Ritual Research
Associate professor Elizabeth Cecil explores how South and Southeast Asian religious practices and spaces shape landscapes, create meaning
The bustling pilgrimage town of Nashik, nestled along the Godavari River in Maharashtra, India, was alive with energy. Streets were teeming with the sights, sounds, and smells of a festival honoring the elephant-headed deity Ganesh, the remover of obstacles and god of new beginnings highly revered in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions.
Elizabeth Cecil, the Timothy Gannon Endowed Associate Professor of Religion at 糖心vlog, then a recent high school graduate, stood in awe on the street, experiencing directly the Hindu religious practices she鈥檇 previously only read about as part of her exchange year abroad. This eye-opening trip in 2000 highlighted how religion can manifest in the spaces and rhythms of daily life and became a cornerstone of the career she鈥檇 go on to build.
鈥淚 embraced the experience, and that encounter with Hindu traditions sparked my interest in studying religion,鈥 Cecil said. 鈥淣ow, my work highlights how religious traditions aren鈥檛 just relics of the past 鈥 they鈥檙e alive and integral to contemporary life in countries around the world.鈥
Cecil earned her Ph.D. in Asian religions and Sanskrit from Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, in 2016. Before joining FSU鈥檚 faculty in 2018, she held positions at Leiden University in the Netherlands and the British Museum in London, England, where she focused extensively on South Asian collections, including paintings, inscriptions, images of goddesses and other historical pieces.
The Nebraska native specializes in Hindu traditions in South and Southeast Asia and conducts research in Sanskrit, Old Javanese, Khmer, Dutch and French. At FSU, she teaches courses on South Asian religions and covers topics including Hinduism, ecology, goddesses, yoga traditions and more. Each semester, she aims to broaden how students think about religion beyond religious practice and observance.
鈥淩eligion isn鈥檛 just about belief,鈥 Cecil said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a dynamic force that shapes how people relate to their environment, each other, their histories and community. I investigate how religious traditions are grounded in the material world, including architecture, art and rituals, and how these elements combine to create a sense of meaning and belonging.鈥
鈥Professor Cecil is an exceptionally good citizen of FSU. She鈥檚 a popular teacher who builds bridges between departments and scholars that can be challenging to build. Her excellence and leadership skills have taught me what the study of religion can become 鈥 an indispensable transdisciplinary site for the production of knowledge.鈥
鈥 Martin Kavka, professor and chair of the FSU Department of Religion
Cecil鈥檚 research takes her far from Tallahassee, and she conducts fieldwork in countries including India, Nepal, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos and Vietnam. By exploring historical sites, she works to determine how spatial dimensions of temples, rivers, mountains, and cities are shaped by religious narratives and how religious devotees move through these landscapes.
In her 2024 article in Arts Orientalis, 鈥淎gastya and the Ecology of the 艢aiva Guru,鈥 Cecil explored how early 艢aiva traditions in South and Southeast Asia cultivated a religious ecology 鈥 a network of relationships among humans, deities and the natural world. Focusing on the sage Agastya, she traced how 艢aiva gurus were represented as ecological agents whose iconography and mythology signaled their power to foster prosperity, neutralize cosmic threats, and sustain communities across diverse landscapes, from India to Vietnam and Java.
鈥淔ieldwork is a process of discovery that鈥檚 exhilarating and essential to my work,鈥 Cecil said. 鈥淚 love being on-site and attentive to the material and visual aspects of the spaces I鈥檓 researching. When analyzing visual sources like inscriptions recorded on stone slabs or temple walls, I take in the whole space to fully understand that particular spatial context. That鈥檚 not something I can accomplish from an archive or computer.鈥
At FSU, Cecil is affiliated with the university鈥檚 and is in the planning stages for an exhibition exploring the significance of water in Indigenous religious traditions in the Global South. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, National Endowment for the Humanities, Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the Getty Foundation.
She鈥檚 also part of the PURANA Project, an international research collaboration based at Leiden University and supported by the European Research Council. One of the project鈥檚 initiatives, PURANA Media, is an open access, peer-reviewed journal hosted through FSU Libraries focused on modes of cultural production encompassed by the term 鈥減ur膩峁嘺,鈥 a Sanskrit word designating things as 鈥渁ncient鈥 or 鈥減rimordial.鈥
鈥淧rofessor Cecil is an exceptionally good citizen of FSU,鈥 said Martin Kavka, professor and chair of the 鈥淪he鈥檚 a popular teacher who builds bridges between departments and scholars that can be challenging to build. Her excellence and leadership skills have taught me what the study of religion can become 鈥 an indispensable transdisciplinary site for the production of knowledge.鈥
Dena Reddick is an FSU alumna who earned a master's degree in history in May 2020.