Department of Anthropology

Background: 
Stephen is an anthropologist of religion working in India, Japan and Vietnam. Between 2025-27, he is the co-Lead of the John Templeton Foundation project “New Religiosity and the Digital Study of Eudaimonia”, which will collect archival and fieldwork data from 400 religious groups in five global areas to explore the possible relationships between new religions and well-being. Since receiving a PhD in anthropology from Syracuse University in 2018, he has published about ecology, tribes, affirmative action politics, witchcraft, religious conversion, corporate religion, manga and Tibetan Buddhism. He completed a Marie Curie postdoc at the University of Copenhagen (2022-24) and a JSPS postdoc at Kyoto University (2019). He is the co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Contemporary Buddhism and an Asia editor at the Database of Religious History (DRH) at the University of British Columbia. In addition to App State, Stephen has taught at Beijing Normal University, Vietnam National University, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Denki Tsushin University, University of Bremen, Pitt in the Himalayas, Syracuse University and Semester at Sea. His next projects include co-curating a museum exhibition and producing an ethnographic film. 

Scholarship: 

Edited Volume

2022. Caste, COVID-19, and Inequalities of Care: Lessons from South Asia. Edited by Sanghmitra S. Acharya and Stephen Christopher. Delhi: Springer. 

Special Issues

2025. Queerness in Contemporary Vietnam: Activism, Economics and Spirituality. Edited by Stephen Christopher and Helle Rydstrøm. Journal of Vietnamese Studies.

 2024. Business Spirits: Contested Terrains of Trade Models and Religious Value. Edited by Stephen Christopher and Ioannis Gaitanidis. Implicit Religion. 25(3-4). 

 2023. Gaddi Politics and Identity in the Western Himalaya. Edited by Stephen Christopher and Peter Phillimore. HIMALAYA 42.2.

  2023. Tribal Ecologies in Modern India. Edited by Stephen Christopher, Ziipao Raile and Matt Shutzer. Journal of the Tribal Intellectual Collective India, Volume 7. 

 Articles and Book Chapters

Hoang, Ngoc An and Stephen Christopher. 2025. “Queer Practices in Tibeto-Vietnamese Vajrayana.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 20(1): 13–44.

 Stephen Christopher and Helle Rydstrom. 2025. “Queer Vietnam: An Introduction.” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 20(1): 1-12.

 Ioannis Gaitanidis and Stephen Christopher. 2024. “Religion and Business as Co-constitutive Phenomena.” Implicit Religion 25(3-4): 213-23.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2024. “Spiritual Branding and Corporate Profit in the Japanese Modern Mystery School.” Implicit Religion 25(3-4): 283–310.

 Christopher, Stephen and Hoang Ngoc An. 2024. “Corporate Religion and Spiritual Tourism at a Luxury Tibetan Buddhist Resort.” Contemporary Buddhism. 1–24.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2024. “The Modern Mystery School.” Dictionary of Contemporary Esotericism. Edited by Egil Asprem. Brill’s Esotericism Reference Library series (preprint published May 6, 2024).

 Christopher, Stephen. 2024. “Alien Astronauts, Underwater Civilizations and Radioactive Volcanos: A Global Esoteric Business Imagines Japan.” Special Issue: Esotericism, occultism, and spiritual therapies during the long twentieth century: Theoretical implications. Co-edited by Erica Baffelli and Ioannis Gaitanidis. Religious Studies in Japan 7: 63–84.

 Christopher, Stephen, Matthew Shutzer, Raile Rocky Ziipao. 2023. “An Introduction to Tribal Ecologies in Modern India.” Journal of the Tribal Intellectual Collective India 7(1): 1–18.

 Christopher, Stephen, Matthew Shutzer, Raile Rocky Ziipao et al. 2023. “Antinomies of Ecology and Scales of Tribal Development in India.” Journal of the Tribal Intellectual Collective India 7(3): 50–71.

 M. Willis Monroe, Rachel Spicer, Stephen Christopher, Edward Slingerland, et al. 2023. “On the Notion of ‘Religion’: A Taxonomic Analysis of a Large-Scale Database.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 1–26.

 Christopher, Stephen and Peter Phillimore. 2023. “Exploring Gaddi Pluralities: An Introduction and Overview.” HIMALAYA 42(2): 3–20.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2023. “Priestly Purity: Status Competition in the Tribal Margins.” HIMALAYA  42(2): 51–69.

 Christopher, Stephen and Gabrielle Laumonier. 2023. “The Eroticization of Tibetan Monks in Shōnen-ai and Yaoi Manga.” Special Issue: Religion in Popular Global Culture. East Asian Journal of Popular Culture 9(1): 83–102.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2022. “Critique of the Spirit: Vernacular Christianity in the Dalit-Tribal Margins.” Postscripts: The Journal of Sacred Texts, Cultural Histories, and Contemporary Contexts. 13(1):63–90.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2022. “A State, a Union Territory and Three Political Classifications: The Gaddi Sippis of J&K and Himachal Pradesh.” International Journal of South Asian Studies 12: 19–36.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2022. “Exceptional Aryans: State Misrecognition of Himachali Dalits.” In Caste, COVID-19, and Inequalities of Care: Lessons from South Asia. Edited by Stephen Christopher and Sanghmitra S. Acharya. Delhi: Springer, pp. 13–38.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2022. “Black Magic and Hali Spirituality in Himachal Pradesh.” In Inclusion and Access in the Land of Unequal Opportunities: Mapping Identity-induced Marginalisation in India. Edited by R.K. Kale and S.S. Acharya. Delhi: Springer, pp. 38–61.

 Christopher, Stephen and S.S. Acharya. 2022. “Of Prejudice and Pandemics: An Introduction.” In Caste, COVID-19, and Inequalities of Care: Lessons from South Asia. Edited by Stephen Christopher and Sanghmitra S. Acharya. Delhi: Springer, pp. 1–13.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2020. “Divergent Refugee and Tribal Cosmopolitanism in Dharamshala.” Copenhagen Journal of Asian Studies 38(1):31–54.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2020. “‘Scheduled Tribal Dalit’ and the Recognition of Tribal Casteism.” Journal of Social Inclusion Studies: The Journal of the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies 6(1):1–17.

 Christopher, Stephen. 2020. “ダラムサラにおけるチベット人とトライブのアイデンティティをめぐる相互依存と排除” [The Interdependence and Exclusions of Tibetan and Tribal Identities in Dharamshala]. Jimbun Gakuho: The Journal of Social Science and Humanities at Tokyo Metropolitan University 516(2):115–40.

 Sandeep Banerjee, Subho Basu, Stephen Christopher and Susan Snow Wadley. 2014. “A Brief History of South Asia.” In South Asia in the World. Edited by Susan Snow Wadley. New York: Routledge, pp. 22–64.