|
Steven Ramey, who joined
the faculty as Assistant Professor in the Fall 2006, completed
his Ph.D. in the religions of South Asia, especially focusing
on Hinduism and Islam, at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He holds a M.Div. from
Emory
University in Atlanta and a B.A. in History from Furman
University in Greenville, South Carolina. He has taught
previously at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke
and Furman University.
|
|
Dr. Ramey's primary research focuses on the contemporary formation
of religious practices in contexts of migration, particularly
analyzing the contestations surrounding subgroups within a
religion. He is continuing extensive research with people
from the region of Sindh
who assert a clear Hindu identification but whose practices,
which incorporate Hindu deities and texts, the Guru Granth
Sahib of Sikhism, and Sufi Muslim saints, lead others to question
the Hindu identification of the Sindhis. He is also researching
South Asian religions in the southeastern United States, especially
focusing on Indo-Caribbean Hindus and Sindhi Hindus in this
context. He uses the case of the Sindhi Hindus, Indo-Caribbean
Hindus, and other subgroups to analyze the ways religious
boundaries are constructed and contested in both academic
studies and contemporary societies and the impact of those
processes on minority groups.
Using his ethnographic work in India and the Southeastern
United States, he has published and presented on the ways
Sindhi Hindus construct their traditions in various contexts,
represent themselves to non-Sindhis, and negotiate the challenges
that their minority position creates. His book, Hindu
Sufi or Sikh: Contested Practices and Identifications of Sindhi
Hindus in India and Beyond, is scheduled for publication
in October 2008 with Palgrave Macmillan Press.
Dr. Ramey also serves as the Chair of the History of Religions
(to be renamed Religions of Asia) section of the American
Academy of Religions Southeast and is a member of the Steering
Committee for the North
American Hinduism Consultation of the AAR.
|
