Dr. Sondra Hausner

Biography

Sondra Hausner is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in South Asian religion and culture. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Princeton University in 1991 and her PhD from Cornell University in 2002. Hausner is the author of several influential works, including 'Wandering Sadhus: Ascetics in the Hindu Himalayas' (2007) and 'Spirits and Crossbones: A Graveyard of Time, Ritual, and Sexual Commerce in London' (2016). She also edited 'Durkheim in Dialogue: A Centenary Celebration of the Elementary Forms of Religious Life' (2013). Additionally, she served as a visiting professor of anthropology at the University of Tuebingen in 2015 and at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2019. From 2018 to 2021, she held the Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship to examine the history of Hindu nationalism in India since independence. Her research interests encompass social and cultural theories of religion, representations of religions in South Asia and the Himalayas, migrant diaspora religion, gender identity, ritual experience and practice, and Hinduism, as well as the history of nationalism.

Research Interests