Steven Barrie-Anthony

Steven Barrie-Anthony is a Ph.D. student in Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and a journalist. His current research focuses on the shifting landscape of religion in North America, the interaction between Eastern mysticism and Western culture, religion and healing/health, new religions, and religion and journalism. He has published lengthy overviews of contemporary Indian religion and Hinduism, as well as research on the Meher Baba movement, in two academic encyclopedias, and a coauthored model analyzing the interaction between religious extremism and authoritarian government in the Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence.

Prior to heading off to work toward a Ph.D., he was a staff features writer for the Los Angeles Times, where he developed the technology and arts/culture beat, profiled Gore Vidal and others, wrote about art, architecture, green/sustainable design, crime, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, music, the movie business, literature. His Times pieces also appeared in numerous other publications, such as the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe, the San Francisco Chronicle, and China’s The Standard. An essay on his prematurely balding pate was reprinted in a college English textbook.

He has also served as a Research Fellow in Religious Studies at Occidental College in Los Angeles, and as the journalist-in-residence at NewSchools Venture Fund, a philanthropic foundation supporting educational entrepreneurship in underserved communities.

Steven graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in religious studies from Occidental College, lives in Santa Barbara, and drives the familiar southbound 101 on weekends to visit his fiance, journalist Kathleen Nye Flynn. Occasionally, they write about their adventures together.