I have been Assistant Professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in the Centre for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto since 2003. My current research considers the intersections between tantric practice, ritual and occult knowledge and medical theory, and what these tell us about the processes of institutional and ideological change in Tibet. I received my Ph.D. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia in 2004, and my B.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University in 1989. At the University of Toronto, I am also a member of the Asian Institute, the Centre for South Asian Studies, and the Knowledge Media Design Institute.
In 2009-10 I am on a sabbatical leave, living in Amdo Tibetan regions of China.
Publications and Research in Progress
Article under review. Mercury, Mad Dogs and Smallpox: Medicine in the Situ Panchen Tradition
Article in progress: on torma (gtor ma) practices and texts and the language of hospitality and materiality in Tibetan food offering rituals (co-authored with Andrew Erlich, Nick Field, Barbara Hazelton, Matt King, Rory Lindsay, and Matt Zito)
Article in progress: an investigation of contemporary Tibetan academic and religious literature on the connections between the Gesar epic and medicine.
Book in progress: a study of primarily occult and alchemical technologies in early Tibetan literature with a focus on the language of consumption. I am examining varied instances of ritual, ‘magic’ and medical therapies expressed via the intertwined discourses of offering, generosity, eating, digestion, alchemy and incorporation.
Books
2008. Religion, Medicine and the Human Embryo in Tibet. New York: Routledge. Critical Studies in Buddhism series. GO
2009 (forthcoming). Sienna Craig, Mingji Cuomu, Frances Garrett, and Mona Schrempf (eds), Studies of Medical Pluralism in Tibetan History and Society (Proceedings of the 11th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Bonn 2006). Halle: International Institute for Tibetan and Buddhist Studies GmbH.
Refereed Articles
2010 (forthcoming). Eating Letters in the Tibetan Treasure Tradition. Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies.
2010 (forthcoming). Tapping the Body's Nectar: Gastronomy and Incorporation in Tibetan Literature. History of Religions.
2009. The Alchemy of Accomplishing Medicine (sman sgrub): Situating the Yuthok Heart Essence Ritual Tradition. Journal of Indian Philosophy 37 (3): 207-230.
2008. Tibetan Buddhist Narratives of the Forces of Creation. In Imagining The Fetus: The Unborn in Myth, Religion and Culture, eds. Jane Marie Law & Vanessa R. Sasson. Oxford University Press.
2008. With Vincanne Adams. The Three Channels in Tibetan Medical and Religious Texts, including a translation of Tsultrim Gyaltsen’s “Treatise on the Three Channels in Tibetan Medicine.” Traditional South Asian Medicine. 8: 86-115. GO
2007. Critical Methods in Tibetan Medical Histories. Journal of Asian Studies. 66 (2): 368-387. GO
2007. Buddhism and the Historicizing of Medicine in Thirteenth Century Tibet. Asian Medicine: Tradition and Modernity. 2 (2): 204-224. GO
2005. Ordering human growth in Tibetan medical and religious embryologies. In Textual Healing: Essays on Medieval and Early Modern Medicine, ed. Elizabeth Furdel, 31-52. Leiden: Brill Publishers. GO
Non-Refereed Articles
2007. Embodiment and Embryology in Tibetan Literature: Narrative Epistemology and the Rhetoric of Identity. In Soundings in Tibetan Medicine: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives, ed. Mona Schrempf, 411-426. Leiden: Brill Publishers.
2005. Hybrid Methodologies in the Lhasa Mentsikhang. The Tibet Journal 30 (1): 55-64.
2007; 2003. Tibetan Medicine Collections. Published by the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library online at http://www.thdl.org/tibet/collections/medicine.
2006. First Year Summer Intensive Colloquial and Literary Tibetan. Co-authored with Germano, Hillis, Tournadre, Weinberger, and Woefel. Published by the Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library online at http://www.thdl.org/xml/show.php?xml=/education/tllr/xml/tllr.xml.
1999. Eastern Meditation Practices. In Encyclopaedia of Women and World Religion, ed. Serenity Young. New York: Macmillan Reference USA.
Fluent Tibetan Workbook, Tibetan language workbook and system of interactive classroom games to supplement Fluent Tibetan textbook, used in Tibetan language courses at University of Virginia from 1994-2003 and at University of California, Santa Barbara, for several years (unpublished manuscript, 1994).
Reviews
2007. The Knowledge of Healing (review). Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 81(4): 862-863.
2004/2005. Review of Pilgrims, Patrons and Place: Localizing Sanctity in Asian Religions, Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara, eds, University of British Columbia Press. University of Toronto Quarterly 74 (1): 328-329. GO
Papers Presented (Invited)
2009 “The medical teachings of Situ Panchen,” Situ Panchen Symposium, Rubin Museum of Art, New York City.
2008 “Considering Anthropophagy in Tibet,” University of California, Berkeley.
2008 "Death, Rebirth and Being Human in Tibetan Buddhism," Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
2008 "The Technology of Edible Letters (za yig) in Tibet," Buddhism's Occult Technologies, Numata Conference, McMaster University.
2005 "Fetal Mythology in Tibetan Literature," Revisioning Buddhism Numata Conference, McGill University.
2004 “Foreign Influences on Tibetan Medicine,” Tibet and Her Neighbors Conference, Harvard University.
Papers Presented (Paper selected by committee)
2009 “Medical literature in the Si tu pan chen tradition,” Association of Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago.
2008 “A Gastrosemantics of Magical Foods in Tibetan Ritual,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Chicago.
2006 "The Place of Technology in Tibetan Studies," American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.
2006 "Taxonomies of Medical Knowledge in Tibetan Literature," Eleventh Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Bonn.
2006 "The Human Face of Religious Doctrine: Buddhist Narratives of Creation in Medieval Tibet," XXth European Conference of Philosophy of Medicine and Health Care, Helsinki.
2006 "Making Medicine Buddhist: Historicizing the Four Tantras," International Association for the Study of Traditional Asian Medicine, Sixth International Congress, Austin, TX.
2005 "Buddhism and the Historicizing of Gso Rig in Tibet," American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, PA.
2005 "The Human Body in the History of Medicine in Tibet," American Association for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting, Birmingham, AL.
2003 “Reading Lineage in History: The Role of Illness in The Blue Annals,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Atlanta.
2003 “Embodiment and Embryology in Tibetan Literature,” Tenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Oxford.
2003 “Medicine and Religion in Medieval Tibet,” Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science, Durham.
2002 “Reading Religion and Medicine in Tibetan History,” Canadian Society for the History of Medicine Annual Meeting, Toronto.
2002 “Tibetan Embryology and the Intertwining of Religious and Medical Rhetoric,” American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Denver.
Panels Organized/Chaired (Panel selected by committee)
2008 Presiding chair for “Tibet and the West – Modern Intersections” panel, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Chicago
2007 Organizer of and presiding chair for "Methods for the Study of Women and Buddhism" panel at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego.
2007 Presiding chair for “Tibetan Lived Religion” panel at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, San Diego.
Other
2009 Participation in Numata Symposium, University of Calgary.
2007 "Buddhism, medicine and the problems of interdisciplinarity," paper delivered at University of Toronto Conversations in Buddhism and Science series.