Muhammad Faruque is the Inayat Malik Assistant Professor and a Taft Center Fellow at the University of Cincinnati and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. He is the author of Sculpting the Self: Islam, Selfhood, and Human Flourishing (2021).
In April 2023, the Contemplative Sciences Center at the University of Virginia hosted its first Generative Contemplation Symposium in Charlottesville, Virginia. This gathering convened experts in Contemplative Studies – scholars, philosophers, cognitive neuroscientists, artists, and Buddhist practitioners – to present their research, reflections, and theories on contemplative practices. In four thematic sessions on attention, non-dual…
Anne C. Klein is a Professor in the Department of Religion at Rice University, co-founder of the Dawn Mountain Center for Tibetan Buddhism, and author of Being Human and a Buddha Too (2023).
Martijn van Beek is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Aarhus University in Denmark. He specializes in ethnographic and phenomenological perspectives on meditation.
“Portrait of a Poison: Datura in Buddhist Magic,” by Samuel M. Grimes, University of California, Berkeley Abstract: The psychoactive plant Datura metel appears across a range of traditions in premodern South Asia preserved in texts. Among those traditions is the form of tantric Buddhism (Vajrayāna) located in the yoginī tantras. In Vajrayāna works, the plant…
Loriliai Biernacki is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder and is the author of Renowned Goddess of Desire: Women, Sex and Speech in Tantra (2007) and The Matter of Wonder: Abhinavagupta’s Panentheism and New Materialism (2023). She is also Co-Chair of the Contemplative Studies Unit at the American Academy of Religion.
This year, the Contemplative Studies Unit especially invites proposals addressing the role of different epistemologies relative to Contemplative Studies, comparative or otherwise. Particularly we are looking for panels and papers on: Chairs Steering Committee Members Deadline for submissions is Friday, March 8th at 5pm EST. For more information on submissions, visit the AAR website.
David McMahan is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College and author of Rethinking Meditation: Buddhist Meditative Practices in Ancient and Modern Worlds (2023) and The Making of Buddhist Modernism (2008).
Announcing a new film in Contemplative Studies: Light Upon Light (2022), Directed by Christian Suhr From the Director For several years, I studied the relationship between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. I carried out research on radicalization, integration problems, jinn possession, and psychosis, and at a certain point I got exhausted. A friend in Cairo…
Douglas Christie is a Professor Emeritus of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University and author of The Blue Saphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology and The Insurmountable Darkness of Love: Love, Contemplative Practice, and the Common Life.
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