Dana Sawyer
Encyclopedia
Dana Sawyer was born in Jonesport, Maine in 1951. Currently he is a full-time professor of religion and philosophy at the Maine College of Art and an adjunct professor of Asian religions at the Bangor Theological Seminary. He is the author of numerous published papers and books, including Aldous Huxley
: A Biography, which Laura Huxley
described as, "Out of all the biographies written about Aldous, this is the only one he would have actually liked."
Project in Stok, Ladakh, north India, for more than ten years. This project has resulted in the construction of an elementary/ middle/high school for underprivileged Buddhist children that has been visited twice by the Dalai Lama
, who holds it as a model for blending traditional and Western educational ideals. Much of his work for this project has involved translating at lectures for (and teaching with) the school’s founder, Khen Rinpoche Lobzang Tsetan, who is currently the abbot of the Panchen Lama’s monastery in Mysore, India.
Sawyer's interest in the phenomenon of Neo-Hindu and Buddhist groups in America led him to become a popular lecturer on topics of interest to these groups. He has taught at the Kripalu Center (Lenox, MA), the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (Barre, MA), the Vedanta Society of Southern California (Hollywood, CA), the Esalen Institute
in Big Sur, California, and other such venues. This work has also brought him into contact with several interesting and important figures in this field, including Stanislav Grof
, Andrew Harvey
, Huston Smith
, Laura Huxley
, Stephen Cope, and Alex Grey
.
Sawyer has been to India eleven times, most recently while on sabbatical during the winter and spring of 2005, and has traveled extensively throughout the subcontinent: Nepal, Pakistan, Sikkim, Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Related to academic work Sawyer has lectured at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Banaras Hindu University, the University of Riga, Latvia, the Huntington Library, and at colleges and conferences throughout the United States (interview footage of Sawyer from the Riga conference was featured in a British documentary, “Brand New World,” on the dangers of consumer culture). In August, 2005, Sawyer was a participant in the by-invitation-only conference on “Government, Education, and Religion” at the Oxford Roundtable, Lincoln College, Oxford University. He is a member of two academic societies: the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (SACP) and the International Aldous Huxley Society, centered at the University of Munster in Germany.
Current Project: Sawyer is working closely with Huston Smith
, noted scholar and author of The World's Religions, to write his authorized biography.
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994).
Arthur Steindler Award (for teaching and academic excellence), University of Iowa, School of Religion, 1988.
Foreign language and Area Studies Fellowship (to study Hindi in India), U.S. Department of Education, 1988.
Graduate Fellowship in Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, fall, 1978.
Tuition Grant for Academic Excellence, University of Hawaii, Department of Asian Studies, 1977-1978.
(comprehensive examinations, May 1988). Major: History of Asian Religions with a primary focus on religion in modern India. Dissertation unfinished, though much of it has been published.
M.A., University of Iowa, School of Religion, History of Asian Religions, 1993.
Oxford University, Oxford, England. Accepted by the Oriental faculty to study for the D.Phil., with Richard Gombrich as advisor. Attended during the Michelmas term, 1980.
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. Graduate courses in Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy (with Bimal Motilal), Fall 1978.
M.A., University of Hawaii, Dept. of Asian Studies, Honolulu, HI, 1978. Major:
The Religions of India.
B.A., Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT, 1973. Major: World
Literature. Minor: philosophy.
Jan. 1989 to present: adjunct professor of Asian Religions, Bangor Theological - Seminary, Bangor, ME. Course titles (all at graduate level): History of World Religions, History of Asian Religions, Introduction to Buddhist Traditions, Introduction to Hindu Traditions, Sociology of Religion.
Aug. 1985 to May 1988: teaching assistant, University of Iowa, School of Religion. Course titles: Living Religions of the East, Religion and Society, Quest for Human Destiny.
Summer 1986: Instructor in world religions, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Aug. 1984 to May 1985: research assistant in Buddhist Studies under Dr. Wang Pachow, University of Iowa, School of Religion.
Fall 1977: teaching assistant, University of Hawaii, Dept. of Religion. Course: Introduction to World Religions.
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
: A Biography, which Laura Huxley
Laura Huxley
Laura Huxley was a musician, author, psychological counselor and lecturer.-Life and work:...
described as, "Out of all the biographies written about Aldous, this is the only one he would have actually liked."
Biography
Sawyer has been involved in fund-raising activities for the Siddhartha SchoolSiddhartha school
The Siddhartha School is a school in Ladakh, India.Founded in 1995 by the Tibetan lama Khen Rinpoche Lobzang Tsetan with 25 students in a one-room shed, the school is now a private school with over 300 students in grades K-10. No child is denied admission on the basis of financial need. Students at...
Project in Stok, Ladakh, north India, for more than ten years. This project has resulted in the construction of an elementary/ middle/high school for underprivileged Buddhist children that has been visited twice by the Dalai Lama
Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...
, who holds it as a model for blending traditional and Western educational ideals. Much of his work for this project has involved translating at lectures for (and teaching with) the school’s founder, Khen Rinpoche Lobzang Tsetan, who is currently the abbot of the Panchen Lama’s monastery in Mysore, India.
Sawyer's interest in the phenomenon of Neo-Hindu and Buddhist groups in America led him to become a popular lecturer on topics of interest to these groups. He has taught at the Kripalu Center (Lenox, MA), the Barre Center for Buddhist Studies (Barre, MA), the Vedanta Society of Southern California (Hollywood, CA), the Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute
Esalen Institute is a residential community and retreat in Big Sur, California, which focuses upon humanistic alternative education. Esalen is a nonprofit organization devoted to activites such as meditation, massage, Gestalt, yoga, psychology, ecology, and spirituality...
in Big Sur, California, and other such venues. This work has also brought him into contact with several interesting and important figures in this field, including Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof
Stanislav Grof is a psychiatrist, one of the founders of the field of transpersonal psychology and a pioneering researcher into the use of non-ordinary states of consciousness for purposes of analyzing, healing, and obtaining growth and insight into the human psyche...
, Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey
Andrew Harvey is an author, religious scholar and teacher of mystic traditions, known primarily for his popular nonfiction books on spiritual or mystical themes, beginning with his 1983 A Journey in Ladakh...
, Huston Smith
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
, Laura Huxley
Laura Huxley
Laura Huxley was a musician, author, psychological counselor and lecturer.-Life and work:...
, Stephen Cope, and Alex Grey
Alex Grey
Alex Grey is an American artist specializing in spiritual and psychedelic art that is sometimes associated with the New Age movement. Grey is a Vajrayana practitioner. His body of work spans a variety of forms including performance art, process art, installation art, sculpture, visionary art, and...
.
Sawyer has been to India eleven times, most recently while on sabbatical during the winter and spring of 2005, and has traveled extensively throughout the subcontinent: Nepal, Pakistan, Sikkim, Thailand, Cambodia, Hong Kong, and Japan.
Related to academic work Sawyer has lectured at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, Banaras Hindu University, the University of Riga, Latvia, the Huntington Library, and at colleges and conferences throughout the United States (interview footage of Sawyer from the Riga conference was featured in a British documentary, “Brand New World,” on the dangers of consumer culture). In August, 2005, Sawyer was a participant in the by-invitation-only conference on “Government, Education, and Religion” at the Oxford Roundtable, Lincoln College, Oxford University. He is a member of two academic societies: the Society for Asian and Comparative Philosophy (SACP) and the International Aldous Huxley Society, centered at the University of Munster in Germany.
Current Project: Sawyer is working closely with Huston Smith
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith is a religious studies scholar in the United States. His book The World's Religions remains a popular introduction to comparative religion.-Education:...
, noted scholar and author of The World's Religions, to write his authorized biography.
Selected publications
- Cosmic Capitalism, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the Selling of Romanticism. (Albany: State University of New York Press, Forthcoming, Fall 2009). Co-written with Cynthia Humes.
- Downeast Roshi, a feature article on Zen Master Walter NowickWalter NowickWalter Nowick is an American former teacher of Rinzai Zen. He is a Juilliard-trained pianist and a veteran of World War II. He studied Zen in Japan for sixteen years while teaching university-level piano and voice there, then returned to the United States to teach music and Zen in Surry, Maine,...
, Tricycle, the Buddhist Review (New York, Spring 2008) - Edited, and wrote the preface, for Khen Rinpoche Lbzang Tsetan, Peaceful Mind, Compassionate Heart. Freeport, ME: Siddhartha School Project Press, 2008.
- Aldous Huxley as Environmental Prophet, in Aldous Huxley in America, a book of essays based on the Fourth International Symposium on Aldous Huxley, at Pasadena, CA, Aug.2008. Muenster, Germany: the Centre for Aldous Huxley Studies, 2008.
- The Ersatz of Suchness, Aldous Huxley and the Spiritual Importance of Art in Essays on Aldous Huxley, a book based on the Third International Symposium on Aldous Huxley, at Riga, Latvia, Aug. 2004. Muenster, Germany: the Centre for Aldous Huxley Studies, 2007.
- Essays on Aldous Huxley and Brave New WorldBrave New WorldBrave New World is Aldous Huxley's fifth novel, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Set in London of AD 2540 , the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of...
for The Encyclopedia of Literature and Politics, M. Keith Booker, ed., London: Greenwood Press, 2005. - Interview footage, discussing Huxley’s theories regarding the dangers of consumer culture, appears in the British documentary film, Brand New World, by Ewan Jones-Morris and Andrzej Wojcik (London, 2004). This film won several awards and was featured at the British Museum in August 2007.
- Aldous Huxley’s Truth Beyond Tradition, Tricycle: the Buddhist Review, New York, fall 2003)
- What kind of a mystic was Aldous Huxley Anyway? - A brief appraisal of his mysticism, in Aldous Huxley Annual (volume II, pp. 207–218), Bernfried Nugel, ed., published by the Centre for Aldous Huxley Studies, University of Munster, Munster, Germany, 2002.
- Aldous Huxley, a Biography (New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2002).
- Edited the Sanskrit and standardized the transliteration for Ananda Coomaraswamy’s, Yakshas: Essays in the Water Cosmology
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994).
- The Monastic Structure of Banarsi Dandi Sadhus, in Living Banaras: Hindu Religion in Cultural Context, Bradley Hertel and Cynthia Humes, eds. Wendy Doniger, chief editor of series (Buffalo, NY: SUNY Press, 1993, and republished, Delhi: Manohar, 1998).
Awards
Maine College of Art, Portland, Maine. Travel grant to photograph temples in Asia for use in courses and the college’s slide library, spring and summer, 1999.Arthur Steindler Award (for teaching and academic excellence), University of Iowa, School of Religion, 1988.
Foreign language and Area Studies Fellowship (to study Hindi in India), U.S. Department of Education, 1988.
Graduate Fellowship in Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, fall, 1978.
Tuition Grant for Academic Excellence, University of Hawaii, Department of Asian Studies, 1977-1978.
Education
Ph.D. candidate, University of Iowa, School of Religion, Iowa City, Iowa(comprehensive examinations, May 1988). Major: History of Asian Religions with a primary focus on religion in modern India. Dissertation unfinished, though much of it has been published.
M.A., University of Iowa, School of Religion, History of Asian Religions, 1993.
Oxford University, Oxford, England. Accepted by the Oriental faculty to study for the D.Phil., with Richard Gombrich as advisor. Attended during the Michelmas term, 1980.
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario. Graduate courses in Sanskrit and Indian Philosophy (with Bimal Motilal), Fall 1978.
M.A., University of Hawaii, Dept. of Asian Studies, Honolulu, HI, 1978. Major:
The Religions of India.
B.A., Western Connecticut State University, Danbury, CT, 1973. Major: World
Literature. Minor: philosophy.
Work experience
Jan. 1989 to present: Liberal Arts dept. Maine College of Art (current rank: associate professor), dept. chair 1995-1998.Jan. 1989 to present: adjunct professor of Asian Religions, Bangor Theological - Seminary, Bangor, ME. Course titles (all at graduate level): History of World Religions, History of Asian Religions, Introduction to Buddhist Traditions, Introduction to Hindu Traditions, Sociology of Religion.
Aug. 1985 to May 1988: teaching assistant, University of Iowa, School of Religion. Course titles: Living Religions of the East, Religion and Society, Quest for Human Destiny.
Summer 1986: Instructor in world religions, Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
Aug. 1984 to May 1985: research assistant in Buddhist Studies under Dr. Wang Pachow, University of Iowa, School of Religion.
Fall 1977: teaching assistant, University of Hawaii, Dept. of Religion. Course: Introduction to World Religions.