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Aidan Cox

Aidan Cox, a graduate of the University of South Florida, earned a summa cum laude degree in anthropology and world languages and cultures, with a concentration in applied linguistics and French and Francophone studies. His passion lies in the worldwide preservation and revitalization of minority language. Aidan has conducted linguistic research on Telugu, French, Spanish, and other languages. He has presented his findings at English and French conferences. His focus has been on the Telugu-speaking region of South India, a unique area for linguistic study. His previous projects include “Properly Cheppu: Early Balanced Bilingualism in a Telugu-English Household”, “Pedagogy of Telugu Verb Structure”, and “A Linguistic Sketch of Telugu”.

Aidan’s Fulbright-Nehru research project is conducting fieldwork in India to deepen understanding of linguistic attitudes and social behaviors. He is integrating methods from sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and cultural anthropology to develop innovative approaches that benefit minority and tribal populations. Working with the University of Hyderabad, he is specifically exploring interactions in the Kui language among the Kandha tribe in order to examine language’s role in identity, cultural heritage, and indigeneity. He is also analyzing Kui language-use patterns, including ideologies surrounding the language. One of the aims of the project is to combat the decline of endangered languages.

Gil Ben-Herut

Dr. Gil Ben-Herut is an associate professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Florida. He holds a PhD in religious studies from Emory University and a BA and MA from Tel Aviv University in Israel. His research interests include premodern religious literature in the Kannada language, South Asian bhakti (devotional) traditions, translation in South Asia, and programming in digital humanities.

His book, Śiva’s Saints: The Origins of Devotion in Kannada according to Harihara’s Ragaḷegaḷu (Oxford University Press, 2018), is the first study in English of the earliest Śaiva hagiographies in the Kannada-speaking region, and it argues for a reconsideration of the development of devotionalism as associated today with the Vīraśaivas. The book received the Best First Book Award for 2019 from the Southeastern Medieval Association and the 2020 Best Book Award from the Southeastern Conference of the Association for Asian Studies. Dr. Ben-Herut also received the Faculty Outstanding Research Achievement Award from the University of South Florida for the year 2020.

Dr. Ben-Herut recently completed co-translating selections from the Ragaḷe hagiographical collection for a book-length publication (under review). This project is funded by the American Academy of Religion’s Collaborative International Research Grant. His publications include a co-translation of a twelfth-century Kannada treatise about poetics, encyclopedic entries, a co-edited volume, book chapters, and peer-reviewed articles. Dr. Ben-Herut is the co-founder of the Regional Bhakti Scholars Network, a platform for facilitating scholarly conversations about South Asian devotional traditions.

Utilizing his extensive experience in computer programming, Dr. Ben-Herut also leads several digital humanities projects, including digital ROSES and BHAVA. He is a member of the Digital India Learning Committee of the American Institute of Indian Studies and an active collaborator in digital projects about South Asian texts and languages involving open-source and open-access environments.

The textual “biography” of the vachana corpus – an expanding collection of devotional and lyrical poetry in Kannada from the twelfth century – spans over several key moments in the history of South India, starting with an innovative devotional practice of personal oral proclamations and then developing into a written canon that served as the fulcrum for a new religious sect, until finally becoming a cultural tool for biting social critique in the modern period. Dr. Ben-Herut’s Fulbright-Nehru project is examining how, nine centuries after their appearance, the vachanas became the most cherished literature in Kannada and an exemplar of sorts for spiritual poetry around the world.