Ariel Glucklich

How did you narrow your focus to Hinduism?
When I was in college, I had started out studying Latin. My Latin professor suggested I study Sanskrit because it’s older and more interesting. That [Sanskrit] professor was also the Hindi teacher. So, it started out with language for me and that led me to the texts and then that built when I was a junior in college.

What is the greatest challenge in your field?
I think the greatest challenge is not motivating students to work, but it’s getting them to move beyond the necessary work to the point where they are genuinely interested in exploring on their own and trying to get a deeper understanding of the material. Specifically, in the case of Hinduism, in developing a true love and intuition for what Hinduism is. Hinduism is easy to misunderstand. So, getting them to really dig in beyond what the class teaches.

Have you changed the way you teach since your course faced criticism from some in the Hindu community?
The publications that had an issue with that are conservative Hindu publications. Their view of Hinduism is that of the right-wing, upper-caste Hindu. There are a lot of ways of looking at Hinduism, for example, from the [perspective of] the low caste, or from women, or minorities like Muslims and so forth. My modern Hinduism class tries to be pluralistic and present different points of view. And, I think that’s the problem that they had. They have one narrow view, they’re criticizing the class for [my showing] a clip of a movie based on the life of a woman named Phpplan Devi, who was a member of parliament in India. And, this is a historic figure. This is not movie exploitation. And she had a horrible childhood, and so I show parts of her childhood. Frankly, I think the criticism is laughable, I think it would be legitimate if they came and talked to me first. And if I were writing an article, I would try to interview the person first and then publish it.

The complication with teaching Hinduism seems to be that it is so diverse, and there isn’t just one way to teach it. How does that affect how you teach?
I think all the traditions have many voices, and I don’t think in that sense Hinduism is unique. I think Hinduism is unique because it never had an Inquisition or an institution that tried to impose order. And so a lot of the voices are self-contradictory. And, sometimes to [students], it’s like “Last week you said this, now you’re saying something else, and how does that gel.” And that can be a problem sometimes. The best way to deal with that is to remind students that they are Westerners and they are imposing their own world view on something new. And I encourage them to try to suspend their world view when they enter the world of Hinduism and that’s tricky but it can be done.

What is the most fascinating question in your field?
Intellectually, the most fascinating part is encountering the minds of people from the past with amazing creativity and extraordinary experiences that when you encounter them you feel them to be reality. Say, for example, the Upanishads or Shankara. They describe certain states of being that you take to be true, but they are so far removed from our everyday consciousness that you say to yourself, ‘I wonder if there’s a way to bridge the gap, to bring them closer together.’ I find that question to be the most fascinating one. My research currently, which I do in the summer, is actually in Israel. There is a community there, of Israelis, but their teacher is a follower of Hindu ideas. And they’re trying to implement those ideas in the Israeli desert. So, what’s fascinating about that is people are literally living ideas.

What would be your ideal course?
I actually am designing a course now. It’s in Israel, where there are three major religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. And all three have religious sites there, and that includes buildings, mosques, churches, things like that. And there’s conflict among those religions for those geographic locations. The course that I’m trying to get approved is where I take a group of students there, to Israel, for a month. They live there, they take classes with experts in those three religions, we go to those different places, they interview people that work there like priests and qadis and so forth and reflect on how might one might reduce the tensions. A little of conflict resolution too, and I’d like to do that in India too. You could go to Uttar Pradesh and look at Hinduism and Islam, and think about ways to do conflict resolution. What I like about these ideal courses is that it takes the students out of the classroom and into the real world.

Georgetown linguistic coverage of Hindi and Sanskrit is limited. What is your opinion on that?
It’s a shame, really. Professor Shukla in linguistics used to teach, but that’s linguistics and not the language. To be honest, there are not that many institutions with full-time Sanskrit professors. Hindi is a different story, I think we did have an adjunct for a couple years. Maybe enrollment was weak, so she was let go. But I don’t think that’s a good thing. The problem isn’t a lack of interest in India — there are a lot of activities related to Indian culture on campus — but, the level of English discourse in India is so high — business, politics and so forth — and so, there’s no impetus. If you’re talking about high culture, it’s all in English. Indian authors are constantly winning Booker prizes, Pulitzer prizes, and so forth. And these are Indian authors, not Indians living abroad.

What would you be doing if you weren’t in academia?
I would probably own my own garage and be repairing cars.

Interview by Sheena Karkal