Amy Allocco

The Religious Studies Department welcomes applications for its scholarships. 

All full‑time students with an overall grade point average of at least 2.00 are eligible to apply.

Amy L. Allocco, associate professor of religious studies and director of the Multifaith Scholars program, presented material from her current research project, "Domesticating the Dead: Invitation and Installation Rituals in Tamil South India," which focuses on certain kinds of Hindu ritual relationships with the dead. 

Associate Professor Amy L. Allocco and Professor Brian K. Pennington recently presented papers at the Seventh South and Southeast Asian Association for the Study of Culture and Religion conference.

Over the course of her sabbatical year in South India, Amy L. Allocco delivered three discrete invited lectures.

The associate professor in the department of Religious Studies presented two lectures at universities in Sri Lanka with funding from a U.S. Fulbright Scholar South and Central Asia Regional Travel Grant

A contribution to the edited volume "Asian Perspectives on Animal Ethics: Rethinking the Nonhuman" theorizes vernacular Hindu snake worship traditions in Tamil Nadu, India as a model for human and nonhuman animal relationships and a constructive environmental ethic.

Allocco analyzes how divine snakes are imaged in particular myths, narratives, and South Indian Hindu festival celebrations as well as the gendered nature of contemporary snake worship and devotion.

“Team Teaching India’s Identities Across State and National Borders” in Religious Studies News discusses some of the pedagogical strategies that informed the  “India’s Identities: Religion, Caste & Gender in Contemporary South India” Winter Term study abroad course.

The assistant professor of religious studies presented a paper titled "New Rituals for New Audiences: Sweetening the Goddess in Urban South India" and served as a delegate from the American Academy of Religion to the International Association for the History of Religion's Special Conference in Liverpool.