Andrea R. Jain is professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford, 2014) and Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford, 2020). She is also the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR).

Jain writes and speaks about capitalism, religion, sex, and society in our contemporary world. Her work addresses how capitalist norms shape and limit the ideas and values expressed in the literary and cultural artifacts of pop culture. To that end and for several years, she has written about yoga and wellness in pop culture and the politics of global spirituality. She continues to work toward a better understanding of capitalism and culture, now expanding her purview to include animals in the popular imagination and the politics of animal/human relationships.

Her current work, including the book project and documentary film Predation, centers questions about the normalized violence against animals in pop culture and the ways it interweaves with ableism, sexual and gendered violence, racism, and other forms of capitalist brutality in a social context that commodifies everyone, valuing us all in terms of our productive labor.

Jain holds a PhD in religious studies, with a graduate certificate in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, from Rice University. She received her M.A. in religious studies while at Rice University, and a B.A. with majors in philosophy, psychology, and religious studies from Southern Methodist University.

Course offerings include Theories of Religion, Religion and Culture, and Hinduism and Buddhism

Books

In progress. Predation: The Capitalist Logic of Animal Brutality.

2020. Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality. New York: Oxford University
Press (expected publication date: July 2020).

2014. Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

2014. Kripal, Jeffrey J., Ata Anzali, Andrea R. Jain, and Erin Prophet. Comparing Religions:
Coming to Terms. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Film

2021. Predation: A Short Documentary. Produced and co-directed by Andrea R. Jain and Vinnie Manganello. Available at https://www.andreajain.com/predation.

Refereed Articles

Forthcoming. “From Self-Management to Black Veganism: Non-Compliance Amidst Planetary Crisis, Pandemic, and Health Injustice.” Studies in Religion.

2017. “Yoga, Christians Practicing Yoga, and God: On Theological Compatibility, or Is There a Better Question?” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 30.

2014. “Who Is to Say Modern Yoga Practitioners Have It All Wrong?: On Hindu Origins and Yogaphobia.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 82(2): 427-471.

2012. “Branding Yoga: The Cases of Iyengar Yoga, Siddha Yoga, and Anusara Yoga.” Approaching Religion 2(2): 3-17.

2012. “The Malleability of Yoga: A Response to Christian and Hindu Opponents of the Popularization of Yoga.” Journal of Hindu-Christian Studies 25: 3-10.

2012. “The Dual-Ideal of the Ascetic and Healthy Body: The Jain Terapanth and Modern Yoga in the Context of Late Capitalism.” Nova Religio 15(3) (February): 29-50.

2010. “Erotic Motherhood and the Ideal Son: Mythology as Psychotherapy in the Krishna-Bhakti Tradition. Pastoral Psychology 59(1) (February): 53-64.

2009. Jain, Andrea R. and Jeffrey J. Kripal. “Quietism and Karma: Non-Action as Non-Ethics in Jain Asceticism.” Common Knowledge. Symposium: Apology for Quietism, Part 2 15(2) (Spring): 197-207.

2005. McCullough, Michael E., Craig K. Enders, Sharon L. Brion, and Andrea R. Jain. “The Varieties of Religious Development in Adulthood: A Longitudinal Investigation of Religion and Rational Choice.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 89(1) (August): 78-89.

Refereed Book Chapters

Forthcoming. “Money.” Critical Terms for Religious Studies. Edited by Sarah Hammerschlag. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

2021. “Neoliberal Yoga.” Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies. Edited by Suzanne Newcombe and Karen O’Brien-Kop. New York: Routledge.

2018. “Yogi Superman, Master Capitalist: Bikram Choudhury and the Religion of Commercial Spirituality.” Being Spiritual but not Religious: Past, Present, and Future(s). Edited by William B. Parsons. New York: Routledge.

2018. “Subversive Spiritualities: Yoga’s Complex Role in the Narrative of Sex and Religion in the Twentieth Century U.S.” Devotions and Desires: Religion and Sexuality in the Twentieth Century United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.

2015. “Jain Modern Yoga: The Case of Preksha Dhyana.” Jain Yoga. Edited by Christopher Key Chapple. New York: Routledge.

2014. “Conversion to Jain Traditions.” The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion. Edited by Charles Farhadian and Lewis R. Rambo. New York: Oxford University Press.

2014. “Muktananda: Entrepreneurial Godman, Tantric Hero.” Gurus of Modern Yoga. Edited by Ellen Goldberg and Mark Singleton. New York: Oxford University Press.

Indiana Humanities INCommon Grant (2021), Luce Foundation Grant (2019), IU Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics, and Society Workshop Grant (2019), Research Trailblazer Award at IUPUI (2018), Department of Religion at Rice University Alumni Flame Award (2018), IUPUI Arts and Humanities Institute Internal Grant (2016-2017), IU New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities Exploratory Travel Fellowship (2014-2015), Crovetto Award for Excellence in the Study of New Religious Movements with Ties to South Asia at Nova Religio (2012), Outstanding Advisor to a Student Organization at IUPUI (2012)

Editor, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

Capitalism, religion, sex, and society in our contemporary world.