Andrea R. Jain, Ph.D. is professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis, editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford 2014) and Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford, 2020). She received her doctorate degree in religious studies from Rice University in 2010. Her areas of research include religion and capitalism; global spirituality and modern yoga; gender, sexuality, and religion; and theories of religion.
Jain’s works in progress, including the documentary film “Predation,” call for humanities scholars to center questions about the current pandemic and planetary crisis. The purpose of humanities scholarship, Jain argues, should include the following: to remind scientists and health experts that equity must be at the center of their response to pandemic and planetary crisis; to uncover and analyze the needs for repair in the relationships between human societies and environmental bodies and non-human animals; and to diagnose capitalism’s death-dealing structures and the causes of ecological death in the hope that activists, in turn, can build on that scholarship to imagine radically different futures.
Ph.D., Rice University (2010);
Graduate Certificate in the Study of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Rice University (2010);
M.A., Rice University (2009);
B.A., Southern Methodist University (2004)
Course offerings include Hinduism and Buddhism, Yoga Traditions, Yuppie Yogis and Global Gurus, Theories of Religion, and Comparative Religions
Books
2020. Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality. New York: Oxford University
Press (expected publication date: July 2020).
2014. Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
2014. Kripal, Jeffrey J., Ata Anzali, Andrea R. Jain, and Erin Prophet. Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Refereed Articles
2017. “Yoga, Christians Practicing Yoga, and God: On Theological Compatibility, or Is There a Better Question?” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 30.
2014. “Who Is to Say Modern Yoga Practitioners Have It All Wrong?: On Hindu Origins and Yogaphobia.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 82(2): 427-471.
2012. “Branding Yoga: The Cases of Iyengar Yoga, Siddha Yoga, and Anusara Yoga.” Approaching Religion 2(2): 3-17.
2012. “The Malleability of Yoga: A Response to Christian and Hindu Opponents of the Popularization of Yoga.” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 25: 3-10.
2012. “The Dual-Ideal of the Ascetic and Healthy Body: The Jain Terapanth and Modern Yoga in the Context of Late Capitalism.” Nova Religio 15(3) (February): 29-50.
2010. “Erotic Motherhood and the Ideal Son: Mythology as Psychotherapy in the Krishna-Bhakti Tradition. Pastoral Psychology 59(1) (February): 53-64.
2009. Jain, Andrea R. and Jeffrey J. Kripal. “Quietism and Karma: Non-Action as Non-Ethics in Jain Asceticism.” Common Knowledge. Symposium: Apology for Quietism, Part 2 15(2) (Spring): 197-207.
2005. McCullough, Michael E., Craig K. Enders, Sharon L. Brion, and Andrea R. Jain. “The Varieties of Religious Development in Adulthood: A Longitudinal Investigation of Religion and Rational Choice.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89(1) (August): 78-89.
Refereed Book Chapters
Forthcoming. “Money.” Critical Terms for Religious Studies. Edited by Sarah Hammerschlag. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
2021. “Neoliberal Yoga.” Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies. Edited by Suzanne Newcombe and Karen O’Brien-Kop. New York: Routledge.
2018. “Yogi Superman, Master Capitalist: Bikram Choudhury and the Religion of Commercial Spirituality.” Being Spiritual but not Religious: Past, Present, and Future(s). Edited by William B. Parsons. New York: Routledge.
2018. “Subversive Spiritualities: Yoga’s Complex Role in the Narrative of Sex and Religion in the Twentieth Century U.S.” Devotions and Desires: Religion and Sexuality in the Twentieth Century United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
2015. “Jain Modern Yoga: The Case of Preksha Dhyana.” Jain Yoga. Edited by Christopher Key Chapple. New York: Routledge.
2014. “Conversion to Jain Traditions.” The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion. Edited by Charles Farhadian and Lewis R. Rambo. New York: Oxford University Press.
2014. “Muktananda: Entrepreneurial Godman, Tantric Hero.” Gurus of Modern Yoga. Edited by Ellen Goldberg and Mark Singleton. New York: Oxford University Press.
Indiana Humanities INCommon Grant (2021), Luce Foundation Grant (2019), IU Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics, and Society Workshop Grant (2019), Research Trailblazer Award at IUPUI (2018), Department of Religion at Rice University Alumni Flame Award (2018), IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute Internal Grant (2016-2017), IU New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities Exploratory Travel Fellowship (2014-2015), Crovetto Award for Excellence in the Study of New Religious Movements with Ties to South Asia at Nova Religio (2012), Outstanding Advisor to a Student Organization at IUPUI (2012)
Religion and capitalism; global spirituality and modern yoga; gender, sexuality, and religion; and theories of religion.
Editor, Journal of the American Academy of Religion
