For the past year or so, our freshly minted Course Development Board has been working hard to guide new courses through the pipeline to completion.
They’ve given us Women in Hinduism and our new Yoga Sutras course.
But you may ask: what have they done for us lately ?
Pipelines
Quite a lot actually. Some of the courses we’re working on are.
- Hinduism and Popular Religious Art in India. Created by Layne Little – I’ve seen the videos on this one and they are an amazing visual journey.
- Buddhism by Lisette Hededal Hansen – a study of a close relative of Hinduism.
- Tantra by Gavin Flood – Prof. Flood is the Academic Director of the OCHS and one of the world’s leading authorities on Tantra.
- Mahabharata by Nick Sutton – Dr Sutton turns his attention to one of India’s best-loved texts.
- The Greatness of the Goddess by Raj Balkaran – Raj is one of our newest and best tutors and has proven in a short time to be one of our greatest assets.
- Shakta Traditions by Bjarne Wernicke-Olsen and Silja Einarsen – an important course created by the OCHS Shakta Traditions Project.
- Hinduism and Visual Art by Janaki Nair – part of our efforts to better represent the arts.
- Colonial Hinduism by Amiya Sen – a vital look at the interaction between Hinduism and the Raj.
And these are just the ones we’ve started on! We’re also working on: Hinduism and Ecology; Hinduism and Psychology; and Jainism.
Pathways
We’ve had thousands of students pass through our virtual doors and many have used their studies with us to do amazing things.
This morning, I was delighted to find a novel written by one of our alumna, Musaret Siddiqi. It’s called The The Partition Bond and is a fictionalised account of India’s partition. She used her studies with us to inform her accounts of Hinduism and took full advantage of our library and helpful scholars.
This made me think about other alumni and the pathways they’ve taken with a little help from us.
- One of our CED students went on to study for a PhD, and then came back to write a course for us.
- Another went on to do a PhD with us at Oxford and is now a political commentator on Indian TV.
- While yet another went on to join the OCHS Board of Governors.
Many others went on to do all sorts of incredible things (and if you’re one of them, then please let us know). And many more just wanted to be a bit wiser and to become better at what they do as a result.
We thank them all for allowing us to be part of that journey.
