Supervisor:
Jessica Frazier
College:
St Cross
About:
After completing the PGDip here in Oxford in 2017, I went on to do an MA in the Religions of Asia in 2018 at SOAS. My MA dissertation looked at the concept of prakṛti (nature) in the Bhagavad Gītā and its relevance to today’s environmental concerns. This formed the basis for my DPhil proposal, which looks at the environmental concerns of today from the perspective of the polymath, Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941). Tagore engaged with Nature and the environment in multiple ways and his vast literary outflow as well as his public lectures and private correspondence illustrate his deep sensitivity to and foresight of issues surrounding humans relationship with and behaviour towards Nature, creation and creativity, modernity and ‘progress’, that can provide an alternative perspective and perhaps hopeful solutions to our contemporary environmental crisis.
Research Interests:
Religions and the Environment; Study of Religion; Environmental philosophy; Rabindranath Tagore; Ecosophy; Ecotheology; Environmental Humanities; Indian philosophy; Advaita Vedanta; Yoga; Interfaith and peace building.
Conferences/Presentations:
“A (not the) Hindu perspective”. Interfaith Perspectives on the Environment Conference Touchstone Bradford, 2022, Online
“A Poet-Philosophers Hope”. 6th Annual Graduate Conference in Religion and Ecology, Yale Divinity School, 2022, Online
“Religious Imaginations – (A Hindu perspective on) What is the Good Life”. LSE Faith Centre Beecken Faith and Leadership, LSE, 2021
Links:
Academia: oxford.academia.edu/NatashaChawla
Twitter: @Natasha_Chawla
Academic Related Activities:
Co-organiser of the “The Humanities in Deep Time” Conference funded by TORCH Environmental Humanities, 2021, torch.ox.ac.uk/article/the-humanities-in-deep-time-conference
Editorial Activities:
Editor of the Journal of the Oxford Graduate Theological Society (JOGTS), 2021-22
Editorial Board Member of the Journal of the Oxford Graduate Theological Society (JOGTS), 2020-21
Co-Guest Editor: “Deep Time in the Humanities” Worldviews Special Issue (forthcoming)
