Kati Fitzgerald

Kati Fitzgerald

Email
fitzgerald8@otterbein.edu

Assistant Professor
Department of Philosophy & Religion

Dr. Fitzgerald is an anthropologist of religion, whose 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. She teaches courses on Asian Religions, Ethics, Gender & Sexuality in the Study of Religion, the intersection between performing arts and religious practice, and religion and medicine.

Education

  • Ph.D., The Ohio State University, 2020
  • M.A., The Ohio State University, 2015
  • B.A., Columbia University, 2010

Publications

Book
  • No Pure Lands: The Transformative Religious Labor of Tibetan Women - Manuscript under review
Peer-Reviewed Articles & Book Chapters
  • “Sacrificial Does and Hens: Heroic Death and Motherhood in Contemporary Tibetan Buddhist Children’s Literature,” in Rowena Robinson, Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor, and Sherin Sabu, ed. Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Motherhood, (Forthcoming 2027).
  • “Speaking Realization into Existence: Oral History and the Creation of Hagiographic Truths,” Special Issue on the Anthropology of Buddhism edited by Ian Turner and Austin Simoes-Gomes, Contemporary Buddhism, (Forthcoming 2026).
  • “Class,” in Paul Fuller, Amy Langenberg, and Jue Liang, ed. The Bloomsbury Handbook of  Contemporary Buddhist Ethics, (Forthcoming 2026).
  • “Carrying Stones and Living in Caves: Extraordinary Labors of Tibetan Buddhist Women,” in Gwendolyn Gillson and Paulina Kolata, ed. Religious Labor in the Making of Buddhist Worlds, (Forthcoming 2025).
  • “Drinking from a human skull in the monastery kitchen: Tantric Ritual and Women’s Labor in Contemporary Tibet,” in Hugh B Urban, Anya Golovkova and Hillary Langberg, ed. Routledge Worlds: The Tantric World (Forthcoming 2025).
  • “Don't Touch the Water: Women's Labor and Presence in Tibetan Monastic Kitchens," in Yudit Kornberg Greenberg and Benjamin E. Zeller, ed. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Food, (Forthcoming 2025).
  • “Critique, Reform and Ethical Innovation: Buddhist Philosophies in Contemporary Tibetan Hip Hop.” In Brooke Schedneck & Courtney Bruntz, ed. The Oxford Handbook of Lived Buddhism (2024). https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197658697.013.32.
  • “A Drop of Water Can Pierce Through Stone: Geography and Sacred Space in Contemporary Yushu,” Korean Journal of Buddhist Studies 67 (2021): 1-43.
  • “Preliminary Practices: Bloody Knees, Calloused Palms, and the Transformative Nature of Women’s Labor.” Special Issue on Buddhism and the Body edited by Brooke Schedneck, Religions 11, no. 12 (2020).
  • “‘My Beautiful Face, the Enemy of Dharma Practice’: Variations in the Textual History of Nangsa Ohbum.” Asian Ethnology 77 (2019): 145-168.
  • “Lineage in the Digital Age: Didactic Practices of the Nepal Tibetan Lhamo Association and Tibet University Arts Department Tibetan Opera Class.” Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines 38   (2017): 153-178.
  • “Tibetan Dance,” “Tibetan Music,” and “Tibetan Masks.” in Siyuan Liu, ed., Routledge Handbook of Asian Theatre (2016): 105-106; 139-141; 154-157.
  • “Tibetan Opera in and Outside the Tibet Autonomous Region.” Asian Theatre Journal 31.1 (2014): 270-278.