about
I am an ethnographer of religion in South Asia, with a focus on the intersection of Hinduism, health, media, and the environment.
My research explores how large-scale religious institutions refashion traditions to provide solutions for modern societal problems.
research
news
Presented “An Introduction to Hindu Traditions and Ayurveda” at Xavier University on October 28, 2024.
Presented “Mosque and Mandir: Boundary Work in the Indian City of Mathura” at the ASIANetwork Annual Conference on April 14, 2024.
Presented “Kaavad, Storytelling, and Devotional Practices in India” at Hamilton College Humanities Salon on March 28, 2024.
projects
Everyday Eschatology
My ongoing book project is Everyday Eschatology: Societal Redemption in South Asia. It is an ethnographic analysis of how members of the Brahma Kumaris and the Gayatri Pariwar attempt to re-center religion in everyday life as a means of fulfilling the world-building charters of their parent organizations.
The Brahma Kumaris and the Gayatri Pariwar are two Hindu sects that have gained international traction since their beginnings in the 1930s. Both organizations envision and prepare for an imminent transition into a new Golden Age through self-care regimens that imbue Hindu ascetic practices and rituals with the authority of modern rational science. Rather than retreat from society, these groups continue to engage their surrounding communities in attempts to act as custodians of societal welfare. Through ethnographic accounts of these institutions’ activities in the Hindi belt of North India, I argue for renewed attention to the non-temple spaces where members of international religious organizations respond to a world understood to be on the brink of collapse.
Decades have passed since the deaths of their charismatic founders, so the Brahma Kumaris and the Gayatri Pariwar are no longer “new” religious movements. Despite their grand millenarian projects, members live their everyday lives according to relatively mundane ritual practices and social service initiatives. This ordinariness is not dissonant or detrimental to their eschatological programs; rather, it is the very condition for the wide appeal of both groups within contemporary Indian society. In particular, the educational and ritual offerings of both organizations, made widely accessible through a range of multimedia and material goods, afford people ready opportunities to integrate group teachings and practices into their lifestyles. To assess just how the “ordinary” serves as a vehicle for the “extraordinary” within the Gayatri Pariwar and the Brahma Kumaris is the task of “Everyday Eschatology.”
Maps
During the course of my doctoral fieldwork, I began to reflect on how I and my research subjects were inhabiting a city and country much larger than we are. This led me to build a series of maps anchored to several fieldwork experiences, initially as a note-taking aid.
Although these maps are a work in progress, I invite you to explore several of the places where I conducted fieldwork in 2019-2020.
More...Mozoomdar at Sea
Two ongoing interests of mine are the history of religious reform in India and digital humanities scholarship. This project has been an attempt to combine the two. What follows is a chronicle of Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, a nineteenth-century Bengali religious reformer and one of the first Indians to command an audience in the United States of America. In July 1893, he set sail to take part in the World’s Parliament of Religions. This digital exhibit, based on the letters that Mozoomdar wrote to his wife Saudamini during his travels at sea, offers a seldom-possible intimate look at the life and times of an underappreciated historical religious figure.
More...teaching
I teach in the Theology Department at Xavier University.
Current Courses:
Past Courses / Courses Taught Elsewhere:
- Religions of India
- Indian Buddhism
- Sacred Space in South Asia
- Hinduism and Healing
- Mother Nature--Climate Crisis--Hinduism
- Gurus, Godmen, Godwomen
- Religion and Healing in Global Perspective
- Encountering Hinduism
c.v.
Nick Tackes
Curriculum Vitæ
November 21, 2024
Employment
Xavier University
Hamilton College
Hamilton College
New York University
Education
Certificates
Foundational Track Completion
Advanced Certificate
Other Training
International Network for the Study of Science and Belief in Society
Competitive Scholarships and Honors
Languages
Publications
- 2023. “The View from Mathura: Nationalist Projections in Local Perspective,” Contemporary South Asia 32 (1): 84-100. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2023.2280516.
- 2021. “COVID-19 First Responders: The Gayatri Pariwar and the Immune Ritual Body.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 89 (3): 1006-1038. https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfab057.
- 2022. “‘Sankalp se Siddhi’: The Brahma Kumaris and Pandemic Positivity.” CoronAsur: Religion & COVID-19 (blog). https://ari.nus.edu.sg/20331-107/.
- 2018. “Metabolic Living: Food, Fat, and the Absorption of Illness in India by Harris Solomon (Review).” Global Public Health 11 (2): 318-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2018.1511742.
- 2019. Fieldwork Maps. https://maps.nicktackes.com.
- 2017. Mozoomdar at Sea. https://mozoomdar.nicktackes.com.
Articles
Other
Scholarly Websites
Conferences and Invited Talks
- Invited Speaker, “An Introduction to Hindu Traditions and Ayurveda,” Xavier University, October 28, 2024.
- “Mosque and Mandir: Boundary Work in the Indian City of Mathura,” ASIANetwork Annual Conference, April 14, 2024.
- Invited Speaker, “Kaavad, Storytelling, and Devotional Practices in India,” Hamilton College Humanities Salon, March 28, 2024.
- “‘Mathura is next’: Nationalist Projections in Local Perspective,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 9, 2022.
- Panel Organizer, “Natives, Foreigners, and Imagined Others in South Asian Religious Homelands,” American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 9, 2022.
- “COVID-19 First Responders: The Gayatri Pariwar and the Immune Ritual Body,” Hinduism Unit and Religion in South Asia Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, November 20, 2021 (online).
- “Om Shanti Emojis: Three Facets of Digital Hinduism,” Anthropology of Religion Unit and Religion, Media, and Culture Unit, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, December 5, 2020 (online).
- Invited Speaker, “Energy and Vibrations: The Logic of Transformation in the Gayatri Pariwar and the Brahma Kumaris,” Public Health Workshop, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, March 12, 2020.
- “Marketing Religion: From Mathura to Madhuvan,” South and Central Asia Fulbright Conference, Kochi, India, February 24, 2020.
- “Zooming in on Mozoomdar: A Microhistory of Brahmo Belief,” Religion in South Asia Section, American Academy of Religion, Denver, November 18, 2018.
- Panel Discussant, “Yoga and Politics: South Asia and Beyond,” Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, October 12, 2018.
- “The Creation of a Mahatma: Creative License in Ratnadeep Pictures’ Tulsidas (1954),” Annual Conference on South Asia, Madison, October 23, 2015.
Professional Memberships
Teaching
At Xavier University
At Hamilton College
At New York University
Academic Service
South Asian Studies Working Group
Teacher-Scholar Enrichment Working Group (AHA! Group)
Center for Teaching and Learning
Laidlaw Scholarship Program