Faculty Spotlights

Professor Annabella Pitkin grew up in New York City, with its contradictions like unprecedented prosperity amidst stark poverty. As a teenager, the impact of the city’s extremes inspired Pitkin to become politically and socially active and engage with issues like hunger and homelessness. Her book, Renunciation and Longing: The Life of a Twentieth-Century Himalayan Buddhist Saint, examines how communities respond to trauma, address suffering, and renew transformative relationships through practices of memory.

Hartley Lachter, associate professor of religion studies and director of the Berman Center for Jewish Studies, studies Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah, a radical form of Jewish discourse that developed in the Middle Ages.