Chiara Letizia

A social anthropologist and historian of religions, Chiara Letizia is Professor of South Asian Religions at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM) and researcher in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Milano-Bicocca. She is associate member of the CNRS’s Centre for Himalayan Studies and Research Associate at the School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford. Chiara has been conducting fieldwork on religion and society in contemporary Nepal since 1997, focusing on ritual, religion and politics, ethnoreligious activism, the understandings of secularism, and the role of the courts in defining religion and reforming religious practices. With David Gellner and Sondra Hausner, she coedited the book Religion, Secularism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal. (New Delhi : Oxford University Press, 2016).

https://himalaya.cnrs.fr/spip3/spip.php?article191

Selected Publications

✜ Edited Books

  • 2019 Orofino, G., A. Drocco, L. Galli, C. Letizia, & C. Simioli (eds) Wind Horses. Tibetan, Himalayan And Mongolian Studies. ISMEO / Università degli Studi di Napoli « L’Orientale ».

✜ Articles & Chapters

  • 2021 Gellner, D. & Letizia, C.« Religion and Secularism in Contemporary Nepal » in Knut Jacobsen (ed.) Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions. Abingdon and New York, Routledge ; 335-354.
  • 2021 Gellner, D. & Letizia, C.« Religion and Secularism in Contemporary Nepal » in Knut Jacobsen (ed.) Routledge Handbook of South Asian Religions. Abingdon and New York, Routledge ; 335-354.
  • 2019 Letizia, C. “Superstizione, tradizione e nuovi diritti. Riflessioni sul verdetto della Corte Suprema del Nepal sui sacrifici cruenti alla festa di Gadhimai”, in G. Orofino, A. Drocco, L. Galli, C. Letizia, and C. Simioli (eds), Wind Horses. Tibetan, Himalayan And Mongolian Studies. Napoli, Università degli Studi di Napoli « L’Orientale »: 193-217
  • 2019 Letizia, C. “Superstizione, tradizione e nuovi diritti. Riflessioni sul verdetto della Corte Suprema del Nepal sui sacrifici cruenti alla festa di Gadhimai”, in G. Orofino, A. Drocco, L. Galli, C. Letizia, and C. Simioli (eds), Wind Horses. Tibetan, Himalayan And Mongolian Studies. Napoli, Università degli Studi di Napoli « L’Orientale »: 193-217
  • 2019 Letizia, C. & D. N. Gellner, ‘Hinduism in the secular republic of Nepal’, in T. Brekke (ed.), Modern Hinduism.  Oxford University Press: 275-304.
  • 2017 Letizia, C. ‘Secularism’, in D. Thapa and A. Ramsbotham (eds), ‘Building inclusive peace in Nepal. Accord : An International Review of Peace Initiatives 26.
  • 2016 Letizia, C. & D.N. Gellner. ‘Introduction: Religion and Identities in Post-Panchayat Nepal’, in D. N. Gellner et al. (eds), Religion, Secularism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal. New Delhi, OUP: 1-32.
  • 2016 Letizia, C. ‘Ideas of Secularism in Contemporary Nepal’, in D. N. Gellner et al. (eds) Religion, Secularism and Ethnicity in Contemporary Nepal. New Delhi, OUP: 35-75.
  • 2016 Letizia, C. ‘National Gods at the Court. Secularism and the judiciary in Nepal’, in D. Berti, G. Tarabout and R. Voix (eds), Filing Religion : State, Hinduism, and Courts of Law. Delhi, OUP: 34-68.
  • 2015 Letizia, C. ‘The “secularism case” : prosecution of a Hindu activist before a quasi-judicial authority in the Nepal Tarai’, in D. Berti and D. Bordia (eds), Regimes of Legality. Ethnography of Criminal Cases in South Asia. New Delhi, OUP: 129-170.
  • 2015 Letizia, C. ‘Shaping secularism through the judiciary in Nepal : two case studies from the Kathmandu Supreme Court’, in P. Losonczi and W. Van Herck (eds), Secularism, Religion, and Politics : India and Europe. New Delhi and Abingdon, Routledge: 190-210.
  • 2013 Letizia, C. ‘The goddess Kumari at the Supreme Court : Divine kinship and secularism in Nepal’, in L. Michelutti and A. Forbess (eds), Divine Kinship and Politics, FOCAAL, Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 67: 32- 46.
  • 2012 Letizia, C. ‘A state goddess in the new secular Nepal. Reflections on the Kumari case at the Supreme Court’, in M. Rosati and K. Stoeckl (eds), Multiple Modernities and Global Post-Secular Society. Farnham, Ashgate: 115-141.
  • 2010 Letizia, C. ‘The Sacred Confluence, Between Nature and Culture’, in M. Lecomte-Tilouine (ed.), Nature, Religion at the Crossroads of Asia. New Delhi, Social Science Press: 344-369.