Associate Professor
Reiko Ohnuma is a specialist in the Buddhist traditions of South Asia, with a particular interest in Indian Buddhist narrative literature, hagiography, and the role and imagery of women. She was trained in South Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley (B.A. 1986) and in Buddhist Studies at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (M.A. 1993, Ph.D. 1997). Her courses at Dartmouth focus on both the Hindu and Buddhist traditions of South Asia. Her various articles have been published in History of Religions, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, and Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. Her first book, published in 2007 and entitled Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature, was a study of the theme of bodily self-sacrifice in Sanskrit, Pali, and Tibetan Buddhist texts dating from the 3rd c. B.C.E. to the 11th c. C.E. She is now completing her second book, tentatively titled Ties That Bind: Maternal Imagery and Discourse in Indian Buddhism.
