Neelima Shukla-Bhatt

Neelima Shukla-Bhatt serves as Professor of Religious Studies at Wellesley College, where she teaches courses on South Asian religions, art, literature, and cinema. Her interdisciplinary scholarship bridges religious studies, history, and cultural analysis with a regional focus on South Asia, particularly Gujarat.

Her educational background includes:

• B.A. from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
• M.A. from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda
• M.Div. from Harvard University
• Ph.D. from Harvard University

Shukla-Bhatt's research investigates cultural expressions of cosmology through poetry, music, dance, and digital media in South Asian religious history. Key emphases include Hindu Bhakti traditions, the divine feminine in goddess worship, Gandhian satyagraha as cultural resistance, and gendered agency within patriarchal frameworks. Her work consistently connects historical religious practices to contemporary social movements, notably analyzing parallels between Indian Bhakti poetry and the US civil rights movement.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals three dominant trajectories: (1) reinvention of Hindu deities in modern political contexts, (2) media-technology intersections with religious authority (especially diaspora television), and (3) revival of regional Bhakti poetry as tools for moral education. Her scholarship demonstrates increasing engagement with contemporary challenges like religious pluralism and 21st-century feminism while maintaining deep roots in Gujarati literary traditions.

Professionally, she has expanded her impact through HarvardX's online course World Religions through its Scriptures and teaching at Ashoka University in Delhi. Her approach emphasizes transforming religious literacy into practical pluralism, evidenced by global student engagement in her digital courses. Outside academia, she practices Indian classical music (riyaz), embodying her research on embodied religious expression.