Rate My Professor Elizabeth Guthrie

Dr Elizabeth Guthrie serves as a Lecturer in the Religion Programme at the University of Otago, where she lectures and tutors on Buddhism, Southeast Asian Religion, and New Religious Movements. She holds a BA from San Francisco State University, an MA (Hons) from the University of Otago, and a PhD from the University of Canterbury. Her doctoral research focused on the text and iconography of the Buddhist earth deity who witnessed the Buddha's Enlightenment, and she is currently preparing this material for publication as a book with Silkworm Press in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Another project documents Buddhist temple paintings from the late colonial period in Cochinchina, including Cambodia and Vietnam. Guthrie's research interests include the religious art, literature, and material culture of mainland Southeast Asia; religion and migration; popular Chinese religion; Buddhist nuns and laywomen in Southeast Asia; new religious movements in Cambodia and Thailand; and religious healing rituals and techniques of Southeast Asia. Prior to her position, she taught English as a Second Language in New Zealand and Thailand, worked for non-governmental organizations in Cambodia, and conducted fieldwork in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, Burma, Arakan, and Southwestern China. Since 2008, she has collaborated with Dr Chaisit Suwanvarangkul to develop a classical Sanskrit reading group, which was integrated into the department's teaching programme in 2010.

Guthrie has contributed significantly to the field through her publications and academic activities. She co-edited Cambodian Buddhism, History and New Religious Movements (University of Hawai'i Press, 2004), which includes her chapter 'Khmer Buddhism, Female Asceticism, and Salvation.' Other key works include 'Khmer Buddhism in the Mekong Delta: Sri Lankan connections' in Ethnic conflict in Buddhist societies in South and Southeast Asia (2015), 'In Defence of the Nation: the Cult of Nang Thoranee in northeast Thailand' in Buddhism, Power, and Political Order (2007), 'Analysis of Sīmās (Boundaries)' in Sīmās: Foundations of Buddhist Religion (2022, with J.A. Marston and C. Hoeur), and articles such as 'The performance of the maravijaya during Buddhist consecration ceremonies' (Udaya 6, 2003). She has presented papers at conferences including the New Zealand Association for the Study of Religions (2022) on Narada Maha Thera's dhammaduta work and the New Zealand Asian Studies Society (2019, 2025), and given public lectures like 'The life of the Buddha' (2019). Guthrie supervises doctoral theses on subjects such as Buddhist female renunciant communities and the Dhammakāya Gāthā.