Christopher Bell

Associate Professor of Religious Studies

  • PhD, University of Virginia
  • MA, Florida State University
  • BA, Florida State University

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Christopher Bell

Biography

Christopher Bell, PhD, is an associate professor of religious studies at Stetson University. He received his bachelor of arts degree in creative writing and religions and his master of arts degree in religious studies from Florida State University. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Virginia, where his area of concentration has been in Tibetan and Buddhist studies. He has experience as a teaching assistant and as an instructor at both Florida State University and at the University of Virginia, as well as experience for one year as a teaching associate at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong. During his graduate program he was awarded a Fulbright Institute of International Education Graduate Fellowship for International Study and completed extensive multi-country field research in the Chinese cities of Xining, Chengdu, and Lhasa, Tibet, as well as in Dharamsala, India. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society.

More About Christopher Bell

Areas of Expertise

  • Tibetan Buddhism
  • Buddhist Traditions
  • Asian Religions

Course Sampling

  • Introductions to Asian Religions
  • Buddhism: The Middle Way
  • The Religion and Culture of Hinduism
  • Religions of India
  • Religions of China and Japan
  • Society and the Supernatural in Asia
  • Religion and Violence in Asia
  • Resisting Religion: Atheism and Agnosticism

  • Tibetan deity cults and rituals
  • Eastern models of divinity
  • Asian demonologies

  • "Wrathful Tantric Imagery at the Seat of the Tibetan State Oracle." Himalayan Art in 108 Objects. The Rubin Museum of Art, New York, 2023.
  • Nechung: A Tibetan Buddhist Oracle. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Oxford University Press, 2022. 
  • "Tsiu dmar po: How a Northern Treasure God Became Ecumenical." In Revue dEtudes Tibtaines 62, 2022
  • The Dalai Lama and the Nechung Oracle. Oxford University Press, 2021.
  • "Tibetan Deity Cults as Political Barometers." In Unravelling Divine Secrets: The Case of the Protector Deity Sogdak Dorje Pawo-tsal of Krti Monastery. Tsering D. Gonkatsang, ed. trans. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 2020
  • Tibetan Demonology. Elements in Religion and Violence Series. James Lewis and Margo Kitts, eds. Cambridge University Press, 2020.
  • "The Brief Hagiography of Jokpa Jangchup Penden." In Revue d'Etudes Tibe'taines 54, 2020.
  • "Worldly Protector Deities in Tibetan Buddhism." In Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Vol. 2: Major Personages in Myth, Hagiography and Historical Biography. Leiden: Brill, 2019.
  • "The Mythic Murals of Meru Sarpa." In Orientations 48(1), 2017.
  • "The Nechung Record." In Revue d'Etudes Tibe'taines 36, 2016.
  • "The Ritual Evolution of the Nechung Protector Deities." In Current Issues and Progress in Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Third International Seminar of Young Tibetologists, Kobe 2012. Tsuguhito Takeuchi, et al., eds. Kobe: Kobe City University of Foreign Studies, 2013.
  • "Divination, Prophecy and Oracles in Tibetan Buddhism." In Prophecy in the New Millennium: When Prophecies Persist. Sarah Harvey and Suzanne Newcombe, eds. London: Ashgate, 2012.