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Leena Taneja

Associate Professor
Leena_Taneeja.jpg
 
 
Introduction

Dr. Leena Taneja, PHD, M.A (The George Washington University), B.A (McGill University). Dr. Taneja originally hails from Toronto, Canada, and has worked in the U.S, Japan, Germany, and most recently Dubai.  Prior to coming to CHSS, she served an Assistant Professor in the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies at Zayed University for five years and eight years in Central Florida, U.S.A. She specializes in the intersection between Hindu devotional traditions and contemporary theoretical methodologies.

Languages

Hindi, Sanskrit

Roles and Responsibilities

  1. CHSS Media Liaison (2018-2019)
  2. CHSS newsletter committee (2018-2019)

Memberships:

American Academy of Religion

Association of Asian Studies

International Society for Intellectual History

European Association of Religion

Research and Professional Activities

Research interests:
 

Dr. Taneja’s research centers on a 16th century medieval Hindu devotional school, Chaitanya Vaishnavism, which is practiced in Northern India. It is part of a cluster of bhakti or devotional schools in Hinduism which arose between the 9-16th centuries.  Her research has examined various facets of Vaishnavism.  In particular, it aim to bring a critical eye to the material using various theoretical approaches, such as intertextuality, dialogic hermeneutics, gender theory, ethnography, and tools that fall under the larger theoretical umbrella of poststructuralist theory.  The intersection of devotionalism and critical theory, generates a synergetic discourse that moves both sides beyond their assumptions and pre-existing parameters.  It is the spaces in between, at the margins, that provides opportunities to critically interpret and rigorously examine facets of the religion.  

 

Current Projects: As a recipient of a Research Incentive Fund (2018-2020), Dr. Taneja is  engaged in a two-year ethnographic project on ascetic females in the Chaitanya Vaishnava sect, a Hindu devotional school found in the region of Vrindavan in the state of Uttar Pradesh in Northeast India. The project uses both traditional and visual ethnographic methodologies to examine how asceticism is articulated and performed by women living in Vrindavan. It aims to archive and chronicle the discursive and performative constructions of gender and renunciation amongst female renouncers in the Chaitanya Vaishnava tradition.  

Keywords: Hindu Devotional traditions, Vaishnavism, contemporary methodological approaches, post-structuralism, deconstructionism

Teaching Areas

 

List of courses taught in ZU: specify if undergraduate or graduate

 

SOC 326: Comparative Intellectual Traditions (UG)

ANT 302: Cities: Culture, Space, and Sustainability  (UG)

GEN 185: Methods of Scientific Research and Development (General Ed)

PUBLICATIONS tab

 

Taneja L. (2016) Hindu Identity as a Site of Liminality. In: B/orders Unbound: Marginality, Ethnicity, and Identity in Literatures.  Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing Company.

Taneja L. (2016) Hindu Identity as a Site of Liminality. In: B/orders Unbound: Marginality, Ethnicity, and Identity in Literatures.  Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang Publishing Company.