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(© Katja Marquard)
OFFICIALLY APPOINTED

Jessie Pons is Professor of South Asian Religious History at CERES

In February, Jessie Pons was officially appointed Professor of South Asian Religious History at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Her appointment represents a significant milestone in her academic career and at the same time sends a strong signal for the further profiling of the department at CERES. Before she was awarded the professorship in the career track procedure, Jessie Pons was already working here as a junior professor.
From London via Paris to Bochum: an international academic career

Her academic career began with broad-based studies in London and Paris, which she completed with several degrees in art history, archaeology, museum studies and Indology at renowned institutions such as SOAS London, the Louvre School and various Parisian universities. In 2011, she completed her doctorate in art history at the University of Paris-Sorbonne with a dissertation on Buddhist sculptures from Gandhāra, in which workshops and production centers in particular were systematically examined. The findings of the dissertation form the core of the monograph Arts du Gandhara. Richesse, diversité et répartition des ateliers de sculpteurs sur pierre, which was expanded to include the latest research findings. The publication appeared in 2024 as an open access title and is freely accessible online (see link below). 

Gandhārian art and the digital transformation in research

Jessie Pons has been working at CERES since 2010: Until 2012 and again from 2014 to 2016, she worked as a research associate at the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe. In her research, she has devoted herself intensively to Gandhārian art for many years - always in new academic contexts and constellations. From 2021 to 2024, for example, she led the DiGA (“Digitization of Gandharan Artefacts”) project, a project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research as part of the eHeritage programme, which digitized and catalogued around 1,500 Buddhist sculptures from Gandhāra in order to preserve this important world cultural heritage in the long term and make it scientifically accessible. In addition, her research work deals with questions of religion and materiality in South Asia in general, increasingly using digital humanities methods.

Academic networking and new functions

Jessie Pons is highly regarded by colleagues for her proven expertise in the field of South Asian religious and art history - she was recently appointed to two important academic bodies: she is now a member of the Committee of the European Association for South Asian Archaeology and Art and of the Academic Advisory Board of the FID4SA - Specialized Information Service South Asia project.

If you would like to learn more about Jessie Pons, her academic career and her research interests, we highly recommend the latest episode of the SFB 1475 podcast Metaphors of Religion - available on many popular streaming platforms: