Austin is a Ph.D. student in the Department for the Study of Religion researching possession traditions and healing among the Newars of the Kathmandu Valley. His academic interests also include method and theory, children and religion, Buddhist birth and embryological narratives, and teaching theory. He received his B.A. Honours from McGill University in 2018, where he studied Asian religions and South Asian studies. He also spent a year studying the Rangjung Yeshe Institute (RYI). He obtained his M.A. from the University of Toronto in 2019.
His current research seeks to situate the dyaḥ māju, women who become possessed by the goddess Hāratī and their practices in the wider socio-ethnic world and discourses of Nepal. His work seeks to decentre the spirit medium in the study of possession rituals by showing the ways in which possession is an intersubjective event co-created by all participants, including those usually considered passive by-standers, such as family members, people accompanying the to-be-healed, attendants, and other devotees. In addition to ethnography, he will be employing a methodology inspired by the phenomenology of religion, rooted in personal subjective engagement, that does not compromise the objective treatment of ‘social formations,’ yet also mediates religious phenomena ‘religiously’.
In terms of teaching, he is particularly interested in embodied and experiential pedagogies. He strives to teach students in a way that acknowledges the fact that learning Is not merely a cognitive act and that that the body itself is an Integral part of the learning process. He is Interested in employing multimedia materials, such as recordings, and films so students get a sense of the sensuality of religious experiences. In light of current situation, he has become interested in questions surrounding bringing embodied pedagogies into the digital classroom. How can we construct an embodied classroom and incorporate embodies pedagogies in the digital classroom?
Read Austin’s co-authored story of our centre’s visit from Professor Naresh Man Bajracharya, a scholar and practitioner of Newar Buddhism, who joined us for a workshop on Newar Buddhist texts: https://buddhiststudies.utoronto.ca/2018/11/09/naresh-man-bajracharya/
