Prof. Dr. Jon Keune

Further information about Jon Keune can be found under the following links:

• https://people.cal.msu.edu/keunejon/
• https://michiganstate.academia.edu/JonKeune

Transnational Buddhism and Ambedkarite Migration, Part 2: Nagpur as Nexus and Portal

While in the Religion and Urbanity research group during April-June 2023, I compiled my recent ethnographic research in several global sites to explore the roles of transnational Buddhism in various Ambedkarite diaspora communities. As I complete my MWK fellowship now, I focus on the social and historical forces from the 19th century until today that have shaped the city of Nagpur (central India) into the spiritual capital of the Ambedkarite Buddhist movement and a portal for transnational Buddhist connections. 

• 2021: Shared Devotion, Shared Food: Equality and the Bhakti-Caste Question in Western India. (New York: Oxford University Press).
• 2019: Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia: Insiders, Outsiders and Interlopers, eds. Gil Ben-Herut, Jon Keune & Anne Monius. (New York: Routledge).
• “The Challenge of the Swappable Other: a Framework for Interpreting Otherness in Bhakti Texts,” in Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia, 101-121.
• 2019: “Comparative vs. Hagiology: Two Variant Approaches to the Field” in Religions. 10:10/575, doi:10.3390/rel10100575. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/10/10/575.
• 2017: “Sant Eknāth Caritralekhanācī Aitihāsik Mīmāṁsā” (“Research on Eknāth Biographies” in Marathi), in Santsāhitymīmāṃsā (Investigations into Saint Literature, Festschrift for Dr. Satish Badwe). Ed. Tāher Paṭhān & N. B. Kadam. (Śrīrāmpūr: Śabdālay), 197-219.
• 2016: “Pedagogical Otherness: On the Use of Muslims and Untouchables in Some Hindu Devotional Literature” in Journal of the American Academy of Religion 84:3, 727-749.
• 2015: “Conditions for Historicising Religion: Hindu Saints, Social Change, and Regional Identity in Western India (ca. 1600-1900)” in Historiography and Religion. Ed. Jörg Rüpke and Susanne Rau. (Berlin: de Gruyter), 227-239.
• 2015: “Emphatically Ignoring the Neighbours: the Selective Geographic Orientation of Marathi Bhakti” in Journal of Hindu Studies 8:3, 296-314.
• 2015: “Eknāth in Context: the Literary, Social, and Political Milieus of an Early Modern Poet” in South Asian History and Culture 6:1, 70-86.

Kolleg-Forschungsgruppe (KFG): "Religion and Urbanity: Reciprocal Formations" (FOR 2779)