About

Andrea R. Jain is professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis and author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture (Oxford, 2014) and Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford, 2020). She is also the editor of the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (JAAR).

Jain writes and speaks about capitalism, religion, sex, and society in our contemporary world. More specifically, she is interested in the ways capitalist norms shape and limit the ideas and values expressed in the vast literary and cultural artifacts of pop culture. To that end and for several years, she wrote about yoga in pop culture and the politics of global spirituality. She continues to work toward a better understanding of capitalism and pop culture, but now by writing about animals in the popular imagination and the politics of animal/human relationships.

Her current work, including the book project and documentary film Predation, centers questions about the normalized violence against animals in pop culture and the ways it is interwoven with ableism, sexual and gendered violence, racism, and other forms of capitalist brutality in a social context that commodifies everyone, valuing us all in terms of our productive labor.

Her politics inform her work, which is generally legible through the lenses of social theory, feminist theory, and anti-capitalist critique. The subjects of her critique are all located in the capitalocene, that is, the era characterized by the uniquely disastrous consequences of the social values and practices of capitalism. She also advocates for neurodiversity everywhere she goes. In her editorship at the JAAR, she encourages submissions that bring banned words (that is, those targeted by the Trump administration) generously to the pages of the Journal.  

Jain holds a PhD in religious studies, with a graduate certificate in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, from Rice University. She received her M.A. in religious studies while at Rice University, and a B.A. in philosophy, psychology, and religious studies from Southern Methodist University.

At Indiana University, Indianapolis she serves as an initiating member of the Green Earth Consortium, which pursues research on climate change, sustainability, and environmental equity as critical factors driving what a healthy global future looks like. She also co-leads the Geo-Ethics Modules (GEMs) project, which stresses ethical reasoning as a core scientific competency and deliberately integrates ethical inquiry into geoscience education.

See Jain’s CV for more on her publications, speaking, and other professional activities.