Dagmar Wujastyk is an Associate Professor in the department of History, Classics, and Religious Studies.  She is an indologist specializing in the history and literature of classical South Asia, including Indian medicine (Ayurveda), iatrochemistry (rasaśāstra), and yoga.  Her publications include Modern and Global Ayurveda – Pluralism and Paradigms (SUNY Press) and Well-mannered medicine. Medical Ethics and Etiquette in the Sanskrit Medical Classics (OUP NY). She is the editor of a special volume of Asiatische Studien/ Études Asiatiques, entitled “Histories of Mercury in Medicine across Asia and beyond” (vol. 69.4, 2015), a special volume of History of Science in South Asia, (vol. 5.2, 2017) entitled “Transmutations: Rejuvenation, Longevity, and Immortality Practices in South and Inner Asia,” and Associate Editor of the journal Asian Medicine.  In 2015, Prof. Wujastyk received a European Research Council “Horizon 2020” award to head a research team working on the entangled histories of yoga, medicine and alchemy in medieval India.  The project website is http://ayuryog.org/

Further information on Dagmar´s work and publications

Following a PhD in energy and climate systems modeling that led to a successful career touring the US, Europe and South Korea as a guest scientist, Deepak switched gears to enter the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alberta as a postdoctoral fellow in 2013, only to change course dramatically to follow his passion towards admittance in the Department of Music’s doctoral Ethnomusicology program in 2014.  [Read more]

Personal website: http://www.deepakparamashivan.com/

Research Interests:

• Feminist, Marxian, Postcolonial Theory
• Critical Race, Anti-Caste, Indigenous and Colonial Studies
• Cultural Politics of Development, Gender, and Nationalism
• Performance, Political Activism, and Feminist Praxis
• South Asia, South Asians in Canada

My research and teaching focuses on transnational feminist and de/anti/post/colonial approaches to state violence, development discourses, and activism.  Read more at my University website.

Dominik Wujastyk is a professor in the Department of History and Classics and Singhmar Chair in Classical Indian Society and Polity.  His early training was in the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit languages, and his first research project was on formal rule conflicts in the generative Sanskrit grammar by Panini.  As a curator of Sanskrit and Prakrit Manuscripts at the Wellcome Library in London, he published widely on Indian codicology.  Later, as a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow at University College London, he taught and published in the history of medicine in India and South Asia, and this has remained an active research area.  Over the last five years, he has begun publishing research on the history of classical Yoga in India, and that has immediately connected with aspects of early Indian Buddhism, out of which Yoga arose.

For more information and to download his publications, see http://ualberta.academia.edu/DominikWujastyk.

Dr. Vallianatos’ research and teaching focuses on the topics of food, gender, body and health. In many of her studies, Dr. Vallianatos has used visual methods in conjunction with semi-structured or narrative interviewing. She is also committed to conducting collaborative, community-based research, and typically works in interdisciplinary teams.  Past and ongoing research includes examining food consumption during pregnancy in New Delhi, India and food, gender and health practices among indigenous peoples in Bangladesh.  [Read more]

Prof. Julia Byl joined the University of Alberta in 2015, after serving at King’s College London for three years as a post-doctoral fellow and Malay Case Study leader on the European Research Council project, “Musical Transitions to Colonialism in the Eastern Indian Ocean.” She received her doctorate in ethnomusicology at the University of Michigan, studying with Judith Becker and Richard Crawford. She has taught at King’s College London, the University of Illinois, Pomona College, and her alma mater, St. Olaf College, where she was a Mellon postdoctoral fellow. Her recent book, Antiphonal Histories: Resonant Pasts in the Toba Batak Musical Present was published in 2014 as a part of Wesleyan University Press’s Music/Culture series.

Dr. Karim Gillani obtained his PhD in Music and Religious studies at the University of Alberta in Spring 2012.  His PhD dissertation entitled “Sound and Recitation of Khoja Ismaili Ginans: Tradition and Transformation” is a pioneering ethnomusicological research that situates ginans hymns within the wider context of Muslim piety in general and South Asian poetic and musical contexts in particular.  Dr Gillani’s ethnographic and historical research has been based on South Asian religions, languages, music, history, migration and culture. He has in the past taught a popular UofA course entitled “Music and Cinema: Popular Music of Bollywood (Hindi Cinema).”  His areas of expertise include Urdu language, music and religion in South Asia, and the Sufi and Bhakti Traditions of South Asia.  [Read more]

Louise Harrington joined the Department of English and Film Studies in 2017 as an assistant professor in postcolonial and South Asian literatures. She completed her graduate studies at SOAS, University of London.

Her research and supervisory interests include:
Postcolonial, global and comparative literatures; South Asian literatures and cultures; war, (post-)conflict and partition; spatial literary studies and theory; borders, boundaries and walls.

See also

• https://ualberta.academia.edu/LouiseHarrington (downloadable publications)
• https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/about/people-collection/louise-harrington

Neil Dalal is an Associate Professor with a joint appointment in Philosophy and Religious Studies. His primary research explores the intersection of Indian philosophy and religious praxis in classical Yoga philosophies and their Sanskrit commentarial traditions. He is co-director of Gurukulam (Matson Films), a feature length documentary on Advaita Vedānta, and co-editor of Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics: Rethinking the Nonhuman (Routledge Press). Prof. Dalal’s current research analyzes debates in early Advaita Vedānta over meditative and contemplative practices, and how they employ textual knowledge, memory, and visualization to understand consciousness.

A member of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers, the International Heritage Language Association, the Second Languages and Intercultural Council, and the Alberta Teacher’s Association, in Edmonton, Parmjit Kaur Kang has been a champion of preserving, fostering, and teaching Punjabi, a language of India.  With an estimated 100-million speakers globally, Punjabi is spoken widely in the North Indian state of Punjab, in Pakistan, and in diasporic communities (UK, USA, Canada) around the world. As a curriculum designer, Parmjit Kang was pivotal in establishing Punjabi as part of Edmonton Public School’s Continuing Education Services (in 1994); as a Punjabi Curriculum Committee Member with Alberta Education, Parmjit Kang helped formulate curricula for the Edmonton Public School system. As an experienced translator, instructor, and language enthusiast (Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu), Parmjit inspires her students to embrace multicultural linguistic (and cultural) diversity, intercultural communication, and a love of languages and learning.

Parmjit teaches Panjabi for the University of Alberta (see Courses on this website).

Patricia Sauthoff is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Alberta with the ERC-funded AyurYog project. She is an interdisciplinary scholar focused on longevity and immortality in religious, ritual, medical, and alchemical literature. Her training includes Religious Studies, History, and journalist methods. Patricia holds a PhD in South Asian Languages and Cultures, with a focus on Sanskrit, from SOAS, an MA in History from SOAS, an MA in Eastern Classics from St. John’s College, Santa Fe, and BAs in English and Religious Studies from the University of Colorado. Patricia has taught in the USA, India, and Canada. She is currently working on her first monograph, focused on rites to conquer death in the Netra Tantra.

Regula Qureshi joined the University of Alberta’s music department as a McTaggart Fellow in 1983, and was appointed professor in 1991. She subsequently became an Adjunct Professor in the departments of anthropology (1991), religious studies (1992), and East Asian studies (1993), and was Associate Dean of the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research 1994-6. Qureshi founded the University of Alberta’s Centre for Ethnomusicology in 1992 (renamed the Canadian Centre for Ethnomusicology in 2002), and directed its folkwaysAlive! project beginning in 2004. She was named Professor Emeritus of music in 2005.

A scholar of Urdu and Hindi language and literature and of the art music of India and Pakistan, Qureshi has given numerous lecture-recitals on sarangi, Indian music, and Muslim chant in Canada, the US, Pakistan, India, and Western Europe. She has contributed articles to The New Grove Dictionary and to the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, and has served as co-editor of the Journal of Ethnomusicological Research, the British Forum of Ethnomusicology, and the Indian music journal Bansuri.

[Read more]

Sharmila Mathur is Director of the Indian Music Ensemble in the Department of Music.  She obtained her Master’s in Music from Rajasthan University, Jaipur India. She has done her formal training under Grammy Award winner Pt. Vishwa Mohan Bhatt. Under her, the Indian Music Ensemble studies the rich tradition of classical Indian music through group instruction and performance. Members learn the basics of raga (melody) and tala (rhythm), through instruction in singing, tabla (drums) and sitar (plucked lute). The Ensemble has qualified & devoted instructors including Sharmila Mathur (Sitar and Theory) and Shruti Nair (Vocal). [Read more]

Since Fall 2015, Sharmila has also been teaching a successful course in introductory Hindi language at the University of Alberta, hosted by Modern Languages & Cultural Studies and offered also as part of the East Asian Studies department. [Read more]

Prof. Mookerjea is Director, Intermedia Research Studio, Department of Sociology, University of Alberta and Research Coordinator, RePublicU, a critical university studies research collaboration.  His research areas include Commons Theory, Decolonizing Critical Theory, Intermedia Research Creation, and
Development Dispossession.  See further, https://www.ualberta.ca/arts/about/people-collection/sourayan-mookerjea