This basic guide and resource book targets four fields--religious studies, history, world literature, and ethnic or migration studies--in which Sikhism is now receiving greater attention. The authors explain the problems of studying and interpreting Sikhism, and opportunities for integrating Sikh studies into a broader curriculum in each field. They also provide a sense of the Sikh community's own approach to education, and evaluate materials and approaches at the North American university level. Included are a sample syllabus with an explanatory essay, a bibliographical guide, a glossary, and a general bibliography. Gurinder Singh Mann's review of his course on Sikhism is an effective mini-guide to the field as a whole.

This basic guide and resource book targets four fields—religious studies, history, world literature, and ethnic or migration studies—in which Sikhism is now receiving greater attention. The authors explain the problems of studying and interpreting Sikhism, and opportunities for integrating Sikh studies into a broader curriculum in each field. They also provide a sense of the Sikh community's own approach to education, and evaluate materials and approaches at the North American university level. Included are a sample syllabus with an explanatory essay, a bibliographical guide, a glossary, and a general bibliography. Gurinder Singh Mann's review of his course on Sikhism is an effective mini-guide to the field as a whole.

"McLeod is a renowned scholar of Sikhism. . . . [This book] confirms my view that there is nothing about the Sikhs or their religion that McLeod does not know and there is no one who can put it across with as much clarity and brevity as he can. In his latest work he has compressed in under 150 pages the principal sources of the Sikh religion, the Khalsa tradition and the beliefs of breakaway sects like the Nirankaris and Namdharis. . . . As often happens, an outsider has sharper insight into the workings of a community than insiders whose visions are perforce restricted."—Khushwant Singh, Hindustan Times

The Oxford Handbook of Sikh Studies innovatively combines the ways in which scholars from fields as diverse as philosophy, psychology, religious studies, literary studies, history, sociology, anthropology, political science, and economics have integrated the study of Sikhism within a wide range of critical and postcolonial perspectives on the nature of religion, violence, gender, ethno-nationalism, and revisionist historiography. A number of essays within this collection also provide a more practical dimension, written by artists and practitioners of the tradition. The Handbook is divided into eight thematic sections that explore different 'expressions' of Sikhism. Historical, literary, ideological, institutional, and artistic expressions are considered in turn, followed by discussion of Sikhs in the Diaspora, and of caste and gender in the Panth. Each section begins with an essay by a prominent scholar in the field, providing an overview of the topic. Further essays provide detail and further treat the fluid, multivocal nature of both the Sikh past and the present. The Handbook concludes with a section considering future directions in Sikh Studies.

Arguing that intellectual movements, such as deconstruction, postsecular theory, and political theology, have different implications for cultures and societies that live with the debilitating effects of past imperialisms, Arvind Mandair unsettles the politics of knowledge construction in which the category of "religion" continues to be central. Through a case study of Sikhism, he launches an extended critique of religion as a cultural universal. At the same time, he presents a portrait of how certain aspects of Sikh tradition were reinvented as "religion" during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. India's imperial elite subtly recast Sikh tradition as a sui generis religion, which robbed its teachings of their political force. In turn, Sikhs began to define themselves as a "nation" and a "world religion" that was separate from, but parallel to, the rise of the Indian state and global Hinduism. Rather than investigate these processes in isolation from Europe, Mandair shifts the focus closer to the political history of ideas, thereby recovering part of Europe's repressed colonial memory. Mandair rethinks the intersection of religion and the secular in discourses such as history of religions, postcolonial theory, and recent continental philosophy. Though seemingly unconnected, these discourses are shown to be linked to a philosophy of "generalized translation" that emerged as a key conceptual matrix in the colonial encounter between India and the West. In this riveting study, Mandair demonstrates how this philosophy of translation continues to influence the repetitions of religion and identity politics in the lives of South Asians, and the way the academy, state, and media have analyzed such phenomena.

This new dictionary provides over 350 accessible definitions of the terms that the growing number of students of Sikhism will encounter. It covers beliefs, practices, festivals, sacred sites, and principal languages, as well as the social and religious processes through which Sikhism has evolved. A major focus is the teachings of the founder of Sikhism, Guru Nanak, and doctrinal developments under subsequent Gurus. Incorporating the 500-year history of Sikhism, from its birth in northern India to its more recent spread around the world, it covers the interplay between the Sikh tradition and other religious traditions including Hindu and Sufi. It is an invaluable first reference for students and teachers of Sikhism, religious studies, South Asian studies, and philosophy, as well as the related disciplines of history, sociology, and anthropology as well as for all practicing Sikhs and anyone with an interest in Sikh religion and culture.

This basic guide and resource book targets four fields—religious studies, history, world literature, and ethnic or migration studies—in which Sikhism is now receiving greater attention. The authors explain the problems of studying and interpreting Sikhism, and opportunities for integrating Sikh studies into a broader curriculum in each field. They also provide a sense of the Sikh community’s own approach to education, and evaluate materials and approaches at the North American university level. Included are a sample syllabus with an explanatory essay, a bibliographical guide, a glossary, and a general bibliography. Gurinder Singh Mann’s review of his course on Sikhism is an effective mini-guide to the field as a whole.