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. After receiving a PhD in Comparative Studies from The Ohio State University, she completed a postdoc at Yale University's Institute of Sacred Music and taught in liberal arts colleges in Ohio. She specializes in contemporary Tibetan religions and 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 the home, labor and delivery, child rearing, and religious communities — shape the way that Tibetan women interpret and enact Buddhist doctrines.
Educational Background
- PhD: Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University
Specialties
- Tibetan Buddhism
- Buddhist Studies
- Performance Studies
- Ethnography