Aditya Malik

Dr. Aditya Malik was trained in philosophy, archaeology and ancient history at St. Stephen’s College (Delhi) and Deccan College (Pune). He received further academic training in classical and modern Indian studies, social anthropology and the history of religions from the internationally acclaimed South Asia Institute of the University of Heidelberg (Germany) from where he received his D.Phil. and Habilitation (Professorial degree). 

Dr. Malik has held several senior academic and administrative positions internationally and nationally. He has travelled extensively and delivered scholarly lectures particularly in the fields of Humanities and Social Sciences in India, USA, Europe and New Zealand. Most recently he was the Vice-Chancellor at K.R. Mangalam University. Previously he has also been the founding Professor and Dean of the School of Historical Studies at the newly established Nalanda University and a Professor in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand.

Dr. Malik has conducted several years of ethnographic fieldwork in rural western and northern India. He is interested in the cultural significance of oral traditions and ritual performance; the intersections of religion, social justice and law; the social, symbolic and religious importance of pilgrimage; the interconnections between memory, time, imagination and historical consciousness; questions concerning the relationship between self, world and language; as well as the meanings of thinking, creativity and intelligence.

His current research and teaching interests lie at the intersections of the humanities, social sciences and technology. In particular he is captivated by the prospect of creating a trans-disciplinary, integrated approach that views Earth as an undivided, complex whole made up of the intertwining of physical, biological and social worlds.

Dr. Malik is also the recipient of several highly competitive international and national research grants. He was a Senior Fellow at the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Council; Heidelberg, Germany), UNESCO International Consultant (Paris/New Delhi), Visiting Professor, Israel Academy of Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University (Jerusalem, Israel), Visiting Professor at the Cluster Innovation Centre, University of Delhi, and twice a Fellow at the Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (Erfurt, Germany) which counts among the preeminent centres of excellence in social science research in Germany.

He was honoured as an Inspired Teacher, the highest civilian recognition for university teachers in India, by the late, former President of India, Bharat Ratna Dr. Pranab Mukherjee in 2016.

Books:

1. Antje Linkenbach and Aditya Malik (eds.), 2024. Realizing Justice? Normative Orders and the Realities of Justice in India. New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 351.

2. Aditya Malik, 2021. Hammira: Chapters in Imagination, Time, History. Boston/Berlin: De Gruyter. (Religion and Society Series), pp. 221.

3. Aditya Malik, 2016. Tales of Justice and Rituals of Divine Embodiment: Oral Narratives from the Central Himalayas. New York: Oxford University Press. [Reprinted 2018, South Asia Edition (Delhi: OUP)], pp. 295.

4. Will Sweetman and Aditya Malik (eds.), 2016. Hinduism in India: Modern and Contemporary Movements. Delhi: Sage, pp. 356.

Book Chapters and Journal Article:

1. Antje Linkenbach and Aditya Malik, 2024. “Introduction.” In Realizing Justice? Normative Orders and the Realities of Justice in India, Antje Linkenbach and Aditya Malik (eds.). New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 9-42.

2. Aditya Malik, 2024. “Goludev, God of Justice: Encounters between Divine and Secular Authority.” In Realizing Justice? Normative Orders and the Realities of Justice in India, Antje Linkenbach and Aditya Malik (eds.). New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 169-189.

3. Aditya Malik, 2024. “The Plain Sense of Things: Time, History and the Dream.” In Between Life and Thought: Existential Anthropology and the Study of Religion, Seeman, Don and Devaka Premawardhana (eds.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 179-196.

4. Aditya Malik, 2023. “The Divine in the Secular.” In The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Theory. Vol 2, 140-157.

5. Aditya Malik, 2019. “The Swirl of Worlds: Possession, Porosity and Embodiment.” In Fuchs, Martin et al. (eds.) Religious Individualization: Historical Dimensions and Comparative Perspectives. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, pp. 559-582.