Assistant Professor of Religious Studies
University of Virginia
Michael S. Allen works on philosophy, religion, and the environment in South Asia. He is especially interested in Indian philosophy and its relevance to environmental thought, as well as in the religious dimensions of contemporary Indian environmentalism. He is a contributing researcher to UVa’s multi-disciplinary Yamuna River Project, which focuses on pollution of the Yamuna river in Delhi. He has taught courses on “Hinduism and Ecology” and “Sustainability and Asceticism.” He is currently working on a project examining the relationship between theory and practice in classical Indian philosophy, with an eye to applying the insights of Indian philosophers to contemporary environmental concerns: how does one bridge the gap between merely theoretical knowledge and a deeper, transformative knowledge?