Ron Kidd, Adjunct Professor of Eastern Studies

"Every once in a while I talk with a colleague at DePaul or somewhere else and when I tell him or her what I am teaching, they can hardly believe there's a place in the US where classic works can be brought directly into discussion. Then when I tell them of the small class sizes and the short focus statements students prepare, the look of utter envy crescendos!"

Kidd has been an adjunct member of the Shimer faculty since 2000.  At Shimer, Kidd has offered numerous electives that complement the core curriculum with original texts from non-Western traditions in philosophy, literature, and religion. In Chicago, Kidd has taught at DePaul University, Columbia College, and the Catholic Theological Union. While in Paris, Kidd studied under Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jean Hyppolite. He has held senior administrative positions at the Institute of World Spirituality and the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions. Kidd is a Senior Dharma Teacher in the Kwan Um School of Zen and the founder and resident teacher at the Lincoln Park Zen group. He frequently leads a Zen meditation group at Shimer.

EDUCATION
Auditeur libre
Paris 1966-1968

Bachelier en philosophie, licence en philosophie
Institute Superior de Philosophie, University of Louvain, Belgium 1964-1968

Graduate
Crosier House of Studies, Catholic Seminary, 1962

PUBLICATIONS AND COLLOQUIA

Co-editor, The Dawn of Religious Pluralism (LaSalle, IL: Open Court, 1993).

NEH Seminar (Asceticism, in Hinduism and Buddhism), University of Chicago, summer 1996.