Rachana Rao Umashankar, Ph.D.

Dr. Rachana Umashankar is an anthropologist of religion with a specialization in Islam in South Asia. She has worked at Iona since 2014. She teaches courses on Islam, Sufism, and sacred music and poetry. She has also taught in the Honors Program for several years. Her academic interests are in Sufism, the politics of religious identity, history and memory, and poetry translation. Dr. Umashankar received the Jr. Master Teacher and Lecturer award in 2016, and the Catherine McCabe Award for Innovation & Excellence in Teaching in 2018. She currently serves as the Iona University representative for the Inter-Religious Coalition of New Rochelle and is a member of the coalition's board.

Dr. Umashankar’s research interests are in the anthropology of religion, Sufism, the politics of religious identity, history and memory, and Islam in South Asia. Her Ph.D. dissertation, titled, Defending Sufism, Defining Islam: Asserting Islamic identity in India, is based on more than a year of intensive ethnographic fieldwork in India. It examines how adherents of shrine-based Sufism assert their identity as Indian Muslims in the contexts of public debates over religious identity and national belonging in India, and vis-à-vis reformist Muslim critiques of their Islamic beliefs and practices. She has also published articles on Sufi sacred spaces, Sufi music and poetry, and the teaching of the Qur'an. 

2022 “Horseshoes on the Fire: The Praxis of Movement and Journey in the Poetry of Sufi Islam.” Religion & Literature, vol. 54, no. 1-2, pp. 73–94.

2020 “The Multisensory Engagement with the Qur'an: Teaching the Qur'an Beyond the Written Word.” Teaching Theology & Religion, vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 231–239.

2020 "Sufi Sound, Sufi Space: Indian cinema and the mise-en-scène of pluralism". Modern Sufis and the State : The Politics of Islam in South Asia and Beyond. Katherine Pratt Ewing, and Rosemary R Corbett, editors. Columbia University Press.

2015 "Metropolitan Microcosms: The dynamic sacred spaces of contemporary Sufi Shrines in India". South Asian Studies, 31(1), 131-148.

2015 "Delhi". Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World, 2nd edition. Richard C. Martin, ed. New York: Macmillan Reference. 

2013 Review: Kelly, Pemberton, “Women Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India”. Asian Ethnology, 72(1), 158-160.

2020 "Religion and Revolution: The poetry of Faiz Ahmad Faiz and its many publics". Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (virtual conference), December 8.

2016 "The Qur'an in the Classroom: Demystifying an ancient text". Lecture as part of the Jr. Master Teacher and Lecturer Award, Iona College, New Rochelle, Oct 20.

2016 Horseshoes in the Fire: Journey, struggle, and movement in the poetry of Sufi Islam. Keynote address at ‘Sufism: Path of the Heart. A Day of Contemplative Inquiry’. The Iona Spirituality Institute & Council on the Arts, Iona College, New Rochelle, Sept 17.

2015 Member of the Iona College delegation to the “Creative Inquiry in the Arts and Humanities” Institute, Council on Undergraduate Research, Greensboro, NC (Nov 6-8)

2015 "Secularism, Pluralism, and the Creation of India". Presentation for Learning in Retirement at Iona College (LIRIC). Iona College, New Rochelle, Oct 16.

2015 "Qawwali—The Soundtrack to Indian Pluralism". Presentation at ‘Sufism in India and Pakistan: Rethinking Islam, Democracy, and Identity’. Columbia University, New York City, September 24-26.

2014 "Countering Histories: Subversive oral narratives at Indian Sufi shrines". Paper presented as part of the ‘Counter-histories of South Asia: Corpses, Sites, Refugees, and Rebels’ panel at The Annual Conference on South Asia, Center for South Asia, University of Wisconsin-Madison, October 19.

2013 "The Divine Beloved: Devotional eroticism in Sufism and the Bhakti Movement in India". Invited talk as part of the ‘The Role of Women in Indian Classical Arts’ panel discussion and seminar, Duke University, Durham, September 14.

2011 "The Good, the Bad, and the Highly Problematic: Complicating notions of Muslim engagement in the Indian public sphere". Paper presented in the invited session at the ‘Piety, Poetry, and Politics: Sufi Muslims in South Asia’ Conference at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University, Washington DC, April 28-30.

2010 "Multiculturalist Secularism in India and the Shared Sacred Space of Sufi Shrines". Invited talk at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar: Sacred Spaces, Sacred Sounds, Chapel Hill, April 23-24.