Robert N. Minor, M.A., Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. He joined the faculty in 1977, the year the University of Kansas founded the Department of Religious Studies by taking over teaching duties from the private Kansas School of Religion, and retired from the University in 2010.

Dr. Minor was the Department’s first full-time Asianist and came to the University from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, where he had taught for two years. From 1988-1994 Dr. Minor was Chair of the Department of Religious Studies. He also served a year as Acting Director of KU’s Center for East Asian Studies.

A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he received a Ph.D. in Religion from the University of Iowa in 1975 and an M.A. in Biblical Studies from Trinity Divinity School in Chicago in 1969.

He is the author of eight books and dozens of articles and chapters in edited volumes. His first five books were on his first specialty, religious thought and practice in South Asia, and their relationships to culture.