Faculty

M. Whitney Kelting

Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
Office: 364 Holmes Hall
Phone: (617) 373-8353

Whitney Kelting is an Assistant professor of religion in the Department of Philosophy and Religion. She teaches courses in Eastern Religions, Islam, and upper-level courses on religion in South Asia and theories of the study of religion. Kelting has been conducting on-going field research with a community of Jains in Maharashtra, India. Her primary areas of research are religions of South Asia, ritual theory, gender studies and cultural studies.

Kelting is the author of Singing to the Jinas: Jain Laywomen, Mandal Singing and the Negotiations of Jain Devotion (Oxford University Press, 2001) and Heroic Wives: Rituals, Stories and the Virtues of Jain Wifehood (Oxford University Press, 2009). Her current research is examining the intersection between gender, prestige and modernity in the Jain community with two separate areas of inquiry—motherhood and temple patronage—both of which are leading towards book projects.