Ian MacCormack, 2024–25

Ian MacCormack is a scholar of religion with expertise in Tibetan history and literature. His research mainly treats Tibetan intellectual and social history, with a focus on the role of Buddhism and the intersection of religion and politics, especially in the Early Modern era. In fall 2024, Ian joins the faculty of the Department of Religion at Florida State University as an assistant professor. Ian received his PhD in religion from Harvard University in 2018 and was formerly the Shinjo Ito Postdoctoral Fellow in Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and from 2021, the Khyentse Lecturer in Buddhist Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he taught in the departments of Asian Studies and Comparative Religion. His scholarship has appeared in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, the Journal of Asian Studies, and the Journal of Tibetan Literature.

Selected Publications

• MacCormack, Ian. “A Tibetan Ceremony of State: The Enthronement of the Sixth Dalai Lama.” Journal of Asian Studies 83, no. 3 (August 2024): 672–700.
• MacCormack, Ian. “History for the Future: Politics and Aesthetics in the Fifth Dalai Lama’s Cuckoo’s Song.” Journal of Tibetan Literature 2, no. 2 (2023): 5–38.
• MacCormack, Ian. “The Mortality of the Dalai Lama and its Scriptural Sources: More on Tibetan Political Theology.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 45 (2022): 205–51.
• MacCormack, Ian. “The Divinity of the Dalai Lama and its Scriptural Sources: A Study in Tibetan Political Theology.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 43 (2020): 81–127.
• MacCormack, Ian. “A Lotus Blooms in the End Times: Cosmological Topography and the Tibetan State.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 88, no. 4 (December 2020): 1049–86.