Michael Slouber, PhD

Professor, Digital Humanities Minor Advisor, South and Southeast Asian Studies Minor Advisor

About

Education

Ph.D. South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley

 

Michael Slouber ("Slou-" rhymes with "know") is a specialist in early medieval religions of India, and teaches a variety of courses in South Asian Studies and Religious Studies. His introductory courses (HUMA 271 and REL 378; HNRS 220) emphasize an interdisciplinary approach to the humanities of Indian civilization, drawing on history, literature, religion, film, art, and ethnography.  He also teaches the topical courses “Fierce Goddesses of India” (REL 345) and “Traditional Indian Medicine” (HUMA 421), and guides senior research projects relating to South Asian humanities.  Slouber trained in the classical languages of India—Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit—at UC Berkeley and Uni Hamburg, and may be available to tutor highly motivated students in these languages at any level, or the modern languages Hindi-Urdu and Nepali at the elementary level. His research has focused on the history of medicine, Tantra, and studies of lesser-known goddess traditions. He is the author of Early Tantric MedicineSnakebite, Mantras, and Healing in the Gāruḍa Tantras (Oxford University Press, 2016), and editor of A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses: Tales of the Feminine Divine from India and Beyond (UC Press, 2021), in addition to a number of articles, book chapters, and translations. His current project is on spirit possession and exorcism in early Tantric medical manuscripts.

Selected Publications

See https://garudam.info/about for my full current CV.