The College of Arts and Sciences

Email: aggold@syr.edu

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Religion
507 Hall of Languages
Phone: 315-443-5717

references

Ann Grodzins Gold

Professor of Religion and Anthropology

Research and Teaching Interests

Professor Gold specializes in teaching and research on Hindu traditions in modern India, religion and gender, religion in the natural environment, and oral performance. Her extensive fieldwork in the North Indian state of Rajasthan has included studies of pilgrimage, gender relations, epic tales of world renunciation, and cultural constructions of the environment. She has received fellowship awards from the American Institute of Indian Studies, the Fulbright Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Spencer Foundation. Her current research centers on complex intersections of religious values and narratives with biodiversity conservation in the contexts of seed-saving movements and of sacred groves surrounding goddess shrines. Dr. Gold is also a Professor of Anthropology at The Maxwell School at Syracuse University.

Courses

Education

• Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Chicago (1984)
• M.A., Anthropology, University of Chicago (1978)
• B.A., Anthropology, University of Chicago (1975)

Career

• Professor, Department of Religion, Syracuse University and (since 2000), Professor of Anthropology, The Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 1996-present.
• Assistant Professor, Department of Religion, Syracuse University, 1993-1996.
• Adjunct Assistant Professor, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, 1992-1993.
• Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University, 1991-1992.
• Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Colgate University, 1990-1991.
• Acting Assistant Professor of South Asian Culture, Department of Asian Studies, Cornell University, 1988-1989.
• Visiting Assistant Professor, Departments of Anthropology and Asian Studies, Cornell University, 1985-1986.

Books

	A Carnival of Parting: The Tales of King Bharthari and King Gopi Chand As Sung and Told by Madhu Natisar Nath of Ghatiyali, Rajasthan, India University of California Press, 1992.
	Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims University of California Press, 1988. Reprinted by Waveland Press, 2000.
	In the Time of Trees and Sorrows: Nature, Power, and Memory in Rajasthan (co-authored with Bhoju Ram Gujar). Duke University Press, 2002.
	Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics: Planting a Tree (co-edited with Philip P. Arnold). Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2001.
	Listen to the Heron's Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India (co-authored with Gloria Goodwin Raheja). University of California Press, 1994.

Chapters in Edited Volumes

• "Owl Dune Tales: Divine Politics and Deserted Places in Rajasthan," in Experiences of Place, ed. Mary N. MacDonald. Religions of the World Series of the Center for the Study of World Religions. Harvard University Press, 2003.
• "The Tender Trap: Lord Shiva's Wedding in Vernacular Mythology," in Multiple Histories: Culture and Society in the Study of Rajasthan, edited by L. A. Babb, Varsha Joshi, and Michael W. Meister. Jaipur: Rawat Publications, 2002.
• "New Light in the House: Schooling Girls in Rural North India." In Everyday Life in South Asia, Diane Mines and Sarah Lamb, eds. Indiana University Press, 2002.
• "Counterpoint Authority in Women's Ritual Expressions: A View from the Village." In Jewels of Authority: Women and Textual Tradition in Hindu India, ed. Laurie L. Patton. Oxford University Press, 2001.
• "Rooted Responsibility: Locating Moral Authority in North India." In Taking Responsibility: Comparative Perspectives, ed. Winston Davis. University Press of Virginia, 2001.
• "'If You Cut a Branch You Cut My Finger': Court, Forest, and Environmental Ethics in Rajasthan." In Hinduism and Ecology: The Intersection of Earth, Sky, and Water, Christopher Key Chapple and Mary Evelyn Tucker, eds. Harvard University Press, 2000.
• "Sin and Rain: Moral Ecology in Rural North India." In Purifying the Earthly Body of God: Religion and Ecology in Hindu India, ed. Lance Nelson. State University of New York Press, 1998.
• "The 'Jungli Rani' and Other Troubled Wives in Rajasthani Oral Traditions." In From the Margins of Hindu Marriage, Lindsey Harlan and Paul Courtright, eds. Oxford University Press, 1995.
• "Mother Ten's Stories." In Religions of India in Practice, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. Princeton University Press, 1995.
• "Gender, Violence and Power: Rajasthani Stories of Shakti." In Women as Subjects: South Asian Histories, ed. Nita Kumar. University Press of Virginia, 1994.
• "Yatra, Jatra, and Pressing Down Pebbles: Pilgrimage within and beyond Rajasthan." In The Idea of Rajasthan, ed. Karine Schomer, et al. New Dehli: Manohar Publishers, 1994.
• "Gender and Illusion in a Rajasthani Yogic Tradition." In Gender, Genre, and Power in South Asian Expressive TraditionsS, A. Appadurai, F. Korom, and M. Mills, eds. University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991.

Journal Articles

• "Children and Trees in North India." Worldviews: Environment, Culture, Religion (6:3, 2002).
• "Shared Blessings as Ethnographic Practice." Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (13:1, 2001).
• "Grains of Truth: Shifting Hierarchies of Food and Grace in Three Rajasthani Tales." History of Religions (38:2, 1998).
• "Wild Pigs and Kings: Remembered Landscapes in Rajasthan." American Anthropologist (99:1, 1997).
• "Magical Landscapes and Moral Orders: New Readings in Religion and Ecology." Religious Studies Review (21:2, 1995).
• "Drawing Pictures in the Dust: Rajasthani Children's Landscapes" (with Bhoju Ram Gujar). Childhood (Vol. 2, 1994; special issue on Children and Environment: Local Worlds and Global Connections).
• "From the Research Assistant's Point of View" (with Bhoju Ram Gujar). Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly (17:3, 1992).
• "Of Gods, Trees and Boundaries: Divine Conservation in Rajasthan" (with Bhoju Ram Gujar). Asian Folklore Studies (48:2 1989).
• "The Once and Future Yogi: Sentiments and Signs in the Tale of a Renouncer-King." Journal of Asian Studies (48:4, 1989).
• "Spirit Possession Perceived and Performed in Rural Rajasthan." Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.; 22:1, 1988).