Catherine Hartmann

Institutional Affiliation

University of Wyoming

Profile

Dr. Hartmann joined the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies as Assistant Professor of Asian Religions in 2020. She received a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia in 2011, an M.A. in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago in 2013, and a Ph.D. from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University in 2020. She teaches courses about Buddhism and other Asian religions, including History of Non-Western Religions and Buddhist Ethics. 

Professor Hartmann's engagement with Religious Studies arises out of a longstanding interest in religion as a force that shapes our experience of the world, and in the practices religions develop to transform that experience. After growing up in a multi-religious household, she encountered Buddhism as an undergraduate, and hasn't looked back since. She is comfortable in classical Tibetan, modern Tibetan, and Sanskrit, and also reads Chinese and Hindi. She has spent over a year and a half in various communities in Asia, including summers at a Buddhist nunnery in Ladakh, at the Tibetan Library of Works and Archives in Dharamsala, at Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Kathmandu, and at Sichuan University in Chengdu.  

Her work focuses on the history of Tibetan pilgrimage to holy mountains and the goal of transforming perception while on pilgrimage, and she is currently working on a book on this topic. She is also interested in Buddhist ethics, vision and visuality, theories of place, and autobiographical writing. When not working on teaching or research, she likes to run, hike, and look at videos of cats on Instagram.

Areas of Specialization: Tibetan Buddhism, Buddhist Approaches to Perception, Buddhist Ethics, Pilgrimage

Education 

Harvard University
Ph.D., Study of Religion, Buddhist Studies
Fall 2020-Present
Cambridge, MA May 2020
      Dissertation: “To See a Mountain: Writing, Place, and Vision in Tibetan Pilgrimage Literature” Committee: Janet Gyatso (advisor), Charles Hallisey, James Robson, Leonard van der Kuijp

University of Chicago Divinity School
M.A. History of Religions

University of Virginia
B.A. Religious Studies (Honors)
Chicago, IL May 2013
Charlottesville, VA May 2011

 Publications

“How to See the Invisible: Attention, Landscape, and the Transformation of Vision in Tibetan Pilgrimage Guides,” submitted to History of Religions, October 2020.
Translation of “Tulku” by Dondrup Gyel, in The Tibet Journal Vol. XXXVIII No. 3 & 4 (Autumn-Winter 2013), 35-55.

NON-PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATIONS
 
“Perception and Projection: Buddhist Understandings of Vision,” essay commissioned by George Haas and the Mettagroup for inclusion in Punch Outs, a book of photography to be published Spring 2021

Review of The Monastery Rules: Buddhist Monastic Organization in Pre-Modern Tibet, by Berthe Jansen, Religious Studies Review, July 2019. 

Review of Divine Stories: Divyāvadāna, Part II (Classics of Indian Buddhism), translated by Andy Rotman, Reading Religion, January 2019. 

Review of Echoes of Enlightenment: The Life and Legacy of Sonam Peldren by Suzanne Bessenger, H-Net Reviews, September 2018.