Amanda Lucia is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California-Riverside. She is author of White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals (2020), which intervenes at the intersection of whiteness, religious exoticism, and contemporary yoga spirituality. Her previous publications include Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (2014), and numerous book chapters and articles, including “Flooding the Web: Absence-Presence and the Media Strategies of Nithyananda’s Digital Empire,” “Persistent Fictions: Race and the Global Gurus of the Long Twentieth Century,” “Guru Sex: Charisma, Proxemic Desire, and the Haptic Logics of the Guru Disciple Relationship,” and “Hinduism without Religion: Amma’s Movement in America.” She is also the Principal Investigator for the Religion & Sexual Abuse Project, www.religionandsexualabuseproject.org. Her current research focuses on celebrity gurus, and negotiations between religious authority and secular law.ConnectRESEARCH AREASGRANTS PUBLICATIONS RESEARCH AREA: Gurus and the Law RESEARCH AREA: Hinduism in the United States RESEARCH AREA: Celebrity Gurus RESEARCH AREA: Method and Theory in the Study of Religion GRANT: Religion & Sexual Abuse Project (2019-present) GRANT: Global Religious Festivals in Secular Cityscapes - RIDAGA (2013-2015) PUBLICATION: A Cultural History of Hinduism, vols. 1-6 (2024) PUBLICATION: White Utopias: The Religious Exoticism of Transformational Festivals (2020) PUBLICATION: Kumbh Mela (2023) PUBLICATION: Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (2014)