Humanities Viewpoints

Diwali has become a national festival that is celebrated throughout India and other parts of South Asia by many different faiths including Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs. The main festival night of Diwali coincides with the darkest, new moon night of the Hindu calendar (between mid-October and mid-November in the Gregorian calendar), and this year the darkest night was October 23rd.In this episode, Dr. Tanisha Ramachandran, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Religion at Wake Forest University, talks about the history and cultural significance of the Diwali festival including how the celebration varies by region and religious tradition. Tanisha Ramachandran earned her Ph.D from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. She is currently working on a monograph tentatively titled, Idolized Representations which deals with issues of colonialism and the transmission and commoditization of Hindu imagery in the Euro-American world. Prior to joining Wake Forest University, she taught in the Department of Religi