Dachille, Rae Erin

Assistant Professor

raedachille@email.arizona.edu

Office

Learning Services Building 222

Dr. Rae Erin Dachille (Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies, University of California at Berkeley) specializes in the religious and artistic traditions of Himalayan Buddhism. Her research focuses upon representations of the body in art, ritual, philosophy, and medicine in Tibetan and Sanskrit sources. Dr. Dachille’s book project, entitled Searching for the Body: Translating Buddhism in the Postmodern Age, explores the variety of attitudes toward the body reflected in a heated scholastic exchange between two prominent Tibetan monks. The book examines the complex and sometimes paradoxical understandings of the body’s strengths and vulnerabilities specific to the fifteenth-century Tibetan context. It also demonstrates the value of evaluating these ‘esoteric’ sources in relationship to broader humanistic conversations on the body.

Dr. Dachille’s work reflects her enduring interest in revealing the many ways in which Tibetan Buddhist sources may enrich our approach to studying the body as an object of knowledge as well as to formulating new theories of representation. She teaches courses in Tibetan Buddhism, South Asian religion, theories and methods for the study of religion, and religion in the medical humanities.

Dr. Dachille is the Burns Faculty Fellow for 2016-2017.

Areas of Specialization: Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, South Asian Religion s

Currently Teaching

RELI 240 – Imagining the Buddha: Images of Buddhism in Asia and the West

What role do images play in the history, theory, and practice of Buddhism in Asia as well as in cultural encounters between Buddhism and Europe and the U.S.? Today art critics continue to discuss "Buddhist" elements in the work of iconic artists like Georgia O'Keefe and Mark Rothko, Tibetan mandala coloring books are being used for stress relief, and "Zen" aesthetics inform a broad range of fashion and design platforms. This course provides theoretical tools for critically reexamining the categories of "East" and "West" within this cultural moment. Considering how images of Buddhism have functioned across time and space for over two thousand years from its origins in India, robust expansion throughout Asia as well as transformations in colonial encounters, globalization, and immigration allows us to better comprehend how those categories were formed and perpetuated. The course explores the form of Buddhist images, their creation and use, and ritual contexts together with the senses of vision, materiality, and space and place they convey. It introduces a diverse range of key phenomena in sculpture, painting, and architecture such as early Indian sculptures of the Buddha, Chinese painted caves, Himalayan esoteric images of enlightened reality, Cambodian temple complexes, and portraits of Japanese Zen masters. The course reflects upon the lives of Buddhist images in Europe and the U.S. vis-à-vis art, architecture, film, and other visual media since the 19th century. In the process of learning to engage with the "images" of Budhism they encounter in their everyday lives, students are exposed to an interdisciplinary curriculum spanning the fields of art history, religious studies, and visual culture.

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RELI 359 – Buddhism and Healing

Is Buddhism a tradition of healing? In what ways has Buddhism been involved in reviving, sustaining, and curing human individuals? This course explores relationships and encounters between Buddhism and the domains of religion, science, and medicine. It considers historical relationships between Buddhism and traditional medicine in Asia as well as contemporary Western discourses involving Buddhism in popular culture, psychology, and spirituality. Finally, it invites a critical approach to the current dialogue between Buddhism and science. In the process, it reveals hidden assumptions behind commodifying `mindfulness' and the quest to document the therapeutic impact of meditation upon health, happiness, and success in the modern age. Students will have the opportunity to apply the ideas they have learned through analysis of relevant initiatives at the U of A such as the Neuropsychology, Emotion, and Meditation [NEM] Lab and the Center for Compassion Studies as well as of broader Tucson community events like the Gem Show.

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Currently Teaching

RELI 240 – Imagining the Buddha: Images of Buddhism in Asia and the West

RELI 359 – Buddhism and Healing