Dr. Elaine Craddock

Elaine Craddock got her B.A. in Religion at Smith College, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in South Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley. She has spent several years in India. Her dissertation focused on the smallpox goddess in South India. Since then her research interests have focused on goddesses and women in Hinduism; cross-cultural and comparative religious notions of the human body; and religious narrative. Her latest article appears in the volume In Search of Mahadevi: Constructing the Identities of the Hindu Great Goddess. She is currently working on a manuscript about the medieval Tamil poet Karaikkal Ammaiyar.

Dr. Craddock teaches various courses on Hinduism, Buddhism, Women and Religion, religious ideas about the body and sexuality, and religious journeying. She lives in Austin with several animals.She loves to travel.