Religious Studies Department

Meet the Faculty

Ivette Vargas-O'Bryan (department chair) focuses primarily on Indian religions and the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Her current interests lie in the intersection between Asian religions and medicine.  Her main research projects in Tibetan communities include the role of spirit diseases in creating connections between Tibetan medical practice and religious traditions and secondly, the legacy of the Indian Buddhist nun Dge slong ma Dpal mo across Asia and the West. Her book, Disease, Religion and Healing in Asia: Collaborations and Collisions (Routledge 2018) is an edited volume including eminent scholars in the fields of religious studies; Buddhist, Indian and Tibetan Studies; anthropology; and medicine. She is currently completing a book, Falling to Pieces, Emerging Whole:  Suffering Illness and Healing Renunciation in the Dge slong ma Dpal mo Tradition, based on ethnographic and textual research concerning the biographies of an Indian Buddhist nun, renowned for her rituals of fasting and experiences with leprosy.  She is serving as President of the Southwest Commission on Religious Studies Asian and Co-Chair of the Comparative Religions Section of the American Academy of Religion. She is a recent recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies Project Development Grant (2020) for her book project. She has been a recipient of several prestigious grants and awards including a Fulbright Scholars Award (Hong Kong 2009-2010), Mellon Foundation grants, teaching awards, and others. Vargas-O’Bryan is actively delivering papers at regional, national, and international conferences.  Her publications deal with the following: the intersection between illness/medicine and religion, female disease deities and spirit diseases, Buddhist monasticism, and Asian religions pedagogy. Alongside these research interests, she also delivers public lectures on Asian themes, is highly active in creating opportunities for cross-cultural exchanges on campus, and organizes venues to increase awareness on mindfulness and Contemplative Studies in higher education. Vargas-O’Bryan is at home in McKinney with her family, in Tibet and Nepal, or some other mountainous, high altitude place.

David Schones, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies

Researches, writes, and teaches in the area of biblical studies and disability studies. His main projects are on the conceptualization of disabilities in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, as well as on pedagogical strategies for working with disabled students. David has also delivered papers at regional, national, and international conferences including the American Academy of Religion and Society of Biblical Literature. In addition to these presentations, he has multiple publications on the topic of religion, disability, and gender discrimination and has given public lectures on his research at institutions like Austin Presbyterian Seminary and the University of Texas. At Austin College, David teaches a wide variety of classes on biblical and extra biblical literature, disabilities and gender discrimination, sacred violence, and the methods in the study of religion.