Gavin Flood: "The Subjectivity of Religious Reading"

This lecture develops the idea that the act of reading is at the heart of religion and that religious reading entails the internalisation of tradition within subjectivity. Religious communities are formed through the repeated, ritual acts of reading, an idea which brings into question views that seek to explain religion without text. The lecture will discuss kinds of subjectivity formed through religious reading and how these interface with the political and social world.

Gavin Flood is Professor and Academic Director of The Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, University of Oxford. Among his numerous publications are: Beyond Phenomenology: Rethinking the Study of Religion and The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory and Tradition. He is editor of The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism.