Wendy Doniger
Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions in the Divinity School; also in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, the Committee on Social Thought, and the College
M.A., Ph.D. (Harvard University)
D.Phil. (Oxford University)
Wendy Doniger's research and teaching focus on translating, interpreting, and comparing elements of Hinduism through modern contexts of gender, sexuality, and identity. Her courses in mythology address themes in cross-cultural expanses, such as death, dreams, evil, horses, sex, and women; her courses in Hinduism cover a broad spectrum that, in addition to mythology, considers literature, law, gender, and zoology.
Among over thirty books published under the name Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty and Wendy Doniger are sixteen interpretative works, including Śiva: The Erotic Ascetic; The Origins of Evil in Hindu Mythology; Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts; Dreams, Illusion, and Other Realities; Tales of Sex and Violence: Folklore, Sacrifice, and Danger in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa; Other Peoples’ Myths: The Cave of Echoes; Splitting the Difference: Gender and Myth in Ancient Greece and India; The Bedtrick: Tales of Sex and Masquerade; The Implied Spider: Politics and Theology in Myth; The Woman Who Pretended to Be Who She Was; and The Hindus: An Alternative History. Among her nine translations are three Penguin Classics—Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook, Translated from the Sanskrit; The Rig Veda: An Anthology, 108 Hymns Translated from the Sanskrit; and The Laws of Manu (with Brian K. Smith)—and a new translation of the Kamasutra (with Sudhir Kakar). In progress are Hinduism, for the Norton Anthology of World Religions (2012); Faking It: Narratives of Circular Jewelry and Deceptive Women; and a novel, Horses for Lovers, Dogs for Husbands.
Transcript: Spring 2008 Convocation Address, "Thinking More Critically about Thinking Too Critically."
Video: Wendy Doniger on "Stories in Motion: Narrative Dance in India" 
from Chicago Opera Theater.
"Many Gods, Many Paths: Hinduism and Religious Diversity," Religion and Culture Web Forum, February 2006.
"The Mythology of Self-Imitation in Passing: Race, Gender, and Politics," Religion and Culture Web Forum, December 2004.
“Masquerading as One's Self: A Revealing Study of Self-Impersonation in Literature," Religion and Culture Web Forum, April 2003.
