The professor of Religious Studies also offered a seminar in research methodologies for graduate students.
Amy Allocco, professor of religious studies and director of 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Multifaith Scholars program, presented the keynote for the 6th annual Religion Graduate Students Association Symposium (RGSA) held at the University of Florida, March 27-28, 2026. Allocco鈥檚 lecture, 鈥溾楢 God Feeling in Every Heart鈥: Strategic Innovation Among South India鈥檚 Hindu Drummer-Priests,鈥 opened the conference on Friday evening.
Vasudha Narayanan, distinguished professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Religion, introduced Allocco鈥檚 keynote. Allocco focused her lecture on pampaikk膩rar, musicians who play the twin-headed set of drums known as pampai and sing to invoke the deities in diverse Hindu devotional contexts. Drawing on material from her recently completed sabbatical fieldwork project in Tamil-speaking South India, she highlighted the role of pampaikk膩rar as both musicians and ritual specialists who invoke deities through sound. She argued that these practitioners innovatively adapt their performances in response to changing aesthetic preferences, devotional needs and social contexts while both maintaining credibility and inspiring the 鈥済od-feeling鈥 referenced in the title of her presentation. Allocco also reflected on her own research methods, emphasizing how fieldwork relationships as well as lived traditions shape scholarly questions and, by extension, outcomes.
Following her address, Allocco met with graduate students for an hour-long seminar on methodologies for the study of religion, where emerging researchers had the opportunity to ask questions about ethnography and research ethics as well as their own projects. Participants read two of Allocco鈥檚 journal articles, which had been selected by conference organizers as the starting point for this seminar.
On Saturday morning, Allocco delivered welcome remarks to inaugurate the full day of paper sessions. The symposium was sponsored by the University of Florida鈥檚 Department of Religion with support from its Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere.