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May 29, 2025
Ray Buckner, a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Northwestern, has been named a 2025 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellow.
This year’s cohort of approximately 20 fellows comes from an applicant pool of nearly 600, representing a wide range of disciplines and institutions, united by a shared commitment to ethical, religious and values-based inquiry.
The fellowship provides a $31,000 stipend for the 2025–2026 academic year to support focused dissertation writing.
Buckner’s dissertation is an ethnographic study of 30 queer and transgender Thai Buddhist artists in Bangkok.
“I consider the ways these contemporary artists forge new bonds of relationship to their bodies, genders and Buddhist paths through art-making,” he said. “My study centers what I term ‘Buddhist material intimacies,’ which are the intimate and tactile relationships that artists develop with Buddhist materials.
Talking with artists about their life stories and watching as they make art, Buckner pays attention to artists’ connections to flowers, monastic robes, paint and rope, among other materials.
“Doing so, I examine how these artists advance largely non-hegemonic, queer and anti-capitalist understandings of Thai Buddhist philosophies, practices and rituals,” he said.
Buckner, on track to graduate in the summer of 2026, said he plans to become a professor of religious studies.
“I’m grateful to have received this support from the Newcombe Foundation,” he said, and I hope this result underscores the import of supporting the studies of queer and trans people across the humanities.”
Created in 1981 and funded by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, the fellowship is the nation’s largest and most prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences addressing questions of ethical and religious values. It has supported more than 1,000 doctoral candidates representing more than 100 American universities since its inception.
Northwestern students interested in pursuing scholarship and fellowship opportunities should contact the Office of Fellowships to learn more.
