The Social and Theological World of the Puṣṭi Mārga” in the Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 69, no.2 (2006), pp. 225-242.
“The Darbar, the British, and the Runaway Mahārāja: Religion and Politics in Nineteenth Century India” in South Asia Research, Vol. 27, no.3 (2007), pp. 271-291.
“The Movement of Bhakti Along a North-West Axis: Tracing the History of the Puṣṭi Mārga Between the Sixteenth and Nineteenth Centuries” in The International Journal of Hindu Studies;. Vol. 1, no. 3 (2007), pp. 299-318.
“Hinduism, Gurus, and Globalization” in Religion, Globalization, and Culture, Peter Beyer and Lori Beaman, eds. (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, E.J Brill, 2007), pp. 485-502.
“Dominance of Marginal Relations; Hindu Males” (co-written with Peter Beyer) in Peter Beyer and Rubina Ramji, eds. Growing Up Canadian: Hindu, Muslims, and Buddhists (Kingston: McGill-Queen Press, 2013), pp. 167-191.
“Krishna Devotion in Western India” in Contemporary Hinduism, P. Pratap Kumar, ed. (Durham: Acumen Publishing, 2013), pp. 138-147.
“The Mughal Empire” in Knut Jacobson, ed. The Encyclopedia of Hinduism, Vol. IV (Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2013), pp. 81-95.
“Muslims as Devotees and Outsiders: Images of Muslims in the Vārtā Literature of the Puṣṭi Mārga” in Vasudha Dalmia and Munis Faruqi, eds. Religious Interactions in Mughal India, (Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 319-342.
“Vallabha” in Oxford Bibliographies Online (2015); DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399318-0160.
"From Vaiṣṇavas to Hindus: The Redefinition of the Vallabha Sampraday in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries," International Journal of Indic Religions: Vol. 2: Iss. 3, (2020), Article 3. https://digitalcommons.shawnee.edu/indicreligions/vol2/iss3/3