William J JacksonWilliam J. Jackson, after winning a Danforth graduate school fellowship in 1975, earned his PhD from Harvard University in the comparative study of religion, which involves language study, history of religion, and exploration of literature. He was a rofessor in the Department of Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University, and published biographies and translations of South Indian singer-saints' songs in such books as Tyagaraja--Life and Lyrics; Songs of Three Great South Indian Saints; and Vijayanagara Visions, all of which were published by Oxford University Press. In 2000 he was awarded a sabbatical fellowship at the Rockefeller Research Center in Bellagio, Italy, where he worked on Heaven's Fractal Net, a book about fractal-like geometrical patterns found in the world's cultures (published by Indiana University Press, 2004). He also published The Wisdom of Generosity, about America's history of acts of compassion and volunteerism (Baylor University Press, 2008), and American Tricksters (published by Cascade, 2015). Read More Read Less