Laura M. Dunn, Ph.D., is the director of the Master of Theological Studies program and the Writing Program at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University and faculty for the Center of Dharma Studies at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, where she teaches courses on South Asian Religion, such as non-dual Tantra, yoga studies, and Śāktism. She is the co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Dharma Studies: Asian and Transcultural Religion, Philosophy, & Ethics, a peer-reviewed academic journal that employs theoretical and empirical methodologies for the intersubjective understanding of and critical-constructive reflections on Hindu, Jain, and Buddhist traditions (Dharma Studies). Laura seeks to engage the complex ways in which globalization influences religion, education, and the arts. Her current research explores the ways in which embodied indigenous epistemologies converge and diverge with somatic practices such as yoga āsana and how these practices are used to recover identity in post- and neo-colonial contexts.
- Proseminar I & II
- Interreligious Dimensions of Hinduism (GTU)
- The Yoga of Nondual Tantric Śaivism (GTU)
- Yoga & Globalization
(PEER-REVIEWED)
- Visualizing Power: The Image of Śakti in Modern Day Nondual Tantra, (London: Bloomsbury) 2025 (forthcoming).
- “Decolonizing Yoga: Indigenous & Ally Perspectives,” Race & Yoga (University of California Berkeley), December 2024 (forthcoming).
- Dunn, Laura & Geoff Ashton, editors. Special Issue on Yoga & Sāṃkhya, Journal of Dharma Studies, 6, no. 3, April 2024 (forthcoming).
- Dunn, Laura M. “Śaivism in North America.” In Bloomsbury Religion in North America. London: Bloomsbury Academic, January 2024.
- “Tulasi Srinivas, The Cow in the Elevator: An Anthropology of Wonder” (book review), Asian Ethnology, 79/1 (2020).
- Dunn, Laura, and Graham M. Schweig, editors. “Special Issue on Contemporary Yoga Studies: Philosophy, Practice, Ethics, & Applications.” Journal of Dharma Studies 4, no. 1 (Spring 2020).
- “Yoginī-s in the Flesh: Power, Praxis, and the Embodied Divine Feminine,” Journal of Dharma Studies (Springer International), Fall 2018, Berkeley, CA.
- “The Self-Emptying God(dess): Death and Salvation in the Iconographies of the Crucifixion and Chinnamastā,” Berkeley Journal of Religion and Theology (Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley), 4, no. 2, 2018.
(UNREFEREED)
- “The Eye of the Beholder: Contemplation of the Tantric Goddess, Chinnamastā:” Parabola Magazine, Volume 41; Issue 1, Spring 2016: The Divine Feminine.
- "The Shadow Side of Yoga,” ed. Carolyn Costin, Joe Kelly, in Yoga and Eating Disorders: Ancient Healing for a Modern Illness (New York: Routledge, 2016).
- “The Alchemical Fire”: Parabola Magazine, Volume 37; Issue 1, Spring 2012: The Burning World.
- “Grace is Here! An Interview with Ram Dass”: Parabola Magazine, Volume 38; Issue 1, Spring 2013 Spirit in the World.