I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Pace University. I write on religion, literature, and philosophy from pre-modern South Asia, both for academic and public audiences. I also translate Sanskrit poetry. I have a particular interest in aesthetics and theories of language, and more recently in theories of practice, expertise, value, and fraud. I am currently working on a history of gemstones and gemstone experts in South Asia, as well as an exploration of how songs and singing appear in Sanskrit literature. My first book, To Savor the Meaning: The Theology of Literary Emotions in Medieval Kashmir (Oxford University Press, 2021) examines debates from 10th - 12th century Kashmir about how poetry communicates emotions and why that is valuable, and places those debates within the wider religious context of Kashmir at the time.

Prior to joining Pace I was a Faculty Fellow at NYU from 2016-2017 and taught courses at The New School and Barnard. I received a PhD in Religious Studies from Harvard University in 2016, a Master of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School in 2009, and my BA in Religious Studies from Vassar College in 2005. I have also studied Sanskrit in India with the American Insitute of Indian Studies in Pune and at l'École française d'Extrême-Orient in Pondicherry.

I have taught Sanskrit privately in New York City for a number of years. Contact me for rates and availability.

To get in touch, email me at jreich@pace.edu

James D. Reich

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