Research Interests
Hinduism, the religious and political history of South Asia, Sanskrit literature, Purāṇas, sacred space and landscape, religious conceptions of the body
Education
Ph.D. University of Virginia, 2019
M.A. University of Virginia, 2009
B.A. University of California, Santa Barbara, 2006
Grants
Fulbright-Nehru Research Grant—India (2015-2016)
University of Virginia Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Summer Research Grant (2015)
American Institute of Indian Studies Language Fellowship—Hindi (2013-2014)
American Institute of Indian Studies Language Fellowship—Hindi (2011)
American Institute of Indian Studies Language Fellowship—Sanskrit (2009)
Courses Taught
REL104 Asian Mythology
REL 495 Hindu Epics
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Program in Medieval Studies
Assistant Professor, Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies
Honors & Awards
Fulbright—India (2015-2016)
Recent Publications
Newman, A. (2023). Body, Community, Cosmos: A Śaiva Siddhānta Rite of Initiation. In Y. Kornberg Greenberg, & G. Pati (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Religion and the Body (pp. 291-304). (Routledge Handbooks in Religion). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003058502-24
Newman, A. (2022). Lineage in Its Spatial Context: Epigraphy, Geography, and the Formation of Political Unity in Medieval Mewar. Journal of Hindu Studies, 15(2), 148-167. https://doi.org/10.1093/jhs/hiac001
Newman, A. L. (2020). Rāṣṭrasenā: Hawk Goddess of the Mewar Mountains. In M. Slouber (Ed.), A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses: Tales of the Feminine Divine from India and Beyond (pp. 193-214). (Philip E. Lilienthal Imprint in Asian Studies). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520976214-012
Newman, A. (2019). Dismembering Demons: Spatial and Bodily Representations in the Fifteenth-Century Ekaliṅgamāhātmya. In G. Pati, & K. C. Zubko (Eds.), Transformational Embodiment in Asian Religions: Subtle Bodies, Spatial Bodies (pp. 86-107). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429356056-5