Joe Reader is a Ph.D. student in the Religion Department at the University of Florida. His areas of research are Hindu Traditions, Gender Studies, and Sanskrit. Joe graduated from Rutgers University with a B.A. in Religious Studies, double minoring in Philosophy and Psychology, and an M.A. in Religious Studies, specializing in Hindu Traditions. His M.A. thesis focused on issues of gender and caste as they related to social and religious equity within the tenth book of the Bhāgavata Purāṇa. Current academic interests include Bhakti devotional traditions, hermeneutics, embodiment practices, ethnography, and Queer Theory. In his extracurricular life, Joe is a musician and an aspiring artist. He enjoys seeing live music, traveling, hiking, cooking, and not dying in the Florida heat.