Associate Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Jolyon Thomas is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His research covers Japan and the United States in four main topics of inquiry: 1) religion and media; 2) religious freedom; 3) religion and education; and 4) religion and capitalism. He is a widely published author, whose writings have appeared in several prominent academic publications in the United States and Japan.

His most recent monograph, Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan, was published by University of Chicago Press in 2019. His first book, Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan, was published by the University of Hawai`i Press in 2012. His third book, Difficult Subjects: Religion and the Politics of Public Schooling in Japan and the United States, is now under contract with University of Chicago Press. Dr. Thomas holds a PhD from Princeton University, an MA from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, and a BA from Grinnell College.