Cornelis Willem (Kees) Bolle (December 2, 1927 - October 14, 2012) was a Dutch historian who was Professor of the

History of Religions The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago (3200 BC). The prehistory of religion involves th ...

at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

Biography

Kees W. Bolle was born in

Dordrecht Dordrecht (), historically known in English as Dordt (still colloquially used in Dutch, ) or Dort, is a city and municipality in the Western Netherlands, located in the province of South Holland. It is the province's fifth-largest city after R ...

, Netherlands on 2 December 1927. He studied

theology Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

Leiden University Leiden University (abbreviated as ''LEI''; nl, Universiteit Leiden) is a Public university, public research university in Leiden, Netherlands. The university was founded as a Protestant university in 1575 by William the Silent, William, Prince o ...

, and the

history of religion The history of religion refers to the written record of human religious feelings, thoughts, and ideas. This period of religious history begins with the invention of writing about 5,200 years ago (3200 BC). The prehistory of religion involves th ...

and

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

at the universities of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

. He received his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

in the history of religion at the University of Chicago in 1961. Bolle wrote his thesis in India and was supervised by

Mircea Eliade Mircea Eliade (; – April 22, 1986) was a Romanians, Romanian History of religion, historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who establ ...

. After gaining his PhD, Bolle lectured at

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

. In the 1960s, Bolle was appointed Professor of the History of Religion at the

(UCLA). Here he set up a nationally recognized undergraduate major in the interdisciplinary study of religion Bolle retired as Professor Emeritus in 1991, and subsequently moved to

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

, where he died on October 14, 2012.

Selected works

* ''The Freedom of Man in Myth'', 1968 * ''The Persistence of Religions'', 1971 * ''The Enticement of Religion'', 2002 * ''Religion Among People'', 2017

Sources

* * 1927 births 2012 deaths Brown University faculty Dutch emigrants to the United States Dutch historians of religion Leiden University alumni People from Dordrecht University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Madras alumni {{Netherlands-historian-stub