Generate a tailored SOP for Dr. Karen Ruffle. Improve your application with a focused, well-structured draft.
Karen Ruffle, Professor at the University of Toronto Mississauga, specializes in the study of South Asian Shi'ism. Her research and teaching interests focus on devotional texts, ritual practices, and Shi'i material practices in South Asia. She has conducted extensive field research across India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, and Syria. Her published works include 'Gender, Sainthood, and Everyday Practice in South Asian Shi’ism' (2011) and 'Everyday Shi’ism in South Asia' (2021). Currently, she is working on a monograph titled 'Building City Haidar: Kingship, Urban Space, and Shi’i Ritual in Qutb Shahi Hyderabad' and a large-scale study on South Asian Shi’i material culture and sensorial practices titled 'Baraka Bodies: Shi’i Materiality, Sensorium, and Ritual in India and Pakistan'. Karen serves as co-Editor-in-Chief of the 'International Journal of Islam in Asia' and co-editor of the 'Religion and Society' series (DeGruyter). She also convenes an international Working Group on Sensing Shi’ism, which connects emerging junior and mid-career scholars engaged in ethnographic, theoretical, and empirical research on material culture and ritual practices.
Department of Sociology