UCSB Religious Studies

Join Us for a Landmark Symposium in South Asian Studies

This June, scholars from across the United States will gather at UCSB for “Critical Re-visionings in the Light of South Asia: In Celebration of Barbara Holdrege” — a two-day symposium honoring the extraordinary career and intellectual legacy of Professor Barbara Holdrege on the eve of her retirement.

When: June 6–7, 2026
Where: McCune Conference Room, UCSB Interdisciplinary Humanities Center

Over six dynamic sessions, former and current students will explore and rethink some of the most important categories in the study of religion and the humanities:

🔹 Comparison
🔹 The Body
🔹 Gender
🔹 Space
🔹 Bhakti
🔹 Animals

The symposium also celebrates the enduring influence of Ninian Smart and the central role of South Asian studies in shaping critical and comparative approaches to religion.

Join us for two days of stimulating conversations, new perspectives, and a celebration of scholarship, mentorship, and intellectual community.

Zerkxis Bhandara, PhD student at the Legacies of Performance conference reading his paper “Embodied Legacy: Zoroastrian Priestly Practice and the Worldmaking Labor of Diaspora”

We're happy to announce the exciting news that Elizabeth Pérez was named a finalist in two different literary competitions last week. Her fiction story, "Courtship among the Peoples of Eastern Cuba" was a finalist for the 2025 Black Warrior Review Fiction Contest, and her poetic entry was a finalist for the Palette Poetry's 2025 Nature Poetry Prize. We congratulate Professor Pérez on her wonderful contributions!