Divinity School Teaching Fellow in the Divinity School and the College

Andrew Kunze is a scholar of contemporary Hinduism and mass media whose work is interested in the intersections of technological labor and theological power. He received his Ph.D. in the Anthropology of Sociology of Religion from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2021. His dissertation, Transnational Swaminarayan Hinduism: Mass Mediation and the Rise of BAPS, takes an ethnographic and archival approach to a conservative devotional community, the Swaminarayan Sampraday, in both Gujarat, India and the North American diaspora, where it has become the largest and most prominent contemporary Hindu movement. Andrew’s historical research investigates how Gujarat’s diverse religious milieu of Hinduism, Jainism, and Islam has nevertheless emerged as the poster child of Hindu Nationalism. His teaching covers the anthropology of religion, mass media, globalization, and nationalism.