Marie-Josée Blanchard is assistant professor in Religious Studies at St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada. She holds a Ph.D. in Humanities (Concordia University), an M.A. in Religious Studies (University of Ottawa), and holds a B.A. in Psychology (Université de Moncton). Her research interests focus on the intersection between Hinduism, devotion, classical Indian dance, Indian aesthetics, culture, emotions and the senses, and more recently on extrasensory experiences and new religions and alternative spiritualities. Her most recent publication explored the role of participant sensation (as an alternative to participant observation) as a key method in ethnographic work, anthropology and the performing arts.

Marie-Josée’s M.A. dissertation examined the rich sensory textures and flavours of Hindu pujas (devotional rituals), both in India and in a small Hindu temple in Ottawa. She argued that the embodied nature of Hindu devotion called for a “sacred sensorium,” a form of perception that was particularly rich and symbolic within the ritual puja. It is during her M.A. research that Marie-Josée came upon the concept of “rasa”–which means “flavour” and “essence,” but also “aesthetic pleasure.” Focusing on this notion, her PhD project explored the sensory and emotional nature of rasa within Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance-drama form (among many) that has been through a cultural renewal in the past century.

Marie-Josée defended her thesis, entitled “Tasting Physical Expression: A Sensorial and Cultural Analysis of the Notion of Rasa in Classical Indian Dance” in December 2020, and graduated at Spring 2021 Convocation.