Faculty and academic staff

Academic staff at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies

Academic Director

Gavin Flood

Prof. Gavin Flood is from Brighton, England. Gavin is responsible for the existing academic programmes of the Centre and for developing new programmes. The Academic Director is the Centre’s contact person and link with the University’s Theology Faculty, Oriental Institute, other faculties, and other scholars of South Asian studies at Oxford. He lectures on Hinduism and other subjects as a member of the Theology Faculty, and offers tutorials for undergraduate and graduate students.

Professor Flood's main work has been on South Asian traditions, particularly Hindu Tantra, and he has research interests in sacred texts, phenomenology, asceticism, and theory and method in the study of religion. He has published papers in Religious Studies journals such as Religion and Numen and in Indological journals such as the Indo-Iranian Journal and the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens. The books he has published are: Body and Cosmology in Kashmir Saivism (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1993); An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Beyond Phenomenology: Rethinking the Study of Religion (London: Cassell, 1999), The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory and Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and The Tantric Body (Tauris forthcoming 2005). He is the editor of The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) and general editor of the Routledge series 'Studies in Tantric Traditions.' His current research develops beyond India through re-visiting the idea of 'comparative religion' and in exploring the relation between self, text, and tradition across cultures.

Academic Administrator

Jessica Frazier

Dr Jessica Frazier is from Washington DC, USA. Jessica ensures the smooth administration of all academic committees, programmes, scholarships, fellowships, and research projects. She prepares reports on academic activities for academic committees and our Board. Jessica serves as a member of the Centre's teaching staff, tutoring in the Faculty of Theology. Jessica also serves as secretary of our Academic Council, our Academic Planning Committee and the Universities Religion Teachers group.

She was awarded her DPhil from Cambridge University and received an MsT in Religion from Oxford University.

Fellows

Gillian Evison

Gillian Evison
Gillian Evison read theology at St. John's College, Oxford before moving to Wolfson College to complete the M.Phil in Classical Indian Religion. She worked part time in Wolfson College library, whilst finishing her D.Phil, and developed an interest in its collection of books on Indian religions. She started work at the Indian Institute Library, the Bodleian Library's specialist unit devoted to South Asian materials, in 1990 and was appointed as its Librarian in 1993. Gillian is also She serves on a number of national committees devoted to South Asian librarianship and her special interests include the use of new technologies to open up access to South Asian collections in libraries and museums.

Sanjukta Gupta

Sanjukta Gupta
Dr Sanjukta Gupta worked as a lecturer in Sanskrit at Visva Bharati, Calcutta and Jadavpur Universities from 1958 to 1966. She subsequently joined Utrecht University in the Netherlands in 1967, where she held the post of senior lecturer in Sanskrit until 1986. She is presently a member of the Oriental Faculty of Oxford University, where she is a part-time tutor. Apart from Sanskrit, Dr Gupta also specialises in Indian philosophy (Vedanta) and ancient Indian religions, with particular emphasis on Tantra, Vaishnavism and bhakti and gender studies.

Rembert Lutjeharms

Rembert Lutjeharms (Librarian)
Rembert holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Oriental Studies (Indology) from the University of Ghent, Belgium, 2003. His masters thesis was, "Hamsaduta of Rupa Goswami. A Study in Translation". he is currently pursuing a DPhil in Theology, Oxford University. Rembert's main area od research is in Sanskrit poetry and poetics, especially in relation to the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition.

Peggy Morgan

Peggy Morgan
Peggy Morgan is currently Honorary President of the British Association for the Study of Religions and Lecturer in World Religions at Mansfield College, Oxford, Where she convenes a fortnightly interdisciplinary seminar series in the study of religions. She has degrees in both theology and religious studies and has been involved not only in education in a variety of arenas, including schools, continuing education and distance learning degrees, but also in interfaith dialogue at various local, national and international levels. She is a former chair of the Shap Working Party on World Religions in Education and of The Trustees of the International Interfaith centre, of which she is now a patron. Between September 1996 and May 2002 she was also Director of The Religious Experience Research Centre and her publications include: (with C. Lawton) Ethical Issues in Six Religious Traditions; (with M. Braybrooke) Testing the Global Ethic; and (with W.O. Cole) Six Religions in the Twenty-First Century.

Kenneth Valpey, USA (1999–2004)
St Cross College

BA (honours) in Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, California, USA, 1996.

MA, in the Cultural and Historical Study of Religion, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, US. 1998.

M.St. in the Study of Religion, Oxford University, 2000.

D.Phil., Oxford University, offering a dissertation entitled The Grammar and Poetics of Murti-Seva: Caitanya Vaisnava Image Worship as Discourse, Ritual, and Narrative, 2004.

In 2006 Dr Valpey's dissertation was published in revised form with the Routledge/OCHS Hindu Studies Series as a monograph entitled Attending Krsna’s Image: Caitanya Vaisnava Murti-seva as Devotional Truth.

He is presently working with Dr. Ravi M. Gupta on an edited volume, a ‘companion’ to the Bhagavata Purana, and on a translation of a 16th century Sanskrit Vaisnava ritual text, the Haribhaktivilasa, together with Dr. Mans Broo (Abo Akademie, Finland).

Having taught courses in Indian and Asian religions for the year 2006 at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and having taught for the academic year 2007-08 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in the Department of Cultural and Religious Studies, he presently continues to teach at CUHK each Autumn semester as a Visiting Scholar.

Continuing Education Department Administrator

Nick Sutton

Nicholas Sutton

Dr Nicolas Sutton is from Birmingham, England. As Director for the Centre’s CE Dept. Nicolas is responsible for the development and accreditation of courses, teaching provision, assessment of course work, online provision, and publications. He also teaches and offers tutorials for students of our Hindu Studies Certificate Course.

Dr Nicholas Sutton obtained his BA Degree with First Class Honours from the Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham in 1991. He gained his Phd from Lancaster University in 1995, submitting a doctoral thesis on the religious teachings of the Mahabharata. From 1995 to 2001, Dr Sutton was Full Time Lecturer in Eastern Religions at Edge Hill University College and he currently lectures in Religious Studies for the Open University, and in Hinduism for the University of Nottingham. Dr Sutton has contributed a number of articles on the Hindu tradition to academic journals, as well as chapters in edited books. In 2000, his extensive work on epic theology entitled 'Religious Doctrines in the Mahabharata' was published by Motilal Benarsidass in Delhi. He is currently working on a translation and extended study of the Mahabharata's Moksha-dharma-parvan, and researching material for a book exploring the links between the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata. His work has also brought him into close contact with the Hindu communities in the North of England where he worked with Preston College and the local temples in organising courses of study in Hindu scripture and Hindu religious practice.

Anuradha Dooney

Anuradha Dooney
Anuradha received her Bachelors Degree in Social Science, from University College Dublin in 1985. Since that time she has travelled extensively in Europe, Russia and India. While in India she acheived a Bhakti-shastri Degree from the Vrindavan Institute of Higher Education. She has taught on various courses during this time and served as the main curriculum writer for religious education courses in the UK and Belgium. Anuradha was awarded her MSt in the Study of Religion, from Oxford University in 2003. Her thesis, an exploration of faith development in Gaudiya Vaishnavism, was entitled, 'Clouds, Creepers and Krishna: The flourishing of faith in Vishvanatha Cakravarti's Madhurya Kadambini.' Anuradha is currently a faculty member of the OCHS Continuing Education Department. She teaches courses in London, Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Leicester. Anuradha has also organised and run interfaith workshops, seminars and conferences internationally.

Senior Associate Fellows

Frank Clooney

Francis X. Clooney, SJ
Parkman Professor of Divinity and Professor of Comparative Theology at Harvard University, USA, since 2005. Francis is a Roman Catholic priest and a member of the Society of Jesus. He was previously Professor of Comparative Theology at Boston College, where he taught since 1984, after earning his doctorate in South Asian languages and civilizations from the University of Chicago. He served as Academic Director of the OCHS from 2002- 2004. His primary areas of scholarship have been theological commentarial writings in the Sanskrit and Tamil traditions of Hindu India, and the developing field of comparative theology, a discipline distinguished by attentiveness to the dynamics of theological reading and writing in light of traditions other than one's own. He has also written on the Jesuit missionary tradition, particularly in India, and is interested in the dynamics of dialogue in a postcolonial world. He is on numerous editorial boards; was the first president of the International Society for Hindu-Christian Studies; and, from 1998 to 2004, was coordinator for interreligious dialogue for the Society of Jesus. Professor Clooney is the author of numerous articles and books, including Fr. Bouchet's India: An 18th-Century Jesuit's Encounter With Hinduism (Satyam Nilayam Publications, 2005), Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary (Oxford University Press, 2005), and, most recently, Jesuit Postmodern: Scholarship, Vocation, and Identity in the 21st Century (Lexington Books, 2006). He is currently writing a book on surrender to God in the writings of Vedanta Desika (fourteenth-century India) and Francis de Sales (seventeenth-century Geneva).

Prof. Thomas Hopkins
Prof. Thomas Hopkins, awarded Sr. Associate Fellowship in 2001, is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College, USA. He is the author of The Hindu Religious Tradition and has published numerous articles and encyclopaedia entries on all aspects on Indian religious life ranging from the Indus Civilisation to modern Bengal Vaishnavism. His special interest in the Vaishnava devotional tradition led to his first meeting with A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami in New York in 1966, which focused his attention on the newly emerging ISKCON movement and started a long-term study of ISKCON's history and theology.

Prof. Joseph O'Connell
Prof. Joseph O'Connell, awarded Sr. Associate Fellowship in 2001, is Professor Emeritus in the Study of Religion at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto. Since his Ph.D studies on 'Social Implications of the Gaudiya Vaishnava Movement' at Harvard University (USA) and Government Sanskrit College (Calcutta), he has researched, taught and published extensively on religion and society in India and Bangladesh, especially on Vaishnavas and Muslims in Bengal. He has edited or co-edited several volumes on Bengali studies and Gaudiya Vaishnavism.

M. N. Narasimhachary

Prof. M. N. Narasimhachary (Director of Academic Affairs 2000-1)Founder Professor & Head (Retired), Department of Vaishnavism, University of Madras, India. His specialist subjects include the Pre-Ramanuja Religion and Philosophy, Pancharatra Agama Literature, Telugu and Sanskrit Literature and popularisation of Sanskrit as a spoken tongue. He has published a number of articles and monographs in academic journals on topics such as the Samskrita Svapnah, Bhakti & Prapatti in Srivaishnava Philosophy and the Pancaratra-kantakoddhara. Important Publications include: The Contribution of Yaamuna to Visistadvaita [Pub; Jayalakshmi Publications, Hyderabad]; Critical Edition and Study of Yaamuna's Aagamapraamaanya [pub: Gaekwad's Oriental Series, Baroda]; and an English translation of Sri Vedanta Desika's Padukasahasram and all of his 32 Stotras. Prof. Narasimhachary received the Certificate of Honour for Proficiency in Sanskrit from the President of India for the year 2004.