Robert N. Minor, M.A., Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus, Religious Studies
The University of Kansas
Email Dr. Minor
The Department of Religious Studies Website
Robert N. Minor, M.A., Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Kansas. He joined the faculty in 1977, the year the University of Kansas founded the Department of Religious Studies by taking over teaching duties from the private Kansas School of Religion, and retired from the University in 2010.
Dr. Minor was the Department's first full-time Asianist and came to the University from Allegheny College in Meadville, PA, where he had taught for two years. From 1988-1994 Dr. Minor was Chair of the Department or Religious Studies. He also served briefly as Acting Director of KU's Center for East Asian Studies.
A native of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, he received the Ph.D. in Religion from the University of Iowa in 1975 and an M.A. in Biblical Studies from Trinity Divinity School in Chicago in 1969.
He is the author of eight books and dozens of articles and chapters in edited volumes. His first five books were on his first specialty, religious thought and practice in South Asia and their relationships to culture.
He
has done research in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Near East. His
current research is also in gender studies and the relationships of religion,
gender, and sexuality.
In 2007 he published his newest popular book, When Religion Is an Addiction, published by HumanityWorks!, a product of his current research on the study of addictions combined with his background in religious studies theory and method.
Gay and
Healthy in a Sick Society: The Minor Details published by HumanityWorks!
in November, 2003, was a Finalist for the Independent
Publisher Book Award in 2004. Scared
Straight: Why It's So Hard to 
Accept
Gay People and Why It's So Hard to Be Human, also published
by HumanityWorks! in St. Louis, in 2002 was named a Finalist for both a
Lambda Literary Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award. In little
more than a month from their publication, Menstuff.org, the premier men's
issues website, named each of them "Book of the Week."
Dr. Minor
also writes articles and columns that appear throughout the U.S. including
a popular monthly column of analysis and opinion entitled
"Minor
Details" that 
appears
in on-line and print publications around the country, and a column on romance
and dating for Baby Boomers for 50PlusPrime.com.
He has a thirty-five year old son and one-year old grandson. In 1994 he was a member of the Values Panel for the Kansas City Star (the daily, Knight-Ridder/now McClatchy newspaper for Kansas City) for its award-winning, year-long "Raising Kansas City Project."
He was a member of the Communities Against Hate Crimes Task Force of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas and the Diversity Advisory Committee of KCPT, the public television station for Kansas City, MO. He serves on other boards and task forces, such as the Advisory Board of the Center for Religious Experience and Study of Kansas City and the LGBT Task Force of the Amerian Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and Western Missouri.
He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Men's Studies Association, CoChair of the Organizing Committee of Kansas City Jobs with Justice, a member of the State Executive Committee of Missouri Jobs with Justice, and President of the Board of Directors of Ecumenical Campus Ministries of the University of Kansas.
Dr. Minor continues to lead workshops, as he has for twenty years, on gender roles, homophobia, and racism for universities, colleges, churches, businesses, government organizations, and community and religious groups throughout the US as well as workshops for non-heterosexuals on personal growth beyond "coming out," and how to be a healthy activist. For this purpose he founded The Fairness Project. He worked closely with the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation in its Kansas City "Communities of Faith" projects in the 1990s.
In 1999 GLAAD awarded him its Leadership Award for Education. In 2012 the University of Kansas named him a "Man of Merit" for men at the University who "define masculinity through challenging norms, taking action, and leading by example while making outstanding contributions to the university and/or community."