Larry Dwight Shinn (born January 16, 1942) was president of

Berea College Berea College is a private liberal arts work college in Berea, Kentucky. Founded in 1855, Berea College was the first college in the Southern United States to be coeducational and racially integrated. Berea College charges no tuition; every a ...

, Kentucky, from 1994 to 2012. Prior to this appointment he taught for fourteen years in the Department of Religion, Oberlin College, and was Vice-President of Academic Affairs, Dean of Humanities and Head of the Religious Studies Department at

Bucknell University Bucknell University is a private liberal arts college in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1846 as the University at Lewisburg, it now consists of the College of Arts and Sciences, Freeman College of Management, and the College of Engineering ...

. Larry Shinn received his undergraduate degree from

Baldwin-Wallace College Baldwin Wallace University (BW) is a private university in Berea, Ohio. It was founded in 1845 as Baldwin Institute by Methodist businessman John Baldwin. The school merged with nearby German Wallace College in 1913 to become Baldwin-Wallace C ...

located in Berea Ohio. In 1972 he defended his dissertation ''Krsna's Lila: An Analysis of the Relationship of the Notion of Deity and the Concept of Samsara in the Bhagavata Purana'' and received a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

history of religions The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago (3200 BC). The prehistory of religion involves th ...

from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. Shinn has studied

Hare Krishnas The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement or Hare Krishnas, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava Hindu religious organization. ISKCON was founded in 1966 in New York City by A. C. Bhaktived ...

in America for more than forty years and, among his other writings, published, ''The Dark Lord'', a study of the Hare Krishnas and the cult controversy. At Oberlin, Shinn became Danforth Professor of South Asian Religion, and was ordained as a minister in the

United Methodist Church The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelic ...

. In both high-school and college he played on championship football teams, and served for nine of his fourteen years at Oberlin as assistant football coach. Jon C. Dalton, ""Integrating Sports Into College Life and Learning": An Interview with Larry Shinn, President of Berea College" Journal of College and Character, vol. 7, no. 3, 2006, pp. 1-3. https://doi.org/10.2202/1940-1639.1527

Selected publications

''Krishna Consciousness in the West''
David G. Bromley, Larry D. Shinn, 1989
''Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions''
Keith Crim, Roger Aubrey Bullard, Larry D. Shinn, 1981
''The Dark Lord: Cult Images and the Hare Krishnas in America''
by Larry D. Shinn, 1987

*Two Sacred Worlds: Experience and Structure in the World's Religions, Larry D. Shinn, 1977. Nashville: Abingdon.

References

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Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shinn, Larry 1942 births Living people 20th-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American theologians 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American theologians American Indologists American male non-fiction writers American religion academics American United Methodist clergy Baldwin Wallace University alumni Berea College faculty Bucknell University faculty Methodists from Ohio Methodist theologians Methodist writers Oberlin College faculty Presidents of Berea College Princeton University alumni Researchers of new religious movements and cults