Sarah Jacoby

Assistant Professor in Religion

Department of Religious Studies
Office: Crowe Hall, 1860 Campus Drive, 4-149

Phone: 847-467-1304
E-Mail: s-jacoby@northwestern.edu

Office Hours: Monday 2-4pm and by appointment (Fall 2009)

Sarah Jacoby studies South Asian Religions with a specialization in Tibetan Buddhism. She received her B.A. from Yale University, majoring in women’s studies, and her M.A. and Ph.D. (2007) degrees from the University of Virginia’s Department of Religious Studies. She joins Northwestern University this year after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at Columbia University.

Her research interests include Indo-Tibetan Buddhist doctrine and ritual in practice, gender studies, Tantric literature, autobiography studies, Buddhist revelation, Buddhism in contemporary Tibet, and Eastern Tibetan area studies. Her doctoral dissertation, entitled “Consorts and Revelation in Eastern Tibet: The Auto/biographical Writings of the Treasure Revealer Sera Khandro (1892-1940),” is an analysis of the biographical writings of the most prolific female author in Tibetan literature. Her dissertation explores the ways in which Sera Khandro represents her role as a revealer of Buddhist scriptures and artifacts (a gter ston) and as a consort in the nomadic highlands of early twentieth century Golok, Eastern Tibet. She is currently working on a book manuscript based on this research entitled Love Revelations: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Buddhist Ḍākinī. Other publications include a book she co-edited with Antonio Terrone entitled Buddhism Beyond the Monastery: Tantric Practices and their Performers in Tibet and the Himalayas (Brill, 2009).

Courses she enjoys teaching include Introduction to Buddhism, Introduction to South Asian Religions, Buddhism and Gender, Buddhist Auto/biography, and Tibetan Civilization.

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