Tracy is a scholar of Hinduism and its traditions of bhakti (devotion), especially Krishna-bhakti in the Sanskrit epics and purāṇas, and her teaching and research address issues of women, men, and gender in religion and society. Her current book manuscript — a study of Krishna’s relationships with women in the Hariva ṃśa, the Vi ṣṇu Purāṇa, and the Bhāgavata Purā ṇa -- reconsiders the prevalent claim that bhakti empowers women in social and religious life. Her study demonstrates to the contrary that despite the democratic potential of various devotional movements in which women are sometimes glorified, bhakti often functions as a conservative historical process upholding the traditional patriarchal order. By situating the development of bhakti within a larger cultural discourse on dharma (truth, duty, proper behavior), the book explores Krishna’s sensuous relationships with women in contrast to the Buddha’s ascetic renunciation of familial attachments and thus shows how competing conceptions of dharma were linked to heroic male figures as embodiments of truth and authority in socio-religious life. The eventual book will thereby provide a brief comparative history of gender and salvation in South Asian religions and offer a new interpretation of bhakti that holds relevance for the study of religion and social change in other cultures.