contributors 509

Contributors

Burchett, Patton, is a PhD candidate in South Asian religious his- tory and culture at Columbia University in New York City. His work focuses primarily on traditions of Hindu bhakti and tantra in north India during the early modern period (c. 1500-1750). Patton also studies theoretical and topical issues related to the category of “magic” (and its relation to “religion,” “science,” etc.) and holds strong research interests in the field of international human rights, particularly in the Dalit movement in contemporary India. His other published work includes: “The ‘Magical’ Language of Mantra,”Journal of the American Academy of Religion 76, no 4 (2008) and “Bhakti Rhetoric in the Hagiography of ‘Untouchable’ Saints: Discerning Bhakti’s Ambi­ valence on Caste and Brahminhood,” International Journal of Hindu Studies 13, no. 2 (2009).

Chapple, Christopher Key, is Doshi Professor of Indic and Com­ para­tive Theology at Loyola MarymountU niversity in Los Angeles. He has published several books, including Karma and Creativity­ (1986), Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions (1993), Reconciling Yogas: Haribhadra’s Array of Views on Yoga (2003), Yoga and the Luminous: Patanjali’s Spiritual Path to Freedom (2008) and edited volumes on religion and ecology: Ecological Prospects: Scientific, Religious, and Aesthetic Perspectives (1994), Hinduism and Ecology (2000), Jainism and Ecology (2002), and Yoga and Ecology (2009). He is the editor of the journal Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology and serves on the advisory boards for several organizations, including the Ahimsa Center (Pomona) and the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale).

Clough, Bradley S., is assistant professor of liberal studies and Asian religions at The University of Montana. Previously he was the Abdulhadi H. Taher Chair of Comparative Religion at The American University in Cairo, and has also taught at Bard College, Sarah Lawrence College, and Columbia University. Much of his research focuses on Buddhist meditation and soteriology, especially in early Indian Buddhism and the ongoing Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka. 510 contributors

Author of numerous articles and book chapters, his book, titled Noble Person’s Paths: Diversity and Controversy in Early Indian and Thera­ vada Buddhist Soteriology, is forthcoming from Cambria Press.

Fiordalis, David V., earned his doctorate in 2008 from the Uni­ver­ sity of Michigan. His dissertation explored indigenous ­concepts of wonder and extraordinary power in South Asian Buddhist literature, to date his published work has also appeared in the Journal of the Inter­national Association of Buddhist Studies (2011).

Jacobsen, Knut A., is professor in the history of religions at the ­Uni­versity of Bergen, Norway, and author and editor of numerous books on various aspects on religions in South Asia and in the South Asian diasporas. He is the author of Prakṛti in Sāṃkhya-Yoga: Material Principle: Religious Experience, Ethical Implications (Peter Lang, 1999; Indian edition Motilal Banarsidass, 2002) and Kapila: Founder of Sāṃkhya and Avatāra of Viṣṇu (Munshiram Manoharlal, 2008). Other recent publications include the edited volumes South Asians in the Diaspora: Histories and Religious Traditions (Brill, 2004) (with P. Pratap Kumar); Theory and Practice of Yoga: Essays in Honour of Gerald James Larson (Brill, 2005); South Asian Religions on Display: Religious Processions in South Asia and in the Diaspora (Routledge, 2008); South Asian Christian Diaspora: Invisible Diaspora in Europe and North America (Ashgate, 2008) (with Selva J. Raj); and Modern Indian Cul­ture and Society (Routledge, 2009). He is the editor in chief of the five volumes Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism (Brill, 2009-2013).

Kripal, Jeffrey J., holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at RiceU niversity, where he is also the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. He is the author of Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (Chicago, 2010), Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago, 2007), The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (Chicago, 2007), Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (Chicago, 2001), and Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna (Chicago, 1995). His present areas of interest include the comparative erotics of mystical literature, American countercultural translations of Asian religious traditions, and the history of Western esotericism from