Academic staff

Academic Director
Prof. Gavin Flood

Prof. Gavin Flood is from Brighton, England. Gavin is responsible for the existing academic programmes of the Centre and for developing new programmes. The Academic Director is the Centre’s contact person and link with the University’s Theology Faculty, Oriental Institute, other faculties, and other scholars of South Asian studies at Oxford. He lectures on Hinduism and other subjects as a member of the Theology Faculty, and offers tutorials for undergraduate and graduate students.

Professor Flood's main work has been on South Asian traditions, particularly Hindu Tantra, and he has research interests in sacred texts, phenomenology, asceticism, and theory and method in the study of religion. He has published papers in Religious Studies journals such as Religion and Numen and in Indological journals such as the Indo-Iranian Journal and the Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde Südasiens. The books he has published are: Body and Cosmology in Kashmir Saivism (San Francisco: Mellen Research University Press, 1993); An Introduction to Hinduism (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Beyond Phenomenology: Rethinking the Study of Religion (London: Cassell, 1999), The Ascetic Self: Subjectivity, Memory and Tradition (Cambridge University Press, 2004), and The Tantric Body (Tauris forthcoming 2005). He is the editor of The Blackwell Companion to Hinduism (Oxford: Blackwell, 2003) and general editor of the Routledge series 'Studies in Tantric Traditions.' His current research develops beyond India through re-visiting the idea of 'comparative religion' and in exploring the relation between self, text, and tradition across cultures.

Academic Administrator
Dr Jessica Frazier

Dr Jessica Frazier is from Washington DC, USA. Jessica is a Fellow of the Centre and helps to organise lectures and seminars, research projects, conferences, and fellowships. Jessica is also a member of the Centre's teaching staff, tutoring in the Faculty of Theology, and serves as secretary of our Academic Council, our Academic Planning Committee and the Theology Faculty's Study of Religions group.

She was awarded her B.A. and DPhil from Cambridge University and received an MsT in Religion from Oxford University. She is interested in Hinduism, the Nature of Religion, and the Philosophy of Religion, and is the author of Reality, Religion and Passion: Indian and Western Approaches in Hans-Georg Gadamer and Rupa Gosvami (2009), and the Continuum Companion to Hinduism (2010). She is also founding editor of the Journal of Hindu Studies, published by Oxford University Press.

Librarian
Rembert Lutjeharms

Rembert holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in Oriental Studies (Indology) from the University of Ghent, Belgium, 2003. His masters thesis was, "Hamsaduta of Rupa Goswami. A Study in Translation". he is currently pursuing a DPhil in Theology, Oxford University. Rembert's main area od research is in Sanskrit poetry and poetics, especially in relation to the Gaudiya Vaishnava tradition.

Recipient of Ashvatta Narayanan Bursary of £500 in 2006; Jiva Gosvami Bursary of £1000 in 2007; OCHS Book Grant of £50 in 2007; Rajagopalan Bursary of £250 in 2008; Jiva Gosvami Bursary of £1000 in 2009.

Continuing Education Department Administrator
Dr Nicholas Sutton

Dr Nicolas Sutton is from Birmingham, England. As Director for the Centre’s CE Dept. Nicolas is responsible for the development and accreditation of courses, teaching provision, assessment of course work, online provision, and publications. He also teaches and offers tutorials for students of our Hindu Studies Certificate Course.

Dr Nicholas Sutton obtained his BA Degree with First Class Honours from the Department of Theology at the University of Birmingham in 1991. He gained his Phd from Lancaster University in 1995, submitting a doctoral thesis on the religious teachings of the Mahabharata. From 1995 to 2001, Dr Sutton was Full Time Lecturer in Eastern Religions at Edge Hill University College and he currently lectures in Religious Studies for the Open University, and in Hinduism for the University of Nottingham. Dr Sutton has contributed a number of articles on the Hindu tradition to academic journals, as well as chapters in edited books. In 2000, his extensive work on epic theology entitled 'Religious Doctrines in the Mahabharata' was published by Motilal Benarsidass in Delhi. He is currently working on a translation and extended study of the Mahabharata's Moksha-dharma-parvan, and researching material for a book exploring the links between the Bhagavad Gita and the Mahabharata. His work has also brought him into close contact with the Hindu communities in the North of England where he worked with Preston College and the local temples in organising courses of study in Hindu scripture and Hindu religious practice.

Continuing Education Department Administrator
Anuradha Dooney

Anuradha received her Bachelors Degree in Social Science, from University College Dublin in 1985. Since that time she has travelled extensively in Europe, Russia and India. While in India she acheived a Bhakti-shastri Degree from the Vrindavan Institute of Higher Education. She has taught on various courses during this time and served as the main curriculum writer for religious education courses in the UK and Belgium. Anuradha was awarded her MSt in the Study of Religion, from Oxford University in 2003. Her thesis, an exploration of faith development in Gaudiya Vaishnavism, was entitled, 'Clouds, Creepers and Krishna: The flourishing of faith in Vishvanatha Cakravarti's Madhurya Kadambini.' Anuradha is currently a faculty member of the OCHS Continuing Education Department. She teaches courses in London, Birmingham, Oxford, Cambridge and Leicester. Anuradha has also organised and run interfaith workshops, seminars and conferences internationally.