PhD – History of Art, University of Arizona
MA – Art History and Theory, Arizona State University
BA – Philosophy, Arizona State University

Dr. Robert Edward Gordon is an Assistant Professor of Music in the area of General Studies at the Fred Fox School of Music in the College of Fine Arts and a Fellow at the UA Center for Buddhist Studies. As co-coordinator of the American Culture & Ideas Initiative, he facilitates cross-college interdisciplinary partnerships that includes teaching, course development, grant writing, and scholarly research. Trained as a philosopher and an art historian, his work encompasses a broad range of interests: Eastern art and philosophy, art and economics, humanistic geography, and freedom and its relationship to the fine arts. With an emphasis on the epistemologies of contemporary life, his writings investigate how the meanings and ideas embedded in the world (artworks, architecture, nature) are experienced in terms of the subjective attitudes, perceptions, and values of the individual. 

Dr. Gordon has taught art history and philosophy at various colleges and universities over the last ten years. He has lectured at large corporations and museums on Baroque and Contemporary Art, and worked in Chicago as a corporate art consultant in addition to managing a number of retail art galleries. Elements of his research are incorporated in the Japanese American National Museum’s Traveling Exhibition.

Professor Gordon is presently working with local museums and religious organizations on an exhibition that highlights the importance of Tibetan stupas located throughout the American Southwest. His current book project, Reality is Here: The Appearance of Buddhist Architecture in America, investigates the scriptural foundation for Buddhist architecture and its development in an American setting.

Select Publications

“Special Places, Sacred Spaces: Two Traditional Buddhist Temples in Nihonmachi Los Angeles.” Space and Culture (October 2019).

"Binaries, Buddhism, and the Art of Reminders in the Work of Jacob Hashimoto." Athenaeum Review 3 (Fall 2019).

“A Multi-Layered Drama” The Wall Street Journal, July 14, 2018.

“Kim Ki-chang: The Korean Caravaggio? Empathy and Intuition in the Life of Jesus Series,” Catholic Arts Today (Benedict XVI Institute: March 2018)

“Gateway to the Top of the World: Nishi Hongwanji Los Angeles,” Japanese American National Museum Traveling Exhibit, Los Angeles, CA., 2015

“Borobudur and the Concept of Path in Buddhism,” Smarthistory – Khan Academy (online) http://smarthistory.khanacademy.org/borobudur.html, 2014.