Diana Eck

professor, comparative religion, Harvard

Diana Eck's academic work has a dual focus, India and America, and in both cases she is interested in the challenges of religious pluralism in a multireligious society. Her work on India includes the books *Banaras*, *City of Light and Darsan*, and *Seeing the Divine Image in India*. Since 1991, she has headed the Pluralism Project, which explores and interprets the religious dimensions of America's new immigration; the growth of Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, and Zoroastrian communities in the United States; and the new issues of religious pluralism and American civil society. Her book *Encountering God: A Spiritual Journey From Bozeman to Banaras* is in the area of Christian theology and interfaith dialogue. It won the Grawemeyer Book Award in 1995 and a 10th-anniversary edition was published in 2003. She received the National Humanities Award from President Clinton and the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1996, the Montana Governor's Humanities Award in 2003, and the Melcher Lifetime Achievement Award from the Unitarian Universalist Association in 2003. In 2005 and 2006 she served as president of the American Academy of Religion. Diana Eck has worked closely with churches on issues of interreligious relations, including her own United Methodist Church and the World Council of Churches. She is currently chair of the Interfaith Relations Commission of the National Council of Churches.