Tracy Pintchman, PhD

Professor and Director of Global Studies

Dr. Pintchman specializes in the study of Hinduism, with a focus on gender issues, Goddess traditions, and Hindu women's rituals. She has held grants from the American Academy of Religion, American Institute of Indian Studies, and the National Endowment of the Humanities. She has also taught at Northwestern University and Harvard University, where she was a visiting scholar in the Women's Studies in religion Program at Harvard Divinity School in 2000–2001. She spent two years living in India and has traveled extensively throughout Asia.

Education

PHD in Religious Studies (1992), U.C. Santa Barbara
MA in Religious Studies (1987), Boston University
BA Magna Cum Laude (1984), Cornell University

Research Interests

South Asian religions, Hinduism in North America

Publications/Research Listings

Goddess Beyond Boundaries: Worshipping the Eternal Mother at a North American Hindu Temple. Oxford University Press, 2024.

Guests at God's Wedding: Celebrating Kartik Among the Women of Benares. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2005.

The Rise of the Goddess in the Hindu Tradition. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.

Sacred Matters: Materiality in Indian Religions, edited by Tracy Pintchman and Corinne Dempsey. New York: State University of New York Press, 2015.

Hindu Ritual at the Margins: Transformations, Innovations, Reconsiderations, edited by Linda Penkower and Tracy Pintchman. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2014.

Goddess and Woman in Hinduism: Reinterpretations and Re-envisionings, edited by Tracy Pintchman and Rita D. Sherma. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan 2011.

Women's Lives, Women's Rituals in the Hindu Tradition (edited volume). New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Contributions include the introduction and one additional chapter.

Seeking Mahādevī: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess (edited volume). Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Authored contributions to this volume include two chapters.

Awards

Sujack Award for Teaching Excellence, 1997

National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Fellowship, 1998

American Academy of Religion (AAR) Research Assistance Grant, October 1998

American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) Senior Research Fellowship, 1997