Dr. William Harman
Professor
232E Holt Hall
(423)425-4336
Email
DR. WILLIAM HARMAN has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and served as the Department Head from 2002-2008. He co-edited with Selva J. Raj the book Dealing with Deities: The Ritual Vow in South Asia (SUNY Press, 2007) to which he also contributed three essays. Recently, he has published articles on the Hindu Goddess of Fevers, dynamics of personal religious devotion in Hinduism, miracles in Hinduism, the performance of ritual jokes in a joint Muslim/Hindu festival in India, and female martyr (suicide) bombers in the Sri Lankan civil war. In the summer of 2004, he wrote a successful grant to take a group of UTC students to India to study Indian culture and religion. He spent much of 2008 in Canada, India, and Sri Lanka studying the dynamics of the Sri Lankan civil war. He teaches "Religions of India;" "Goddess Traditions;" "Introduction to Religions;" "Satanism, Witchcraft, and Spirit Possession;" and "Religion and Violence." He is a member of the 4-person executive committee directing the Conference for the Study of Religion in India, and currently is writing about terrorism and religious commitment in the international network of the Tamil Tiger militants.
