People

Beatrix Hauser is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute for the Science of Religion and Related Didactics at the University of Bremen. She received her academic training in Social Anthropology

Corinna Lhoir, M.A., is a PhD student of classical Indology and a contract lecturer for Beginner’s Sanskrit and Origins of Yoga at Universität Hamburg as well as an entrepreneur with her own online learning platform with focus on studies of yoga and Sanskrit (“yogastudien.de”). She holds a B.A. in Languages and Cultures of India and Tibet with focus on classical Indology from Universität Hamburg and a M.A. in Traditions of Yoga and Meditation from SOAS, University of London. She is also currently enrolled in a M.A. program on Oriental Languages and Cultures India at Ghent University in Belgium, where her studies focus on Jainism.

Lola Williamson is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies and the former Director of Peace and Justice Studies at Millsaps College in Jackson, MS. She holds a Ph.D. in Languages and Cultures of Asia from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Williamson’s research centers on Hinduism in North America with an emphasis on yoga and meditation movements. She founded the North America Hinduism Consultation of the American Academy of Religion in 2006. Her book, Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion (New York University Press, 2010), uses Self-Realization Fellowship, Transcendental Meditation, and Siddha Yoga as case studies to argue that these and similar groups form a distinct category of new religion. Her edited volume with Ann Gleig, Homegrown Gurus: From Hinduism in America to American Hinduism (SUNY Press, 2014), examines the role of American-born teachers and gurus in creating a new hybrid “American Hinduism.”

Raphaël Voix holds an MA and a PhD in Anthropology from the University of Paris West Nanterre la Défense where he is a part-time lecturer, and also an MA in Bengali from the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (Paris) where he teaches Hinduism. He is an associate member of CEIAS (Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud). He specialises in the study of contemporary Hindu asceticism and has conducted extensive fieldwork on Bengali sects. His research deals mainly with tantric practices, violence and utopia in Hindu India.

Hugh B. Urban is a professor of religious studies and South Asian studies in the Department of Comparative Studies at Ohio State University. He is primarily interested in Tantra and in the complex interactions between Tantra and new religious currents in America and Europe. He is the author of seven books, including Tantra: Sex, Secrecy, Politics and Power in the Study of Religions (2003), Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism (2005), and The Power of Tantra: Religion, Sexuality and the Politics of South Asian Studies (2010).