Christian K. Wedemeyer is Associate Professor of the History of Religions at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. His work within the field of the history of religions has largely been concerned with the history,...
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Christian K. Wedemeyer is Associate Professor of the History of Religions at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago and in the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations. His work within the field of the history of religions has largely been concerned with the history, literature, and ritual of Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to historical and philological studies of Sanskrit and Tibetan religious literature, he has written on the historiography of Esoteric Buddhism and its antinomianism currents, textual criticism and strategies of legitimating authority in classical Tibetan scholasticism, and the semiology of esoteric Buddhist ritual.He was awarded the Ph.D. with Distinction in Religion from Columbia University in 1999. His other degrees include M.Phil (Columbia, 1995), AM (Columbia, 1994), and BA with High Honors in Religion (Wesleyan, 1991).He is editor of the journal History of Religions, Buddhism editor for Religious Studies Review (Blackwell), and serves on the editorial boards of, and acts in a consulting capacity for a number of academic journals and presses.He is a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland and a member of the American Society for the Study of Religion. He is member of the American Oriental Society, the American Academy of Religion, the International Association for Tibetan Studies, the International Association of Buddhist Studies, and the North American Association for the Study of Religion.He is also active in progressive politics. In February 2008, he was elected Committeeman for the 5th Ward of the City of Chicago, Illinois (Green Party), a position to which he was reappointed in 2012. He is currently Co-chair of the Hyde Park Green Party, a local chapter of the Illinois Green Party, Green Party of the United States.He has consulted for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, CNN, and the United States Department of Justice. He is listed in several Marquis' Who's Who editions, including Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Education, and Who's Who of Emerging Leaders.
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