Justin McDaniel

Dr. Justin Thomas McDaniel received his PhD from Harvard University’s Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies in 2003. Presently he teaches Buddhism and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania after previous appointments at Ohio University and the University of California at Riverside. His research foci include Lao, Thai, Pali and Sanskrit linguistics and literature, Southeast Asian Buddhism, Thai and Lao art, ritual studies, manuscript studies, and Southeast Asian history. He is the chair of the Thailand, Laos, Cambodia Studies Association and the founder of the NEH funded Thai Digital Monastery Project. He has taught courses on Hinduism, Southeast Asia Literature, Buddhism, Myth and Symbolism, Southeast Asian History, and the Study of Religion after living and researching in South and Southeast Asia for many years as a Social Science Research Council and Fulbright Fellow, translator, volunteer teacher, and Buddhist monk. His recent publications appear in the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, the Journal of the Siam Society, Journal of Burma Studies, as well as contributions to collected articles on Buddhism and Modernity, Fragile Palm-leaf Manuscript research, and Pali literature in Laos and Thailand. His book, Gathering Leaves and Lifting Words: Histories of Monastic Education in Laos and Thailand, is published by the University of Washington Press (2008) and won the prestigious Harry Benda Prize for best first book in Southeast Asian Studies from the Association of Asian Studies. His second book is The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand is published by Columbia University Press (2011) and has already received many favorable reviews.