We are delighted to welcome Dr. Stuart Gray as a Center for South Asian Studies Affiliate Scholar for Spring Semester 2023.

Stuart Gray is an Associate Professor of Politics at Washington and Lee University. Before joining the faculty at W&L, Gray was a Charles and Amy Scharf Post-Doctoral Fellow and Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University. He teaches and conducts research on political theory, with a focus on the history of political thought, Greek and Indian political theory, and cross-cultural political thought. His published work in these areas has examined topics such as rule, political realism, human-nonhuman relations, and comparative methodology. His work has appeared in journals such as Political Theory, History of Political Thought, The Review of Politics, Philosophy East and West, and Journal of World Philosophies. His work has also appeared in edited volumes such as The Edinburgh Companion to Political Realism, The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Political Theory, and Political Theory on Death and Dying. His first book is titled A Defense of Rule: Origins of Political Thought in Greece and India (Oxford University Press, 2017). Interested in the relationship between language and political thinking, he also reads and translates ancient Greek and Sanskrit.

Dr. Gray will give a public lecture on Tuesday, February 7, 2023, from 4:00-5:30 pm in the Tokioka Room (Moore Hall 319):

Title: Deep Ideology: The Political Theory of the Bhagavad-Gītā

Abstract: While the renowned Classical Indian text, Bhagavad-Gītā, is generally read as a work of religious and philosophical thinking, Stuart Gray explains why it should also be studied as a work of political theory. In this talk, he contends that when the Gītā is examined through a political theoretical lens, it demonstrates a distinctive form of political ideology. The “deep ideology” designed by the Gītā’s authors not only operates ideologically within its own historical context but is also intentionally crafted to impact political configurations across time and space. To show how the text’s deep ideological structure operates, Gray will discuss how modern and contemporary Hindu nationalists have drawn upon particular conceptions of temporality, bodily asceticism, and political integration expressed in the epic Mahābhārata and Gītā with corrosive consequences for democratic thought and practice in India.

Please join us on Tuesday to welcome Dr. Gray and learn more about his research.