Rae Erin Dachille is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Arizona. She earned her Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and specializes in the religious and artistic traditions of Himalayan Buddhism. Her research focuses upon representations of the body in art, ritual, philosophy, and medicine in Tibetan and Sanskrit sources. Dr. Dachille’s book project, entitled Searching for the Body: Translating Buddhism in the Postmodern Age, explores the variety of attitudes toward the body reflected in a heated scholastic exchange between two prominent Tibetan monks. It also demonstrates the value of evaluating these esoteric sources in relationship to broader humanistic conversations.
Dr. Dachille’s work reflects her enduring interest in revealing the many ways in which Tibetan Buddhist sources may enrich our approach to studying the body as well as to formulating new theories of representation. She teaches courses in Tibetan Buddhism, South Asian religion, theories and methods for the study of religion, and religion in the medical humanities. Dr. Dachille will teach a new course on Buddhist art in Fall 2021.
Dr. Dachille’s most recent article, “Running the Numbers for the Path of Mantra: Distinguishing the Thirteenth Bhūmi in Fifteenth-century Tibet,” appeared in Religions in March 2021 [https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12030175 ]. In 2020, Dr. Dachille’s article “Inscribing the corpus: Scribal and Ritual Practice in the Material Culture of Dunhuang” appeared in Numen Vol. 67, No. 2-3. She has a number of other publications forthcoming, including “Empty Like the Sky’: Polysemy and the Problem of ‘Mere Clear Awareness’ at the Intersection of Sūtra and Tantra in Fifteenth-century Tibet,” scheduled to appear in the April 2021 issue of Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines.
At the American Academy of Religion, she gave a presentation titled “Counting the Way to Liberation” and gave an invited lecture and workshop for the Graduate Seminar in Tantric Buddhism at Northwestern University in October on the topic “Mapping Body and Text in the Guhyasamāja Tantra.” Most recently, Dr. Dachille presented a new project on “Nuancing Appropriation and ‘Soft Power” at the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies.
For more information about Dr. Dachille’s interests and publications, please visit:
https://religion.arizona.edu/people/raedachille