Personnel

Director

Dr. James Deitrick

James E. Deitrick

Professor of Philosophy and Religion, and Director of the Humanities and World Cultures Institute, 501-450-5592, Irby 118 (home page : e-mail). Click here for a recent photo.

Jim Deitrick holds a Ph.D. in Religion and Social Ethics from the School of Religion at the University of Southern California and is Assistant Professor of Comparative Philosophy and Religion at UCA. His teaching and research focus on Western engagements with Asian philosophical and religious traditions and the consequences of such engagements for contemporary social ethical theory and practice. He was awarded the Yvonne Leonard Dissertation Fellowship for his doctoral dissertation, “Mistaking the Boat for the Shore?: A Critical Analysis of Socially Engaged Buddhist Social Ethics in the United States,” which he is currently updating and revising for publication as a book. He is contributing editor to Encyclopedia of Buddhism (Routledge Press, 2007) and author of several articles and chapters in books on Buddhism in the West. He also enjoys exploring alternative pedagogies in the classroom, and has published on the use of some of these techniques in the journals Education About Asia and East West Connections: Review of Asian Studies.