Lawrence Sullivan

Lawrence E. Sullivan is Director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. He carried out his Ph.D. studies in the comparative history of religions at the University of Chicago under the direction of Victor Turner, Mircea Eliade, and Joseph Kitagawa, and later taught on the faculty there. He specializes in the study of ritual and ceremonial performance, with a special focus on Central Africa and South America. He examines religious beliefs and practices centered on health and healing. His book Icanchu's Drum received best book awards from the Association of American Publishers and the American Council of Learned Societies. He is associate editor of the 16-volume Encyclopedia of Religion published by Macmillan which received the Hawkins Prize and the Dartmouth Medal from the American Library Association for the best work in any category of publishing. He is past President of the American Academy of Religions, whose eight thousand members teach religions in North American colleges and universities. Recently he developed the concepts and content for the Museum of World Religions in Taipei, Taiwan. The Religions of Humanity book series, which Sullivan wrote with Julien Ries and published with Jaca Book, received the 2000 Hans Christian Andersen Prize for the Best Series in Children’s Literature.