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muesse@rhodes.edu
Dharma Memphis Contributor
Original Member of Dharma Sunday
Associate Professor and Chair,
Department of Religious Studies at Rhodes College
website:
Faculty listing at Rhodes College
CONTRIBUTIONS BY MARK MUESSE
Brief Biography
Mark William Muesse was born in Waco, Texas in 1957 and attended Baylor
University, where he received a B.A., summa cum laude, in English Literature
(1979). He also attended Harvard University, where he earned a Masters of
Theological Studies (1981), a Masters of Arts (1983), and a Ph.D. in The Study
of Religion (1987). At Harvard, his principal teachers were Gordon D. Kaufman,
Richard R. Niebuhr, and Sharon Welch in theology and Wilfred Cantwell Smith and
Diana L. Eck in religion. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the relationship
between liberalism and fundamentalism.
Muesse has taught at Harvard College, Harvard Divinity School, and the
University of Southern Maine, where he also served as Associate Dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences. Muesse came to Rhodes College in 1988 as Assistant
Professor of Religious Studies and became Associate Professor in 1995. In 2004,
he was appointed Chair of the Department of Religious Studies.
At Rhodes, he teaches courses in world religions and philosophy, modern
theology, and spirituality. He has recently completed a videotaped series on
Hinduism for The Teaching Company and is currently producing another series on
Axial Age Religions. He is the author of many articles and reviews in
comparative religions and theology and has co-edited a collection of essays
entitled Redeeming Men: Religion and Masculinities, and is presently compiling a
book of prayers from the worlds' religions. He is a member of the American Men's
Studies Association, the American Academy of Religion, and the Society for
Indian Philosophy and Religion.
Muesse has also been Visiting Professor of Theology at the Tamilnadu Theological
Seminary in Madurai, India . He has traveled extensively throughout Asia and has
studied at International Buddhist Meditation Centre, Wat Mahadhatu, Bangkok,
Thailand and the Himalayan Yogic Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal, and the Middle
East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. He most recently spent part of a
sabbatical leave in Sri Lanka, studying Theravada Buddhism. His wife Dhammika is
a native Sri Lanka and they have a baby daughter, Ariyana.
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