Anne Feldhaus, foundation professor of religious studies, is retiring this month after 38 years of service to Arizona State University.
Anne graduated from Manhattanville College in 1971 and received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania in 1976.
After a stint at Fordham University, she joined ASU as assistant professor of religious studies in 1981, was promoted to associate professor in 1984 and has served as professor since 1988, currently as foundation professor of religious studies.
A philologist and ethnographer, professor Feldhaus is a scholar of Maharashtra, India – of its religions, languages, oral traditions, and literature, ranging from medieval bhakti to contemporary popular Hindu devotion.
Some years ago she described her experience of working and living in India:
"Gradually, . . I have come to do something I call field work, and to report some of the things I've learned and some of the understandings I've developed in the course of that work," said Feldhaus. "The field work and my reports on it have brought me rewards of the sorts available in American academia: employment, advancement, a modest amount of wealth and power. Most importantly, though, they have given me the means to return again and again to India."
"Through living in India, speaking Marathi, and wearing a sari, I aim to have interesting conversations, to develop friendships, and to reach understanding across barriers of difference. . . . I travel to India, to Pune, and then from there out to smaller places. I learn a language and change my clothes. I ask questions, look at things, watch people, and try to listen to what they say. Yet I know that any conversations I have, any friendships I develop, and any understanding I gain depend ultimately on the openness and generosity of other people."
During her four decades at ASU, professor Feldhaus has had a phenomenally productive scholarly career, producing (as author, editor or translator) more than 20 scholarly books – including recently Say to the Sun “Don’t Rise” and to the Moon “Don’t Set”: Two Oral Epics from the Countryside of Maharashtra (Oxford University Press, 2014) – and winning numerous awards, including two NEH Collaborative Research grants, three Fulbright awards, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship.
She is past president of the Association for Asian Studies. Her presence at the school will be greatly missed.