Religion in Diaspora - The Functions of Hindu Congregationalism in the United States of America
Religion in Diaspora - The Functions of Hindu Congregationalism in the United States of America

Author: Melanie Buettner

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2010-05-19

Total Pages: 20

ISBN-13: 3640626583

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Seminar paper from the year 2010 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg (Institut für Anglistik), course: The Indian Diaspora in History, Literature and Film, language: English, abstract: In her book A Place at the Multicultural Table: The Development of an American Hinduism Prema Kurien states that “Hinduism has taken different forms in the countries where it has been transplanted, depending on the interaction between the social and cultural characteristics of the particular group of immigrants and the characteristics of the receiving society.” Only recently, starting in the early-1990s, has the paramount importance of immigrant religion in the host country been acknowledged by scholars in the field of Diaspora Studies. In terms of the Hindu Diaspora of the United States, research conducted by Diana L. Eck, Pyong Gap Min and Prema Kurien has been groundbreaking. Why and how has Hinduism changed in the American setting? In the U.S. organizations of Popular Hinduism have been created that do not exist in India. These include for example Hindu student organizations, local worship and singing groups (satsangs), as well as educational groups for children (bala vihars). Practices in Hindu Temples built in the U.S. have also undergone some modifications when compared with traditional Hindu temples in India. What are the functions of those local associations and the new practices in Hindu Temples? Were they perhaps founded to build an ethnic community and to preserve Indian traditions and culture in a foreign environment? Are they a means to resist assimilation into the American host country society? Or does Hinduism, quite to the contrary, serve as a vehicle for actually becoming American? To resolve all those questions outlined above I am going to analyze select organizations of Popular Hinduism in the U.S., starting with an examination of the local worship and children educational groups. Then I will turn to the discussion of the possible functions of the new practices in Hindu temples in the United States. I will end my paper with a short summary of my findings.

Dharma in America
Dharma in America

Author: Pankaj Jain

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-18

Total Pages: 185

ISBN-13: 1351345265

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America now is home to approximately five million Hindus and Jains. Their contribution to the economic and intellectual growth of the country is unquestionable. Dharma in America aims to explore the role of Hindu and Jain Americans in diverse fields such as: education and civic engagements medicine and healthcare music. Providing a concise history of Hindus and Jains in the Americas over the last two centuries, Dharma in America also gives some insights into the ongoing issues and challenges these important ethnic and religious groups face in America today.

The Hindu Diaspora
The Hindu Diaspora

Author: Steven Vertovec

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-10-11

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1136367055

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Hinduism outside the Indian subcontinent represents a contrasting and scattered community. From Britain to the Caribbean, diasporic Hindus have substantially reformed their beliefs and practices in accordance with their historical and social circumstances. In this theoretically innovative analysis Steven Vertovec examines: * the historical construction of the category 'Hinduism in India' * the formation of a distinctive Caribbean Hindu culture during the nineteenth century * the role of youth groups in forging new identities during Trinidad's Hindu Renaissance * the reproduction of regionally based identities and frictions in Britain's Hindu communities * the differences in temple use across the diaspora. This book provides a rich and fascinating view of the Hindu diaspora in the past, present and its possible futures.

Gatherings in Diaspora
Gatherings in Diaspora

Author: Stephen Warner

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 1998-04-23

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9781439901526

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The new religious communities of the United States in their churches, mosques, temples, home meetings, and festivals, being built by immigrants.

Hinduism in America
Hinduism in America

Author: Michael J. Altman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-04-28

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 1000577899

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Hinduism in America: An Introduction is a concise introduction to the long history of religion in the encounter between America and India. It is not a book that will tell you what Hinduism is; rather, it is an introduction to the variety of ways in which Hinduism has been represented, constructed, and practiced in the United States. Americans have been interested in the religions of India since the colonial period, and by the late nineteenth century the first Hindu teachers arrived in the United States. Throughout the twentieth century, interest in Hinduism and yoga grew, even as anti-Asian and anti-immigrant politics and policies in America intensified. When the Cold War led to changes in U.S. immigration policy in 1965, new immigrant communities arrived in the United States and built new Hindu institutions. Hinduism in America is an accessible introduction to these developments of Hinduism in the United States. Each chapter uses a key theoretical term in the study of religion to explore a variety of historical topics including: American missionary encounters with India; representations of Hindu religions in American literature; world religions and Hinduism; Vedanta; yoga; Hinduism in the American counterculture of the 1960s; and immigrant Hindu communities in the United States. Hinduism in America provides an overview of the multifaceted history of Hinduism in America. Ideal for students and scholars approaching the topic for the first time, the book includes sections in each chapter that provide useful theoretical terms for understanding that history.

Christ and the Hindu Diaspora
Christ and the Hindu Diaspora

Author: Paul Pathickal

Publisher: WestBow Press

Published: 2012-08-06

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 144975001X

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CAN THE HINDUS IN INDIA BE REACHED THROUGH DIASPORA HINDUS? The Hindu Diaspora, numbering about 50 million, is scattered from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Fiji in the east to Guyana, Surinam, the United States and Canada in the west. Hindus numbering about 850 million live in India. However, militant organizations make mission work impossible there and one way to reach them is through their clan and caste fellows in the Diaspora. In Christ and the Hindu Diaspora, author Paul Pathickal discusses the process of Hindu migration, the salient features of Diaspora Hinduism and ways to witness to Diaspora Hindus. By reaching Diaspora Hindus, the author believes their caste and clan fellows in India can be reached for Christ. Diaspora Hinduism is different from Hinduism in India. The old pantheistic thought cannot survive in the new lands. The new generation of young educated Hindus cannot accept the Karma doctrine and caste divisions. Secular humanism cannot fulfill the age old yearning of the Hindu for truth and value. Only the religion established by Jesus Christ, the true avatar, who came down from heaven not to annihilate a few wicked men, but to save mankind from their sins, will be able to satisfy the inner yearning of the Hindu for truth and meaning in life.

Religion and American Cultures [4 volumes]
Religion and American Cultures [4 volumes]

Author: Gary Laderman

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-12-17

Total Pages: 1863

ISBN-13: 1610691105

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This four-volume work provides a detailed, multicultural survey of established as well as "new" American religions and investigates the fascinating interactions between religion and ethnicity, gender, politics, regionalism, ethics, and popular culture. This revised and expanded edition of Religion and American Cultures: Tradition, Diversity, and Popular Expression presents more than 140 essays that address contemporary spiritual practice and culture with a historical perspective. The entries cover virtually every religion in modern-day America as well as the role of religion in various aspects of U.S. culture. Readers will discover that Americans aren't largely Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish anymore, and that the number of popular religious identities is far greater than many would imagine. And although most Americans believe in a higher power, the fastest growing identity in the United States is the "nones"—those Americans who elect "none" when asked about their religious identity—thereby demonstrating how many individuals see their spirituality as something not easily defined or categorized. The first volume explores America's multicultural communities and their religious practices, covering the range of different religions among Anglo-Americans and Euro-Americans as well as spirituality among Latino, African American, Native American, and Asian American communities. The second volume focuses on cultural aspects of religions, addressing topics such as film, Generation X, public sacred spaces, sexuality, and new religious expressions. The new third volume expands the range of topics covered with in-depth essays on additional topics such as interfaith families, religion in prisons, belief in the paranormal, and religion after September 11, 2001. The fourth volume is devoted to complementary primary source documents.

Hinduism in America
Hinduism in America

Author: Jeffery D. Long

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-08-06

Total Pages: 305

ISBN-13: 1474248489

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Read the story of two worlds that converge: one of Hindu immigrants to America who want to preserve their traditions and pass them on to their children in a new and foreign land, and one of American spiritual seekers who find that the traditions of India fulfil their most deeply held aspirations. Learn about the theoretical approaches to Hinduism in America, the question of orientalism and 'the invention of Hinduism'. Read about: · how concepts like karma, rebirth, meditation and yoga have infiltrated and influenced the American consciousness · Hindu temples in the United States and Canada · how Hinduism has influenced vegetarianism · the emergence of an increasingly assertive socially and politically active American Hinduism. The book contains 30 images, chapter summaries, a glossary, study questions and suggestions for further reading.

A Place at the Multicultural Table
A Place at the Multicultural Table

Author: Prema Kurien

Publisher: Rutgers University Press

Published: 2007-06-19

Total Pages: 319

ISBN-13: 0813541611

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Multiculturalism in the United States is commonly lauded as a positive social ideal celebrating the diversity of our nation. But, in reality, immigrants often feel pressured to create a singular formulation of their identity that does not reflect the diversity of cultures that exist in their homeland. Hindu Americans have faced this challenge over the last fifteen years, as the number of Indians that have immigrated to this country has more than doubled. In A Place at the Multicultural Table, Prema A. Kurien shows how various Hindu American organizations--religious, cultural, and political--are attempting to answer the puzzling questions of identity outside their homeland. Drawing on the experiences of both immigrant and American-born Hindu Americans, Kurien demonstrates how religious ideas and practices are being imported, exported, and reshaped in the process. The result of this transnational movement is an American Hinduism--an organized, politicized, and standardized version of that which is found in India. This first in-depth look at Hinduism in the United States and the Hindu Indian American community helps readers to understand the private devotions, practices, and beliefs of Hindu Indian Americans as well as their political mobilization and activism. It explains the differences between immigrant and American-born Hindu Americans, how both understand their religion and their identity, and it emphasizes the importance of the social and cultural context of the United States in influencing the development of an American Hinduism.

Religion, Colonialism, Diaspora
Religion, Colonialism, Diaspora

Author: Amisha Patel

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 56

ISBN-13:

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A new sect of Swaminarayan Hinduism emerged in the late eighteenth century. This sect rapidly grew into a global organization due their highly structuralized nature. Fascinatingly, the new sect was able to create the feeling of home away from home in multiple countries. Through the establishments of mandirs, Hindu place of worship, practitioners were able to solidify the feeling of home away from home. Through books, magazine articles and letters the evidence of the new sect creating this feeling is overwhelming. Diaspora theory is woven within the thesis due to the global nature of the sect. This thesis uses a broad definition of diaspora to encompass the change in literature due to the ability of one to maintain close ties to their old homeland. The Swaminarayan sect treaded through diaspora by assimilating to their new homeland all the while keeping a close tie with their old homeland.