Dr Will Sweetman

Will Sweetman is Professor of Asian Religions and Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Otago.

His research interests centre on interactions between the religions of Asia and the West in the modern period, particularly the early European study of Hinduism.

His recent publications include a study of the Bibliotheca Malabarica, an eighteenth-century missionary collection of Tamil religious texts (EFEO/IFP, 2012) and a survey of European accounts of the Vedas from the mid-sixteenth to the late eighteenth century (Journal of the American Oriental Society, 2019).

He is currently writing a book on the devadasis, the Indian temple dancers who have fascinated Europeans since Marco Polo visited India on his way back from China.

For more details, see Dr Sweetman's profile.