Perspectives: Cultural & Religious Backgrounds of Tantric Symbols with Dr. Michael Slouber

Professor Michael Slouber will give a talk on the history and meaning behind Tantric visual and auditory culture and invite the audience to observe the elements he calls attention to within the exhibition Jyoti Duwadi, Himalaya to Cascadia: Transcending Boundaries.

Michael Slouber is a Professor of South Asian Studies and Religious Studies in the department of Global Humanities and Religions at WWU. His research examines the religious and medical traditions of the early medieval Indian subcontinent. He is the author of Early Tantric Medicine (Oxford University Press, 2017) and the editor of A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses (UC Press, 2021). He earned graduate degrees from the University of California at Berkeley and Universität Hamburg in Germany. He won the DK Award for the best dissertation on Sanskrit 2012–2014 and is an honorary fellow of the International Association of Sanskrit Studies. Michael has visited and studied in Nepal several times, and he lived in Kathmandu with his family for one year. He has had a long-standing interest in indigenous culture and religion, and wrote a recent article on the influence of shamanism on early Tantra.