Wendy Doniger is the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of History of Religions at the University of Chicago. A scholar of Sanskrit and Indian textual traditions, her major works include, Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva; Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; and The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit.

Of her talk here at Dartmouth, "How I Accidentally Became a Historian of Religion," Professor Doniger explains: "Raised in a relentlessly secular family, I nourished my fascination with ancient India by studying Sanskrit, but not religion. Yet the texts I loved drew me into the study of Hinduism, and the scholars I met in Oxford and Moscow drew me into the study of mythology, and, in Chicago, into the study of religion."

Free and open to all. Reception follows.

Co-sponsored by the Dartmouth Department of Religion and the Leslie Center for the Humanities.