Kathryn McClymond Associate Professor 1120 34 Peachtree St P.O. Box 4089 Atlanta, GA 30302-4089 phone: 404-413-6119 fax: 404-413-6124 e-mail: kmcclymond@gsu.edu

• B.A., cum laude, Harvard University, History and Literature
• M.A.R., Trinity Divinity School
• M.A. and Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara, Religious Studies
• Recipient, 2003 Honors Professor Award
• 2003-04 American Academy of Religion Individual Research Grant
• 2006 College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award

Dr. McClymond is an affiliate faculty member with the GSU Middle East Institute and on the executive committee of the Jewish Studies Program. She is also affiliated with the Harvard University based Pluralism Project.She currently serves as co-chair of the Comparative Studies in Hinduisms and Judaisms Group for the American Academy of Religion.

Courses regularly offered:

• Introduction to Judaism
• Judaism in the Modern World
• Rabbinic Literature and Kabbalah
• Biblical Studies
• Introduction to Hinduism
• Hindu Sacred Texts
• Religion and Literature
• Women and Religion
• World Religions

Areas of interest:
Comparative History of Religions, Hinduism, Judaism, Ritual Theory.

My work focuses on ritual, recorded in authoritative texts, observed in living communities, represented in literary works, and challenged by minority voices. By investigating ritual in these varying contexts I hope to illuminate the multiple, dynamic, and often conflicting voices and attitudes within religious communities. By doing comparative work (largely in the brahmanical Hindu and biblical and rabbinical Jewish traditions) I hope to shed light on assumptions that underlie beliefs and practices in different religious traditions. Within specific communities, these assumptions are often contested by sub-groups with varying degrees of power. In academia, certain assumptions (largely Protestant Christian) have shaped the academic study of religion. The comparative study of religion challenges monolithic assumptions about the nature and study of religious experience.

Selected Publications:

Beyond Sacred Violence: A Comparative Study of Sacrifice (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008).

"Ritual" in Studying Hinduism: Key concepts and Methods, eds. Sushil Mittal and Gene Thursby (Routledge, 2007)

"You Are Where You Eat: Food, Utopia, and Hindus in America" in Eating in Eden, Martha Finch and Etta Madden, eds., (University of Nebraska Press, 2006).

"The Chosen: Defining Jewish Identity", Shofar (Vol. 25, no.2, Winter 2007).

"Ritual and Power in Monsignor Quixote: A Ritual Studies Approach," Journal of Ritual Studies vol.20, no.1(2006).

"The Nature and Elements of Sacrifice", forthcoming in Methods and Theory in the Study of Religion 15/3 (2003).

"Death Be Not Proud: Reevaluating the Role of Killing in Sacrifice", The International Journal of Hindu Studies Volume 6, Number 3 (December 2002), 221-242.

"Differing Intentions in Vedic and Jewish Sacrifice", The Journal of Indo-Judaic Studies vol. IV (2001),