‘Sikh philosophy’ is a nascent field of knowledge in the sense that it has not yet emerged but shows signs of future potential. It lies at the intersection of several fields including World Philosophies, Sikh and/or Asian studies, and Philosophy of Religion. Although literature on Sikh philosophy has existed for over a century (in several languages), it has never been recognized within the Western academy. In this presentation I examine some of the reasons why this has been the case. What can a potential turn towards Sikh philosophy achieve? Why does it matter? To whom? Rather than providing a conventional objective analysis of the history of Sikh philosophy, its literature (etc etc), however, I’d like ask a slightly different question: what is Sikh philosophy for? To do this, I’d like to bring my own scholarly quest for recognition of Sikh philosophy within the academy into dialogue with autotheory. This is to some extent already a hint about the nature of Sikh philosophy and the politics of framing non-Western ideas and concepts within the global knowledge system.

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Presented by the Center for South Asian Studies and co-sponsored by The Humanities Institute.