Book Launch: Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace

Book Launch: Reflections of Amma:
Devotees in a Global Embrace
author Amanda Lucia in conversation with Edward Blum
“Reflections of Amma is a rich study of a unique global
movement devoted to a female guru. Lucia adeptly examines
the intersections between contemporary American
spirituality and global religious movements.” – Smriti
Srinivas, UC Davis, author of In the Presence of Sai Baba: Body,
City, and Memory in a Global Religious Movement.
“Lucia’s substantial fieldwork covers both institutional and
personal aspects of groups of Ammachi devotees. This novel
analysis is an important contribution to our understanding of
the contemporary phenomenon of transnational gurus in the
United States.” Karen Pechilis, Drew University, author of
Interpreting Devotion: The Poetry and Legacy of a Female Bhakti Saint of
India
BOOK ABSTRACT
Globally known as Amma, meaning “Mother,” Mata Amritanandamayi is the
face of religion in a new global age. Born in 1953 to a low-caste family in a
South Indian fishing village, she has catapulted to international prominence
through her travels and humanitarian programs, and through the explosion
of new centers devoted to her around the world. Known as the “hugging
saint” – nearly every day ten thousand people are embraced by here one at a
time – Amma is revered by millions as guru and goddess. Reflections of
Amma focuses on communities of Amma’s devotees in the United States.,
showing how they endeavor to mirror their guru’s behaviors and transform
themselves to emulate the ethos of the movement. In this insightful analysis,
Lucia discovers how the politics of American multiculturalism reify cultural
differences, despite the fact that Amma’s embrace attempts to erase
communal boundaries in favor of global unity.
Dr. Amanda Lucia is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at UCR.
Dr. Edward J. Blum, Associate Professor of History, San Diego
State University is a historian of race and religion in the United States. Among other
publications, he is the author of The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America
(2012, with Paul Harvey), W. E. B. DuBois, American Prophet (2007), and Reforming the White Republic:
Race, Religion, and American Nationalism, 1865-1898 (2005). Blum has been awarded the Gustave O.
Arlt Award in the Humanities by the Council of Graduate Schools for the best first book by a
historian published between 2002 and 2009 (2009), the Peter Seaborg Award for the best book in
Civil War Studies (2006), and the C. Vann Woodward Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in
southern history (2004). Blum teaches courses on Antebellum America, the Civil War and
Reconstruction, American religious history, and history through biography.
Thursday, April 17th
3:40-5:30pm, UCR, INTN 3043
Co-sponsored with UCR’s Institute for the Study of Immigration and Religion (ISIR), UCHRI’s Religion in Diaspora and
Global Affairs (RIDAGA), CIS’s Alternative Transnationalisms Mellon,
and the Religious Studies Department Colloquium