Dr. Fitzgerald is the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Program and the Department of Cultural Studies & Comparative Literature. Dr. Fitzgerald received a PhD in Comparative Studies from The Ohio State University and specializes in contemporary Tibetan religions. Her work focuses on the lives and religious experiences of the Buddhist laity. She uses primarily ethnographic methods in contemporary Tibet to understand the religious theories of everyday Buddhists. Her first book project is an ethnographic exploration of the religious labor of lay women in Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Region. The book shows how women’s labor — in home, labor and delivery, child rearing, and religious communities — creates a model of Buddhism that includes labor of the body, labor of speech, and labor of the mind.
Educational Background
- PhD: Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University