Michael S. Allen

I received my Ph.D. in the Study of Religion from Harvard in 2013, and am currently Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Virginia. I specialize in Advaita Vedānta, drawing on both Sanskrit and early Hindi sources, though I have wider interests in other Indian philosophical traditions. My dissertation focused on the Dādūpanthī monk Niścaldās (ca. 1791 – 1863) and his magnum opus, the Vicār-sāgar, a Hindi work once referred to by Vivekananda as the most influential book in India. I serve on the steering committee for the Religions in Chinese and Indian Cultures: A Comparative Perspective Group at the American Academy of Religion, and I have published in the Journal of Hindu Studies (forthcoming), the International Journal of Hindu Studies (forthcoming), the Journal of Vaishnava Studies, and Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy.