Patheos Featured Writers

Jacob N. Kinnard is an expert in Indian Buddhism and in the comparative study of religion. He is Associate Professor of Comparative Religious Thought at the Illiff School of Theology. He teaches and lectures on a wide range of topics, including a variety of themes and topics in Indian religions, theoretical and methodological issues in the larger study of religion, comparative pilgrimage, religion and violence, and interreligious dialogue. He earned both his PhD and his MA from the University of Chicago, and a BA from Bowdoin College.

Dr. Kinnard is the author of Imaging Wisdom: Seeing and Knowing in the Art of Indian Buddhism (RoutledgeCurzon 1999) and The Emergence of Buddhism (Greenwood, 2006), and co-editor of Constituting Communities: Theravada Traditions in South and Southeast Asia (SUNY 2003). He has published articles on topics in Indian religions in journals such as History of Religions, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, The Eastern Buddhist, and the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, as well as chapters in a wide range of edited volumes and encyclopedias. He is the editor of the Religion, Culture, and History series for Oxford University Press/American Academy of Religion and is a member of the Publication Committee of the AAR.