Amanda Lucia is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California-Riverside. Her research engages the global exportation, appropriation, and circulation of Hinduism. She is author of White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism ofTransformational Festivals (2020), which investigates the intersections of whiteness and religious exoticism among the “spiritual, but not religious” at transformational festivals, such as Bhakti Fest, Wanderlust, Lightning in a Bottle, and Burning Man, with a particular focus on yoga practice. Her previous publications include Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (2014) and numerous articles. She is currently crafting a body of research on media representations of gurus, with particular attention to discourses in law and sexuality.

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My background:

I was born in Hartford, Connecticut, but moved to Arizona when I was 2 years old. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona. I went to Indiana University-Bloomington for college, where I earned a B.A. in Religious Studies and a minor in India Studies (1998). During my junior year of college, I did the College Year in India Program (1996-1997) in Varanasi, India through the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I earned my M.A. (2004) and Ph.D. (2010) in History of Religions at The University of Chicago.

I have additional training in Hindi, Urdu, and Sanskrit (at Indiana University [1995-1998], University of Wisconsin-Madison [1996], UW-Madison CYIP Varanasi [1996-1997], American Institute for India Studies [AIIS] in Jaipur [2003], and The University of Chicago [2003-2008]). I have also spent time learning Malayalam, Bengali, French, German, and Spanish, though I am proficient in none of these languages. During graduate school, I taught Hindi at The University of Chicago and Hindi/Urdu at University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

In 2011, I was hired as an Assistant Professor in the department for the Study of Religion at University of California-Riverside (UCR) after serving one year as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Austin College in Sherman, Texas (2010-2011). I have been at UCR for 13 years, with just one year away when I was on sabbatical as a faculty fellow at King’s College London (2022-2023).

My family and I currently live on the lands of the Tongva people in downtown Los Angeles, and I drive and work on Gabrieliño-Tongva and Cahuilla lands daily. My pronouns are she/her. You can reach me at amanda.lucia@ucr.edu, and find me in person at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Conference and the Annual Conference of South Asia at University of Wisconsin-Madison.