Dr. Lindsey DeWitt Prat

Lindsey DeWitt Prat is a Flanders Research Foundation (FWO) Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Buddhist Studies, Department of Languages & Cultures, Ghent University. She received her Ph.D. in Asian Languages & Cultures (Buddhist Studies) from the University of California, Los Angeles, following an M.A. in Comparative Religion from the University of Washington and a B.A. in Political Science from Colorado State University. She was previously an Assistant Professor of Buddhism and Japanese Religions at Kyushu University and a Japan Society for the Promotion of Sciences (JSPS) postdoctoral fellow at Kyushu University. Lindsey’s research engages the social and historical dimensions of Buddhism and other religious traditions in Japan, across all time periods with a particular focus on gender, sacred space, discourse on tradition and cultural heritage, and the mobilization of ancient (or putatively ancient) religious histories and mythology in the modern and contemporary age. Her publications and presentations to date have centered on religion-based female taboos (nyonin kinsei, nyonin kekkai).