Jolyon Thomas

Jolyon Thomas studies religion in conjunction with illustrated media, religious freedom law, public education, and taxes. Trained primarily as a scholar of Japanese religions, his expansive research agenda covers religion in Japan, the United States, and their respective empires from the nineteenth century to the present.

Thomas’s primary question is both broad and specific: “Who calls what religion, and with which political effects?” To answer this question, his publications cover discrete religious traditions such as Shintō and Buddhism, but they also historicize analytical categories such as “new religious movements” and “animism.” While dedicated to rigorous engagement with primary sources in both Japanese and English, his approach generally eschews the “methodological nationalism” of conventional area studies. Instead, he focuses on practices of religion-making in transnational contexts such as military occupations and investigates isomorphic features of political secularisms across national boundaries.

Thomas’s global, non-denominational perspective is reflected in the journals for which he serves as an editorial board member: American Religion, the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, the Journal of Global Buddhism, and Nova Religio. His research has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, the Japan Foundation Center for Global Partnership, the Whiting Foundation, Fulbright-IIE, and the Crown Prince Akihito Foundation; his publications have won awards from the Association for the Academic Study of New Religions and the American Academy of Religion.

Pronunciation: Jolyon sounds like “Julian,” but with an “o” sound for the first vowel. Properly, some say Joel-yon (with the last half sounding like the second syllable of canyon), but the pronunciation Joel-Ian is more common. Professor Thomas responds to both.

Note from Prof. Thomas to prospective graduate school applicants:

I am actively recruiting advisees in the research areas listed below. All prospective applicants should read the "advice for prospective grad students" on my website before applying. 

To get a sense of the sort of research I advise, my current PhD advisees are:

Julio Nascimento (developing a dissertation on Buddhism, media, gender, and empire in Japan)

Kirby Sokolow (finishing a dissertation on Buddhism in US prisons)