Sukanya Sarbadhikary

Assistant Professor

BA Sociology (Presidency College, Calcutta Univeristy, 2005)

MA Sociology (Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2007)

UGC NET (2007)

Research Training Programme (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2008)

PhD Social Anthropology (University of Cambridge, December, 2012)

I stood first in BA (Presidency College, Calcutta University, 2005), MA (J.N.U, 2007), and the Research Training Programme (CSSSC, 2008), and went on to do my PhD in Social Anthropology from Trinity College, Cambridge. My research was funded by the Gates Cambridge Trust and Overseas Research Studentship.  I joined the Department of Sociology, Presidency University, in 2012.

I did research with the Vaishnavas of Bengal, and focussed on the varied ways in which different groups of Vaishnavas understand, construct and experience sacred place. The bigger question I tried to raise and answer was whether we can conceptualise space and place not only in terms of physical geographical locations, but also as interiorised in embodied affects of the mind, body, and senses.  Thus my research looked at complex relations and overlaps among spatial experiences, place-making, imagination, the body, and senses, and especially how places are brought into being through sonic and musical sensations. My book, The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism (University of California Press, series: South Asia Across the Disciplines) was published in 2015.  

I also work more broadly in the area of South Asian devotion, including Orissan Jagannath worldviews, and tantric-devotional lifeworlds.I am also passionately interested in aesthetics and music, and their relations with sacred embodiment. I have worked on a range of devotional instruments, communities involved in their making, playing, listening, meditating, and associated traditions of sonic metaphysics in Bengal. 

With Prof. Dipesh Chakrabarty and as part of a collaborative project between the University of Chicago and Presidency University, I am currently working on the overlaps of the marine and social lives of the turbinella pyrum (domestic conch), and what becomes of this long-held sacred object with the experiences of fast changing ecological habitats and climate. 

Administration

I have served on the Presidency Univeristy Committee Against Sexual Harrassment from 24.10.2016 to 19.11.2019. 

I have served as Convenor, Gender Sensitization and Prevention of Sexual Harrassment Committee (GSPSHC) from 20.11.2019, and am member of GSPSHC from 3.5.2023 to present. 

At the UG level, I teach Sociology of Religion, and at the PG level, I offer a full paper titled, Religion and Embodiment, and co-teach a course on Philosophy and the Social Sciences. My PhD students work on a range of issues primarily involving ethnographic perspectives on Bengal's (and eastern India's) religious-aesthetic lives, and philosophical lifeworlds. 

Presidency University

Utsaleena Das, 'Chhou and Everyday Life in Purulia and Bankura, West Bengal' (Awarded, 2023)

Salini Saha, 'Fertility, Worship and Monsoon among Agricultural Communities of Bardhaman, West Bengal' (Awarded, 2023)

Aishani Ganguly, 'Performing Ragurajpur: Studying Village Through its Performance Traditions' (2019-present)

External examination and supervision

Examiner of M.Phil dissertation, ‘Born to Procreate: Figuring the Maternal Bodies in Assisted Reproductive Technology’, by Pinaki Roy, submitted to the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2013.

Examiner of M.Phil dissertation ‘(Re)inscribing caste in urban spaces: Microhistory of a Dalit Buddhist neighbourhood in Bombay’, by Geeta Thatra, submitted to the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2015.

Local Supervisor, John Fahy, PhD candidate at the department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge 2013

Local Supervisor, Aniket De, Undergraduate student, Tufts University, 2014-15

External Member, Doctoral Advisory Committee of PhD candidate, Souri Mazumder, ‘Role of Mythology in Learning and Identity Formation among Adolescents: A Study of Two Schools in Bengal’, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.

External Member, Doctoral Advisory Committee of PhD candidate, Shamayita Ghosh, 'Forging Objects, Crafting Communities: Dokra Artisans in Contemporary West Bengal', CSSSC.

I also act as a Research Advisory Committee member for several PhD candidates in the social science and language departments of Presidency University. 

N/A

Book:

The Place of Devotion: Siting and Experiencing Divinity in Bengal-Vaishnavism. 2015. Oakland: University of California Press.

(Series: South Asia Across the Disciplines)

Edited Volume

Rochona Majumdar, Sukanya Sarbadhikary and Upal Chakrabarti (eds.) The Hindu/Presidency College: Excellence and Exclusion (Cambridge University Press, 2025) (Forthcoming)

Occasional Paper:

"Catastrophe and the spiralling imaginations of survival" (Institute of Language Studies and Research Kolkata, 2025)

Journal Articles:

" 'Jibono jokhono shukaye jay', Bhabona Dharay Esho". 2025. Alochona Chakra (Forthcoming) 

"Abyakto Lohori: Ashabdo, Shabdo o Sankhyar Abchhaya". September 2023. Kolkata 21, 3, 100-124.

Co-authored with Dishani Roy, ‘Gender, Education and Citizenship as Ideological Weapons of an ‘Army of Holy Women’ in Bengal: The Matua Matri Sena’. 2023. Religions, 14 (6).

‘Unravelling of the Number 16 in Corporeality, Percussion, and the Bengali Hindu Cosmos: The Experience of the Body/Mrdanga'. August 2022. Journal of Hindu Studies. Volume 15, Issue 2, 168–190. 

'Religious Belief through drum-sound experience: Bengal's Devotional Dialectic of the Classical Goddess and Indigenous God'.  August, 2022. Religions 13/8.

Link: https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/13/8/707

‘Prithak Pranav, The Krishna-Kali conundrum: Historical and Literary complexities of Sectarian Bengal‘. Published Online: 23 May 2022. South Asian History and Culture. Volume 14, Issue 4, 2023, pp 504-28.  (Special Issue: Siddarth Satpathy ed.‘Between History and Literature: Essays for Dipesh Chakraborty’).

"Hinghsa hoye Hongshomantra, Khettro hoye Khettrogyo, Gita hoye Uttor-Gita: Ohong er Jatra," 2022. Anirban Bhattacharya (ed) Mahabharate Hingsha  Alochona Chakra, 236-252 (ISBN: 9789383208111).

"Shankho-Sangsarer Sthan-Kal-Patro ebong Uttor-Ouponibeshik Bhabnar ek Punormulyayan", July 2021. Tattvatalaash 1, 51-72. (ISBN: 9789849581406).

‘The Breathing Body, Whistling Flute, and Sonic Divine: Oneness and Distinction in Bengal Vaishnavism's Devotional Aesthetics’. 2021. Religions 12 (9).  (Special Issue on 'Tuning in the Sacred: Studies in Music and World Religions', ed. by Guy L. Beck.)

‘Touch, Untouch and the Depositions of Uchhishta’. 9 November 2019. Economic and Political Weekly. Volume 54. Number 44. pp 15-17.

'Uddanda: The Aesthetic Yardstick of Meditation, Madness and Time in Chaitanya's Rathyatra dance'. Spring 2019. Journal of Vaishnava Studies. Spring 2019. Volume 27. Number 2. pp 49-62.

Shankh-er Shongshar, Afterlive Everyday: Religious Experience of the Evening Conch andd Goddesses in Bengali Hindu Homes'. January 2019. Religions. pp 1-19 (Special issue: 'Religious Experience in the Hindu Tradition ed. June McDaniel)

Reprinted as book: June McDaniel (ed.) Religious Experience in the Hindu Tradition. 2019. MDPI.

https://www.mdpi.com/books/pdfview/book/1464

‘The Body-Mind Challenge: Theology and Phenomenology in Bengal-Vaishnavisms’. November 2018. Modern Asian Studies. Volume 52. Issue 6. pp 2080-2108. (Published Online: 20 July 2018)

‘Discovering Gupta-Vrindavan: Finding Selves and Places in the Storied Landscape'. February 2013. Contributions to Indian Sociology. Volume 47 Number 1. pp 113-140.

‘Hearing the Community and Nation: A History of Vaishnavism in Bengal as sung through traditions of kirtan music’. 2012. Jadavpur University Journal of Sociology. Volume 5. pp 62-73.

Chapters in edited volumes:

Sarbadhikary, Sukanya, Rochona Majumdar and Upal Chakrabarti. "Introduction: A Liberal Arts College in a Colonial Milieu" in Rochona Majumdar, Sukanya Sarbadhikary and Upal Chakrabarti (eds.) The Hindu/Presidency College: Excellence and Exclusion (Cambridge University Press, 2025) (Forthcoming)

Sarbadhikary, Sukanya and Upal Chakrabarti. "J.C. Bose's hand-machines: Instrumentation as the transcendence of limits in Presidency College" in Rochona Majumdar, Sukanya Sarbadhikary and Upal Chakrabarti (eds.) The Hindu/Presidency College: Excellence and Exclusion (Cambridge University Press, 2025) (Forthcoming)

'Why Do Bauls Sing? From Bodies to Music, the missing link of inner sounds' In The Tantric World (eds.) Anna A. Golovkova, Hillary Landberg and Hugh B. Urban. Routledge. (Forthcoming)

'Embodied Inheritance of a Dancing Philosophy: Text and Practice in the Chaitanya Charitamrita'. In A Cultural Poetics of Bhasha Literatures: InTheory and Practice. (ed.) E.V. Ramakrishnan. Orient Blackswan. (2024).

‘Aural Auras of Inner Sounds: Conch Shells, Ritual Instruments and Devotional Bodies’. In Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power (eds.) Carola Erika Lorea and Rosalind Hackett. April 2024. Amsterdam University Press. Series: Global Asia. 

‘Intellectual Exchange with Hands: Materiality and Cosmology in Manual Sharing Practices of an Asian Sacred Drum’ In An Anthropology of Intellectual Exchange: Interactions, Transactions and Ethics in Asia and Beyond (eds.) Jacob Copeman, Nicholas J. Long, Lam Min Chau, Joanna Cook and Magnus Marsden. September 2023. Berghahn Books. Series: Wyse Series in Social Anthropology. pp 209-234.

‘The Conch as a Tantric Artifact: Metaphysics of a Number and the Twirled Lives of Text and Practice’. In The Ethography of Tantra: Textures and Contexts of Living Tantric Traditions (eds.) Carola Lorea and Rohit Singh. October 2023. State University of New York Press. pp 111-136.

'The Leftover Untouch: Sensing Caste in the Modern Urban Lives of a Devotional Instrument'. In Religion and the City in India (ed.) Supriya Chaudhuri. August 2021. Routledge. pp 130-45.

‘Sahajiya Texts of Nadia: Beyond Reform and Revival’. 2020. In The Legacy of Vaisnavism in Colonial Bengal (ed.) Ferdinando Sardella and Lucian Wong. Routledge. pp 167-184.

‘Hearing the Transcendental Place: Sound, Spirituality and Sensuality in the musical practices of an Indian devotional order’. 2015. In Music and Transcendence (ed.) Ferdia Stone-Davis. Ashgate. pp 23-34.

‘For the Skin is Faster than the Word: Towards an Ethnography of Affect’. 2018. In Doing Theory: Locations, Hierarchies and Disjunctions (ed.) Maitrayee Choudhury and Manish Thakur. Orient Blackswan. pp 233-254.

Book Reviews:

Review of 'Unforgetting Chaitanya: Vaishnavism and Cultures of Devotion in Colonial Bengal', by Varuni Bhatia. 2020. Studies in History. Volume 36 Issue 1.

Review of 'A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga and Sufism in North India', by Patton. E. Burchett. 2020. Journal of the American Academy of Religion. Volume 88. Issue 2.

‘The Ideal Brahmin’, Review of ‘Renunciation and Untouchability in India: The Notional and the Empirical in the Caste Order’, by Srinivasa Ramanujam. 2020. Economic and Political Weekly Volume 55, Issue 28-29.

Review of ‘Folklore, Religion, and the Songs of a Bengali Madman’, by Carola Erika Lorea. Journal of Asian Ethnology. 2017. Volume 76. Issue 1.

Review of ‘The Triumph of the Snake Goddess’, by Kaiser Haq. August 2016. Biblio. Volume XXI Number 8.

Review of ‘Leprosy and a life in south India: journeys with a Tamil Brahmin’, by James Staples. August 2015. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Volume 21 Issue 3.

Interviews:

'Making Krishna Apparent: Interrogating intuitive capacity through Gaudiya-Vaishnav practice in West Bengal', interviewed by Dr. Atreyee Majumdar (Jindal Global University), in RIC Journal, February 2019.

https://ricjournal.com/2019/02/19/making-krishna-apparent-interrogating-intuitive-capacity-through-gaudiya-vaishnav-practice-in-west-bengal/

Fellowships:

UGC-CAS Visiting Fellow, The Centre for the Study of Social Systems, Jawaharlal Nehru University, March, 2016.

Hamied Visiting Fellow, Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge, May, 2018. (Part of Presidency University-University of Cambridge Scholars' Exchange Program)

Shivdasani Visiting Fellow, Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, University of Oxford, May, 2019.

Invited Lecture Series:

‘Tantric Traditions of Medieval Bengal’ (September 5, 2019) & ‘Vaisnava Sahajiya and Gaudiya Vaisnavism’ (September 6. 2019), Jnanapravaha Mumbai

Projects:

Member, Working Group of Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR)-Impress Project on ‘Intellectual Histories of Bhakti: Concepts, Institutions and Practices in Orissa 1500-2000’ (Principal Investigators: Dr. Siddharth Satpathy, University of Hyderabad and Dr. Urmishree Bedamatta, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack)

Co-Investigator, with Dr. Upal Chakrabarti (Presidency University) and Dr. Rochona Majumdar (Principal Investigator, University of Chicago), of University of Chicago-Presidency University collaborative project on ‘Hindu/Presidency College: A Global History’, 2020-2024. Provost’s Global Faculty Awards, UChicago. Grant Received: USD 28,000/year.

Co-Investigator, with Prof. Dipesh Chakraborty (University of Chicago), project on ‘The Conch and its Communities: Climate Change and the History of a Hindu Sacred Object in Bengal’, 2023-24, Provost’s Global Faculty Awards, UChicago. Grant Received: USD 30,000/year. 

Peer review journal articles, projects, book proposals and book manuscripts for:

American Anthropologist, Asian Medicine, Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology, International Journal of Hindu Studies, Presidency Historical Review, The Czech Science Foundation, Sage Publications, Journal of Hindu Studies, Wesleyan University Press.