FOREIGN PUNJABI-ISTS-1

PROF. ANNE MURPHY

Anne Murphy is Assistant Professor and Chair of Punjabi Language, Literature, and Sikh Studies at the University of British Columbia. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Department of Religion in 2005 and her Master’s degree in Asian Languages and Literature from the University of Washington. She previously taught in the Religious Studies and Historical Studies Departments at The New School in New York City. Her research interests focus on the historical formation of religious communities in Punjab and northern South Asia, with particular but not exclusive attention to the Sikh tradition. Her current book project, based upon her dissertation, focuses on the construction of Sikh memory and historicalconsciousness around material representations and religious sites from the eighteenth century to the present. Other research interests concern Punjabi literature in the greater Vancouver area, and the historical formations of social service or “seva” within Sikh tradition. Professor Murphy published an article on the role of Seva in the formation of Sikh Diaspora communities in the volume South Asians in the Diaspora: Histories and Religious Traditions, in 2004. Other recent publications include an exploration of Sikh historical representation in the eighteenth century in the journal History andTheory (October 2007) and the introductory editorial essay of an issue of the journal Sikh Formations, which she guest-edited in December 2007. Professor Murphy has also begun to implement an oral history collection project with students in advanced Punjabi classes at UBC, and hopes to make oral history and oral literature collection a major focus of her work in future years. Prior to and while pursuing her academic career, Dr. Murphy has been active in the fields of pre-collegiate education, museum education, publishing and research. 


Selected publications: 

“The Guru’s Weapons,” in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (June 2009). 
Guest editor for issue of Sikh Formations (December 2007); topic: "Time and history." Contributors include: Purnima Dhavan (University of Washington), 
James Hare (Columbia University), Christian Novetzke (University of Washington), Teena Purohit (Columbia University), Rajeev Kinra (Northwestern). 
"History in the Sikh Past," in History and Theory (October 2007). 
"Materializing Sikh Pasts," in Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture, Theory (December 2005). 
Translations of selected poems of the 15thcentury saint Ravidas, in Untouchable 
Saints: An Indian Phenomenon, edited by Eleanor Zelliot and Rohini Mokashi-Punekar (Delhi: Manohar, 2004). 
"Mobilizing seva (Service): Modes of Sikh diasporic action," in South Asians in the D