Wendy Doniger (O'flaherty)
(1940- )
DONIGER (O'FLAHERTY), WENDY (1940– ), U.S. scholar of the history of religion. Born in New York City, educated at Radcliffe College (B.A., 1962), Harvard (M.A., 1963; Ph.D., 1968) and Oxford (D.Phil., 1973), Doniger taught at Harvard, the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London (1968–75), the University of California, Berkeley (1975–77), and the University of Chicago (from 1978), where from 1986 she was Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the Divinity School. She also held an appointment in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations and was a member of the university's Committees on Social Thought and the Ancient Mediterranean World. In addition she was the director of the university's Martin Marty Center.
Doniger's work focuses primarily on the comparative historical study of religious mythology and its social and cultural meanings, with particular reference to gender relations, and on the history and culture of Hinduism, on which she is acknowledged
Sources:[Drew Silver (2nd ed.)]
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