Ryan Richard Overbey

Department Chair and Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Associate Professor in Buddhist Studies   

Phone: 518-580-5412
Email: roverbey@skidmore.edu
Office: Ladd 212

Education:

• Ph.D., Harvard University, Committee on the Study of Religion (2010)
• A.B., Brown University, Classics & Sanskrit and Religious Studies (2001)

Teaching and Research Interests:

• Buddhism,
• Chinese religions,
• Indian religions,
• Tantra, esoteric traditions, ritual, theory and method in the study of religion, digital humanities.

I work at the intersection of ritual and intellectual history in the Buddhist tradition, probing the close links between theory and practice, between philosophy and liturgy. My work focuses on the edition and interpretation of ritual texts and magical grimoires preserved in Chinese, Sanskrit, and Tibetan in the first millennium CE.

Courses taught:

• AS 101 Introduction to Asian Studies
• AS251 Asian Ecologies and Cosmologies
• RE 103 Understanding Religions
• RE 221 Buddhism: An Introduction
• RE 222 Mindfully White: Race and Power in American Buddhism
• RE 321 Buddhism and the Body

Books:

• The Vaults of Buddhas: Buddhist preaching and rituals of represencing in the Great Lamp of the Dharma Dhāraṇī Scripture. Forthcoming in 2026 from SUNY Press.
• Beyond the Silk and Book Roads: rethinking networks of exchange and material culture. Co-edited with Michelle Wang. Brill, 2024.
• Tantric traditions in transmission and translation, co-edited with David B. Gray. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Articles and Chapters:

• “A Gandhāran among the Türks: Buddhist texts and travels in the biography of *Dhyānagupta (528–605).” In Ryan Richard Overbey and Michelle Wang, eds. Beyond the Silk and Book roads: rethinking networks of exchange and material culture. Brill, 2024.
• “‘Why don’t we translate spells in the scriptures?’: Medieval Chinese exegesis on the meaning and function of dhāraṇī language.”Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 42 (2020): 493– 514.
• “The Consecration Scripture Spoken by the Buddha on Being Reborn in Whichever of the Pure Lands of the Ten Directions You Wish.” In Georgios Halkias and Richard K. Payne, eds. Pure Lands in Asian texts and contexts: An anthology, 33–55. Pure Land Buddhist Studies Series. University of Hawai‘i Press, 2019.
• “The Sutra on the Profound Kindness of Parents.” In Martin Baumann and Sun Hua, eds. Buddhist stone sutras in China, Sichuan Province 4, 119–121. Harrassowitz, 2018.
• “The Perfection of Wisdom in the Sutras.” In Buddhist stone sutras in China, ed. Claudia Wenzel and Sun Hua, Sichuan Province 3: 123–127. Harrassowitz, 2016.
• “Vicissitudes of text and rite in the Great Peahen Queen of Spells.” In Tantric traditions in transmission and translation, ed. David B. Gray and Ryan Richard Overbey, 257–283. Oxford University Press, 2016.
• “Scroll 12 and 11 of the Consecration Sutra.” In Buddhist stone sutras in China, ed. Tsai Suey-Ling and Sun Hua, Sichuan Province 2: 24–34. Harrassowitz, 2015.
• “On the appearance of siddhis in Chinese Buddhist texts.” In Yoga powers: extraordinary capacities attained through meditation and concentration. Ed. Knut Axel Jacobsen, 127–144. Brill, 2012.

Fellowships and Honors:

• ACLS / Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Grant for Critical Editions and Scholarly Translations: funding for full year of pre-tenure research leave to prepare translation of the Consecration Scripture, 2021–2022
• Shinjō Itō Postdoctoral Fellowship in Buddhist Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 2013–2015
• Harvard Graduate Society Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2008–2009
• Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching, 2008
• Harvard Graduate Student Council Summer Conference Grant, 2008
• Harvard Extension School Commendation for distinguished teaching performance, 2008
• Harvard Presidential Instructional Technology Fellowship Award for Achievement in Instructional Technology, 2007
• Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, 2001–2005
• Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies, 2001