Thomas A. Tweed holds the W. Harold and Martha Welch Endowed Chair in American Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Author of The American Encounter with Buddhism, 1844-1912: Victorian Culture and the Limits of Dissent (1992) and editor of Buddhism in the United States, 1844-1925 (2004), Tweed currently serves as president of the American Society for the Study of Religion, and will become president-elect of the American Academy of Religion this fall.