Dr. Caleb Simmons is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. He received his Ph.D. in Religion from the University of Florida and specializes in religion in South Asia, especially Hinduism. His research specialties span religion and state-formation in medieval and colonial India to contemporary transnational aspects of Hinduism. His book Devotional Sovereignty: Kingship and Religion in India (Oxford University Press, 2020), examines how the late early modern/early colonial court of Mysore reenvisioned notions of kingship, territory, and religion, especially its articulations through devotion. He is currently working on a second monograph, Singing the Goddess into Place: Folksongs, Myth, and Situated Knowledge in Mysore, India that examines popular local folksongs that tell the mythology of Mysore's Chamundeshwari and her consort Nanjundeshwara. He also edited (with Moumita Sen and Hillary Rodrigues) and contributed to Nine Nights of the Goddess: The Navarātri Festival in South Asia (SUNY Press 2018). He also has publications and continuing research interests related to a broad range of contemporary topics, including ecological issues and sacred geography in India; South Asian diaspora communities; and material and popular cultures that arise as a result of globalization—especially South Asian religions as portrayed in comic books and graphic novels. He teaches courses on Hinduism, Indian religions, and method and theory of Religious Studies.
In 2020, Prof. Simmons was honored with an Early Career Scholar Award from the University of Arizona. In addition to Devotional Sovereignty, he published “Subversive Space: Representations of Space as Articulations of Sovereignty in Colonial Mysore” in Religion Vol. 50, No. 2 and a chapter “Tales of Cāmuṇḍā and Uttanahaḷḷi, Fierce Goddesses of Southern Karnataka” in Garland of Forgotten Goddesses: A Sourcebook of Fierce Goddesses in South Asia, edited by Michael Slouber (Berkeley: University of California Press). As part of the Arizona Festivals of India Video Series, Prof. Simmons narrated a documentary film “Domains of Dasara,” an exploration of the Navaratri festival in Mysore, India. (It can be viewed on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/Hfl8qtv8L8M). He gave a lecture titled “A Middle Ground Between Folk and Royal Urban Histories: A Comparison of Bettada Chamundi and Mysore Maharajavara Vamshavali” at Christ University in Bangalore, India in September. Also that month, he spoke on “Domains of Dasara: Royal and Religious Identities in Mysore’s Celebration of Navaratri” at the University of Helsinki, Finland. In October, he gave a talk titled “Bhakti Entrenched: Devotional Sovereignty in Colonial Mysore” at Harvard University.
For more information about Prof. Simmons’s interests and publications, please visit: https://religion.arizona.edu/people/calebsimmons