Dr. Hal W. French, a native of Kansas, has taught on the Religious Studies faculty of the University of South Carolina since 1972. He retired as Department Chair in 1995, but continues to teach at USC and in different settings. He taught a Maymester course for 30 Honors students in Greece and Turkey in 2006, another in Greece in 2008 and one in England in 2009.

His Ph.D. was from McMaster University in Canada, with Masters degrees from Boston University and United Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.

He has authored or edited eight books, mostly on Asian religion. His newest book, Zen and the Art of Anything, illustrated by Marianne Rankin, was first published in 1999, and again in 2001 by Broadway Books, a division of Random House. It was selected by the journal Spirituality and Health as one of the fifty "Best Spiritual Books of 2001." A third edition was published in 2009 by Praxis International.

French has lectured widely internationally, and in 1995 he taught the religion courses on the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program, visiting eleven countries in the course of the term. He has recently taught seminars at the Esalen Institute, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Ammerdown Centre in England, where he taught most recently in 2007.

French has received the AMOCO teaching award from the University of South Carolina, along with six other teaching awards from Mortar Board and the Honors College, several Outstanding Faculty Associate awards from Preston College, where his office is located, and the Faculty Outstanding Volunteer Service Award. He has received NEH, Smithsonian Institution, Fulbright (in China), Danforth and S.C. Humanities research grants. He has been involved in volunteer service projects the last several years, in Nicaragua, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, in a tsunami relief project in India, Katrina relief in Biloxi, Mississippi, and in other projects in Georgia and Virginia.

He has held offices and presented in conferences in several professional and interfaith associations, including the American Academy of Religion, the Association for Asian Studies, the North American Interfaith Network, the World Congress of Faiths, the International Association for Religious Freedom, the International Interfaith Centre and the World Parliament of Religions. He presented in Parliament gatherings in Chicago and Melbourne in 1993 and 2009 and in 2007 in a UN Conference on Iraq and one on terrorism in England. In 2010 he became Chair of the U.S. Chapter of the International Association for Religious Freedom, the world’s oldest interfaith organization, founded in 1900.

He is also on the Editorial Board of the multi-volume Encyclopedia of Hinduism project, attending the official launch of the first three volumes of the Encyclopedia in India in April of 2010. The other eight volumes are scheduled for publication by the end of 2010, with a subsequent celebration to be held in the Spring at the University of South Carolina, where the central offices were held for some ten years.

He has taught the following courses at the University of South Carolina: