I received the following announcement from Brian Black:

We invite proposals for papers for the 43rd Spalding Symposium on Indian Religions, which will be hosted by Lancaster University, 12-14 April 2019.

The theme this year is ‘gender’. Our purview includes both religions of South Asian origin wherever in the world they are being practised, and those of non South Asian origin present within South Asia. We welcome papers based upon all research methods, including textual, historical, ethnographic, sociological and philosophical.

Presenters are allocated forty minutes for their paper and twenty minutes for discussion, and will normally be expected to pay their own conference registration and expenses. The Symposium fee, including food and accommodation, is predicted to be £185, with a non-residential rate of £90. Registration details will be released in the new year. Limited financial assistance may be available for early career scholars or scholars from South Asia. If your participation depends upon such support please indicate this when you submit your abstract.

We also welcome proposals from doctoral students, who will be allocated twenty minutes for their paper and ten minutes for discussion, and offered free registration at the Symposium (including accommodation). Doctoral student papers do not have to address the theme of gender, but are more than welcome to do so.

We are delighted to announce our keynote speakers: Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Fellow of the British Academy and Distinguished Professor of Comparative Religion and Philosophy at Lancaster University, and Sondra Hausner, Professor of Anthropology of Religion at the University of Oxford. Professor Ram-Prasad will offer us a paper entitled ‘Anger and Gender: A Sideways Look Through Rasa Theory at Draupadī and Bhīma’, while Professor Hausner will speak on ‘Gender, Ritual, and Hierarchy: Ascetic Inversions at the Great Indian Kumbh Mela’.

If you would like to give a paper, please send a title and abstract (maximum 500 words) to Dr Brian Black, b.black@lancaster.ac.uk, by Friday 16 November 2018.

Further information about the Symposium can be found on our website, spaldingsymposium.org, where you can also sign up to receive details of the programme and booking information when available.