Stuart Ray Sarbacker
 Lecturer in Religion
Director of Undergraduate Studies
Office: Crowe Hall, 1860 Campus Drive, 4-140
Phone: (847) 491-2615
E-Mail: s-sarbacker@northwestern.edu
Stuart Ray Sarbacker, Senior Lecturer in Religion, specializes in the History of Religions with a focus on South Asia. His work is centered on the relationships between Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism, especially in the Indo-Tibetan region. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin and has performed fieldwork and institutional study in India and Nepal.
He is currently serving as Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Religion.
His teaching focuses on Comparative Religion, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Along with broad introductory courses such as Religion 170 “Religion in Human Experience,” Religion 200 “Introduction to Hinduism,” and Religion 210 “Introduction to Buddhism,” he offers a range of topical courses on the religions of South Asia, including Religion 302 “Yoga and Tantra,” Religion 313 “Tibetan Buddhism,” and Religion 301 “Indian Goddesses.” He recently received the Weinberg College of Liberal Arts Alumni Teaching Award, a Distinguished Teaching Award for Lecturer Faculty at Northwestern.
He has written extensively on the topics of the practice of Yoga (both contemplative practices and bodily disciplines) in South Asian religion and method and theory in the study of religion. His recently published book, Samādhi: The Numinous and Cessative in Indo-Tibetan Yoga (Albany: State University of Press, 2005), deals with the psychological and sociological dynamics of contemplative practices in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Other recent publications include “The Future of Creative Hermeneutics,” in Incompatible Visions: South Asian Religion in History and Culture, ed. James Blumenthal (University of Wisconsin Center for South Asia, 2005); “Skillful Means: What Can Buddhism Teach Us About Teaching Buddhism” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 17 no. 5 (2005); “Enstasis and Ecstasis: A Critical Appraisal of Eliade on Yoga and Shamanism” Journal for the Study of Religion 15, no. 1 (2002); and “Traditions in Transition: Meditative Concepts in the Development of Tantric Sādhana” International Journal of Tantric Studies 6, no. 1 (2002). His current projects include an academic volume on the history and development of the practice of yoga, and a reader of texts in translation on the topic.
Recent paper presentations and invited lectures include “Possession and Contextuality: Yoga and Tantra in The Self Possessed” (36th Annual South Asia Conference, Fall 2007); “The Ecological Dynamics of Power and Liberation in Yoga” (Green Yoga Association Conference, Spring 2007); “Pātañjala Yoga and/as Cosmology” (13th Annual World Sanskrit Conference, Summer 2006); “The Mūrti of Yoga: Patañjali as Nāgarāja in Contemporary Yoga” (Conference on the Study of Religions in India, Spring 2006); “In the Image of Yoga: Embodiment and Universality” (Northwestern Religion and the Body Colloquium, Spring 2006); “A Slice of Life: Yoga and the ‘Pizza Effect’” (Northwestern Asian Studies and Asian-American Studies Joint Lecture Series, Spring 2006); “Indo-Tibetan Tantrism as Spirit Marriage” (American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Fall 2005); “The Ecology of Yoga in Contemporary America: Askesis and Commodification” (American Academy of Religion Midwest Regional Meeting, Spring 2005); “Herbs as a Means to Power in Patañjali's Yogasūtra” (American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Fall 2004), “Is Having No View Possible?” (American Academy of Religion Upper Midwest Regional Meeting, Spring 2004); and “Ecological Implications of the Mahāvrata or 'Great Vow' in Yoga” (American Academy of Religion Midwest Regional Meeting, Spring 2003).
Sarbacker has also trained extensively in contemporary yoga and meditation traditions and is formally registered with the Yoga Alliance as a yoga teacher.
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