Ian J. MacCormack
Khyentse Foundation Lecturer in Buddhist Studies
Departments of Comparative Religion and Asian Studies
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
PhD (2018) Harvard University, Committee on the Study of Religion
MTS (2010) Harvard Divinity School
BA (2006) Rice University
About me:
I'm a scholar of Tibetan literature, history, and religion. My research centers on the cosmopolitan intellectual and social environment of early modern Tibet, especially the intersection of Buddhist thought and practice with ideas about kingship and state.
I am currently writing a book on Buddhism and state in late seventeenth-century Tibet. This book will be the first in-depth study of the texts and works of the Desi Sangyé Gyatso, who ruled the state for more than two decades. It will address the history, theory, and materiality of three of the largest and most important works of his reign: the giant golden tomb of the fifth Dalai Lama, the royal palace in Lhasa, and the holiday for commemorating the Dalai Lama's death. This project speaks to the study of Buddhist kingship, early modern Asian intellectual and political history, and the relationship of religion and politics in Tibet.
My broader research agenda branches out into other aspects of Buddhist thought and practice in the early modern Tibetan state, for instance literature and ritual. One such project concerns the literary and social dimensions of speechmaking in Tibetan Buddhism. Work in progress includes studies of enthronement ceremonies, cosmological discourses, and translation and analysis of works of literature, including poetry by the fifth Dalai Lama and the Desi.
I received my PhD in the Study of Religion from Harvard University, with a dissertation on Buddhist cosmology and theology in the early modern Tibetan Buddhist state. Before moving to Jerusalem, I was the Shinjo Ito postdoctoral fellow in Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. My faculty position at Hebrew University is supported by a grant from the Khyentse Foundation.
