Hinduism Today
May 10 & 17, 2026
Class Description
Session 1: We begin by delving into the lived Hinduism of contemporary India. Dr. Sundaram will provide a brief overview of the tradition and discuss of how myth, land, and ritual work together to construct the strands of the lived experience of contemporary Hindus.
Session 2: “The Goddess: Caste, Gender, and Worship of the Divine Feminine” This session will be led by Dr. Sundaram’s advisee, PhD candidate Deeptangshu Das, from the DU-Iliff Joint Doctoral Program (JDP). An expert on the Shakta tradition or the worship of goddesses — Das will offer an exposition on goddess worship and how it intersects with perceptions of gender identity, caste and gender hierarchies, and ritual power in Hinduism. The divine feminine holds a unique and powerful role in the tradition and also shows the contradiction and multiplicity inherent within Hinduism.
About Dheepa Sundaram
Dr. Dheepa Sundaram is a scholar of performance, ritual, and digital culture at the University of Denver. Her research examines the formation of Hindu virtual religious publics, online platforms, social media, apps, and emerging technologies such as virtual reality and artificial intelligence. Dr. Sundaram’s current monograph project examines how commercial ritual websites fashion a new, digital canon for Hindu religious praxis, effectively “branding” religious identities through a neoliberal “Vedicizing” of virtual spaces. Her most recent article explores how Instagram helps foster virtual, ethnonationalist, social networks within India, highlighting issues of access/accessibility to religious spaces and the viability and visibility of online counter-narratives, especially those from minoritized/marginalized caste, gender, and class communities.