Brahmans, the traditional caste elite of Tamilnadu, who make up no more than 2.5 per cent of its population have been unusually successful in the modern world of educated, professional employment from the nineteenth century to the present day, due to a combination of factors, including - Fuller's paper will argue - anti-Brahmanism and the reservations system, the legacy of caste traditions of education and learning, and changes in the status of women. These factors are also constitutive of the Brahmans’ changing relationship with society and the state, in ways Professor Fuller will explore.

Chris Fuller is Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the London School of Economics. His first fieldwork (1971-2) was in Kerala among the Nayars and the Syrian Christians, and his work particularly focused on kinship among the Nayars, famous for their matriliny. In 1976, Fuller started field research in the great temple of Madurai in Tamilnadu, which is dedicated to the Hindu goddess Minakshi. During the next twenty-five years, he periodically visited the temple to study the priests, whose lives changed radically during that time, although he also did extensive research on the temple’s highly elaborate ritual cycle. From 2003-2005, with other colleagues in LSE, Fuller worked on a major research project on regionalism, nationalism and globalisation in India, and his research focused on middle-class company managers and software professionals in the city of Chennai (Madras). From 2005-08, with Haripriya Narasimhan, he carried out a research project on a group of Tamil Brahmans, focusing on this traditional elite’s modern transformation into a migratory, urbanised, trans-national community. Fuller has also researched and written extensively on popular Hinduism and Hindu nationalism, the caste system, the anthropology of the state and other topics.

This event is co-sponsored by NYU's Department of Anthropology, South Asia Colloquium, and the NYU Humanities Initiative.

This event is open to the public with photo ID.