I am a scholar of the variety and politics of religious and cultural expressions (in short, a word-nerd), and their gendered forms in particular. My research queries how religious practitioners express themselves using the cultural repertoire at their disposal, how context shapes expression, and how said expression subverts or reshapes normative vocabularies.

Within the specific field of Buddhism, I am interested in the tension between the Buddhist teaching that enlightenment is free from gender differences, and the lived realities of gendered beings as Buddhists. My research situates this very question in a body of narrative literature about the “Mother of Tibet,” Yeshe Tsogyel, and also in the pro-women discourse by a group of scholar nuns in Eastern Tibet. I am also currently writing about reverse-translation, road as a site of pilgrimage, and the social function of Buddhist libraries.

Most of my publications can be found on my academic.edu page.

Books