Research Focus Group Talk: Thanatofuturism: Making Space for the Marginal at a Tomb Shrine in Bangalore

In the middle of Bangalore, India, a small dargah (Sufi tomb shrine) is a space of possibility for multiple marginalized groups, facilitating imagined futures that include Muslims, subaltern Hindus, Dalits, and hijras as full citizens of the Indian polity. At a time when powerful actors seek to limit national belonging to certain Hindu Indians, Anna Bigelow argues that we have much to learn from such shrines and the people who intersect through them as they ground possible futures in the ethics and etiquette of the saintly dead and their spaces.

Anna Bigelow is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University, specializing in Islamic Studies and the religions of South Asia and the Middle East. Her work focuses on Muslim devotional life, especially sacred spaces and ritual practice. Her current research concerns the circulation of devotional objects at Sufi shrines in India and Turkey.

Sponsored by the IHC’s South Asian Religions and Cultures Research Focus Group, Walter H. Capps Center, and Department of Religious Studies