Aleksandra (Sasha) Restifo

Aleksandra (Sasha) Restifo holds a PhD from Yale University and specializes in Jain intellectual culture, with a focus on Prakrit and Sanskrit literature. Her book, The Theater of Renunciation: Emotion and the Self in Medieval Jainism (forthcoming with Columbia University Press), has been awarded the Claremont Publication Prize for the Study of Religion by the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life at Columbia University. Through close readings of understudied philosophical texts, dramas, and monastic rulebooks, dating primarily from the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, The Theater of Renunciation explores arguments medieval Jains made about reality through theater. Theater emerges as a powerful tool for thinking about emotional regulation, collective accountability, and the alienation of the self.

Professor Restifo has received fellowships from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Arts and Humanities Master’s Scholarship at SOAS, American Institute of Indian Studies, and South Asian Studies Council at Yale. Her research has appeared in edited volumes and peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Indian Philosophy and the International Journal of Jaina Studies. She held postdoctoral research positions at the University of Oxford and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.