IN-PERSON: Learning. Life. Work

Debashish Banerji is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the Program Chair for the East-West Psychology department. Prior to CIIS, he served as Professor of Indian Studies and Dean of Academics at the University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles. He has taught as adjunct faculty at the Pasadena City College, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Irvine. His interests lie in postcolonial, posthuman and transcultural approaches to Indian philosophy, psychology and culture. Banerji has curated a number of exhibitions of Indian and Japanese art. He has authored and edited several books on major figures of “the Bengal Renaissance” such as the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, the artist Abanindranath Tagore and the spiritual thinker Sri Aurobindo. He has also edited books on Critical Posthumanism and Integral Yoga Psychology. His most recent authored books are Seven Quartets of Becoming: A Transformational Yoga Psychology Based on the Diaries of Sri Aurobindo (DK Printworld and Nalanda International, 2012) and Meditations on the Isha Upanishad: Tracing the Philosophical Vision of Sri Aurobindo (Sri Aurobindo Samity and Maha Bodhi Publishers, 2019). An authored book on the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Time-Steps of the Cosmic Horse: Meditations on the Contemplative Philosophy of the Great Forest Upanishad is now in press.