Professor Dr Leslie Orr
External member of the Vaiṣṇava group
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Leslie C. Orr joined the Department of Religions & Cultures at Concordia University in 1991. Her research interests include the religious and social history of medieval Tamil Nadu; women in pre-colonial South Asia; devadasis; temple architecture, iconography and epigraphy; the interaction of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam; the history of South Indian sectarian movements; and colonial/ missionary Indology. Her current research projects include "South Indian Inscriptions: Media, Messages, and Mobilizations" and a collaborative project on “The Navatirupatis and Vaishnava temple-networks in South India.” She is the author of the book Donors, Devotees and Daughters of God: Temple Women in Medieval Tamilnadu (NY: Oxford University Press, 2000), and co-editor with A. Luithle-Hardenberg and J. Cort of Co-operation, Contribution and Contestation: The Jaina community, British Rule and Occidental Scholarship from the 18th to early 20th century (Berlin: EB Verlag, 2020).
Recent publications include:
- “Slavery and Dependency in Southern India,” in The Cambridge World History of Slavery, vol.2 (500-1420 CE), ed. Craig Perry, et. al. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
- “Biographies of South Indian Temple Inscriptions,” South Asian Studies 35/2 (2019) 193-205.
- “The Bhakti of the Banas” (pp. 347-386) in Clio and Her Descendants: Essays for Kesavan Veluthat, ed. Manu V. Devadevan, New Delhi: Primus Publications, 2018.
- “Chiefly Queens: Local Royal Women as Temple Patrons in the Late Chola Period” (pp. 385-421) in The Archaeology of Bhakti: Royal Bhakti, Local Bhakti, edited by Emmanuel Francis & Charlotte Schmid, Pondichéry: Institut Français de Pondichéry / Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, 2016.
- “Words for Worship: Tamil and Sanskrit in Medieval Temple Inscriptions,” in Bilingual Discourse and Cross-cultural Fertilisation: Sanskrit and Tamil in Mediaeval India, ed. Whitney Cox and Vincenzo Vergiani (pp. 325-357). Pondicherry: Ecole française d'extreme-orient, 2013.
- “Renunciation and Celebration: Ascetics in the Temple Life of Medieval Tamil Nadu,” in Classical and Contemporary Issues in Indian Studies: Essays in Honour of Trichur S. Rukmani, ed. P. Pratap Kumar and Jonathan Duquette (pp. 306-325). Delhi: D.K. Printworld, 2012.
- “Vishnu’s Manifestations in the Tamil Country,” in Vishnu: Hinduism’s Blue-Skinned Savior, ed. Joan M. Cummins (pp. 34-44). Mapin Publishing, 2011.