Religion
John C. Holt
William R. Kenan Professor of the Humanities and Religion
| Phone | (207) 725-3009 |
| Title | William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of the Humanities in Religion & Asian Studies |
| Department | RELIGION |
| Work Location | 21 Ashby House |
| jholt@bowdoin.edu |
John Clifford Holt joined the Bowdoin faculty in 1978. He has an A.B.
(cum laude) in history from Gustavus Adolphus, an A.M. in history and
phenomenology of religions from the Graduate Theological Union
(Berkeley) with distinction, and a Ph.D. in history of religions from
the University of Chicago. He teaches courses about Asian religious
traditions, especially Hinduism and Buddhism, as well as courses on
theoretical approaches to the study of religion. In 1982, he organized
and founded the Inter-collegiate Sri Lanka Education (ISLE) Program for
a consortium of private liberal arts colleges, and in 1986 he became
the first chair of Bowdoin's Asian Studies Program. His publications
include Discipline: the Canonical Buddhism of the Vinayapitaka (Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass, 1981), A Guide to the Buddhist Religion (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1981), Buddha in the Crown (NY: Oxford U. Press, 1991) for which he was awarded an American Academic Book Award for Excellence in 1992, The Anagatavamsa Desana (Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass, 1993), and The Religious World of Kirti Sri: Buddhism, Art and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka (NY: Oxford U. Press, 1996). He has also edited a collection of essays titled 
Constituting Communities: Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia (SUNY Press). His most recent book, 
The Buddhist Visnu
(NY: Columbia University Press, 2004),is a study analyzing the
assimilation and transformation of the Hindu cult of Visnu by the
Sinhala Buddhists of Sri Lanka. He has received numerous research
awards, including three fellowships from the National Endowment of the
Humanities, two senior fellowships from the Fulbright Program, as well
as other national research awards from the American Council of Learned
Societies, the Social Science Research Council, and the Asian Cultural
Council. He has been an editor of Religious Studies Review
and was elected as a fellow to the American Society for the Study of
Religion in 1995. He has been Visiting Professor of History and
Comparative Religion at the University of Peradeniya three times (1984,
1989 and 1999) a Visiting Reader at the Hong Kong University of Science
and Technology (1994), and the Visiting Numata Professor of Buddhist
Studies at the University of Calgary (2000). In 2002, he was awarded an
honorary Doctor of Letters (Litt.D) from the University of Peradeniya
for his contributions to Sri Lankan and Buddhist Studies.