David Gordon White

University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

David Gordon White received his PhD from the Chicago Divinity School in 1988 and is presently the J. F. Rowny Professor of Comparative Religion at Santa Barbara, California. He holds the distinction of being the sole foreign scholar to have been admitted to the Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud, Paris, where he has been an active research fellow since 1992. White is the author of the following highly acclaimed works: Sinister Yogis (University of Chicago Press, 2009), Kiss of the Yogini: ‘Tantric Sex’ in its South Asian Contexts (University of Chicago Press, 2003), The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India (University of Chicago Press, 1996) and Myths of the Dog-Man (University of Chicago Press, 1991). He has also edited two anthologies for Princeton University Press: Tantra in Practice (2000) and Yoga in Practice (2011). White has been the recipient of several research fellowships and grants, including a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2007-2008) and three Fulbright Research Fellowships for India and Nepal. A panel to honour his scholarship formed part of the program of the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (Chicago 2008).