Religion major Andrew Nalani '16 spoke at a September 25, 2018, Gates Foundation Goalkeepers Event. Nalani, originally from Uganda, spoke about the transformative role of education at an event hosted by the foundation's Goalkeepers campaign and timed to coincide with the 2018 U.N. General Assembly. Read more about Nalani in Dartmouth Alumni News. You can also view his talk here (he comes onstage at about 1 hour, 37 minutes).

Professor of Religion Reiko Ohnuma has just been named Chair of the Dartmouth Department of Religion, effective July 1, 2018. Prof. Ohnuma is a specialist in the Buddhist traditions of South Asia (with a particular focus on narrative literature, hagiography, and the role and imagery of women), but also teaches courses on Hinduism. She holds a B.A. from the University of California (Berkeley) and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor). She is the author of Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature (Columbia University Press, 2007); Ties That Bind: Maternal Imagery and Discourse in Indian Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2012); and Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2017). She will be teaching Rel. 41.03, “Women, Monasticism, & Buddhism” (identical to WGSS 44.07), in Winter Term, 2019. (Professor Ohnuma's key to building a successful writing practice? Yoga!

Graduating Religion students were awarded prizes at the Department's Commencement Reception on Saturday, June 9:
 

Assistant Professor of Religion Zahra Ayubi has just been awarded a New Directions in Humanities Scholarship, a new program of the Office of the Associate Dean for Arts and Humanities with funding from the Office of the President that encourages faculty in the arts and humanities to pursue projects outside their primary fields of expertise. Professor Ayubi will be studying contemporary gender ethics in Muslim communities and how ontological understandings of women's bodies affect medical decision-making in a traditionally male-oriented religious context. “Bioethics is not my field," she says, "yet I find that the precarious situation of patients in tough medical circumstances that require consideration of religion and bioethics is telling of deep underlying philosophical ideas—in Muslim traditions specifically—about the nature of women’s humanity.” Read more about the grant in Dartmouth News.

Professor Reiko Ohnuma‘s Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2017) is "a masterful treatment of animals in Indian Buddhist literature," comments Natasha Heller, Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Virginia, in her podcast interview with Professor Ohuma in New Books Network. "Although they are lower than humans in the paths of rebirth, stories about animals show them as virtuous and generous—and often the victim of human failings. In the life stories of the Buddha, animals serve as 'doubles,' thereby adding nuance and complexity to various episodes in the Buddha’s life.

Kijan Bloomfield is a doctoral candidate in the Religion, Ethics, and Politics subfield at Princeton. Her reearch areas include African American religious thought, religion in the African Diaspora, global pentecostalism, and Caribbean philosophy. Her Ph.D. dissertion is an interdisciplinary project that explores the role of religious ethics in the history of social change in Jamaica from the late 19th century to the present. She is here at Dartmouth this Spring Term to teach Religion 19.25, Religions of the Caribbean (taught at the 11 hour), and Religion 19.26, Global Pentecostalism (10A). Both courses are open to all students. (Course syllabi may be viewed here.)

Congratulations to Susan Ackerman '80, Preston H. Kelsey Professor in Religion, who was just presented with the Elizabeth Howland Hand-Otis Norton Pierce Award for a Faculty Member Who is an Outstanding Teacher of Undergraduates by the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. Read more here.