Jessica Starling

Jessie Starling joined the faculty of Lewis & Clark in 2013 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Japanese Buddhism at the University of California, Berkeley.  She is also affiliated with the Asian Studies and Gender Studies programs at Lewis & Clark, and teaches courses on the religions of Asia, asceticism, religion and medicine, and ethnographic research methods.

Specialty

Japanese Religions

Academic Credentials

PhD 2012 University of Virginia

MA 2006 University of Virginia

BA 2000 Guilford College

Teaching

Spring 2025 Courses

RELS 106: Religion and Medicine
TTH 9:40am - 11:10am

Critical examination of the relationship between religion and medicine, drawing on scholarship from
religious studies, anthropology, sociology, and history. Examples from ancient Greece, China, and indigenous traditions. Particular attention to the secularization of Western biomedicine and the contemporary popularity of alternatives. Critical examination of the terms “religious,” “spiritual,” “secular,” “natural,” and “holistic.”

Research

Professor Starling’s research is on Buddhism as lived in modern and contemporary Japan, with a focus on the Jōdo Shinshū and special attention to themes such as gender, family, ethics, emotion and illness. 

A recently published article in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion called “Audience, Authorship, and Agency: Religious Educational Materials for Modern Buddhist Women’s Groups in Japan,” is about Buddhist laywomen’s groups in modern Japan. Her analysis highlights the dynamics of the production of doctrinal materials by male monks in response to the voracious demand of these well-educated and well-organized women’s groups, and suggests that in the absence of female-authored texts, audienceship and readership might be considered as important agentive actions by female adherents.

A second research project engages ethnographic fieldwork to understand contemporary Buddhist responses to stigma and discrimination. Starling profiles Buddhist volunteers who have taken up the cause of leprosy (also known as Hansen’s Disease) awareness and advocacy, working both inside and outside of Buddhist institutions to redress the past and current suffering of Hansen’s Disease patients.

Starling’s past scholarly articles have appeared in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Eastern Buddhist, Religion Compass, and the Journal of Global Buddhism. Her first monograph, Guardians of the Buddha’s Home: Domestic Religion in the Contemporary Jōdo Shinshū (University of Hawai’i Press, 2019), is an ethnography of temple wives in the True Pure Land Buddhist School (Jōdo Shinshū).  She has received numerous fellowships in support of her research, including grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Japan Foundation, and the American Association of University Women.

Professional Experience

• Co-chair of the Japanese Religions Unit Steering Committee, American Academy of Religion (2020-present)
• H-Japan Book Reviews Editor (2013-2022)
• Editor, Religion Compass, Buddhism Section (2014-2022)