Kenneth Kraft is Professor of Religion Studies at Lehigh University, specializing in Japanese Zen and the new field of engaged Buddhist studies. In 1984–85, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies. At Lehigh, he has served as Chair of the Religion Studies department and as director of the College Seminar Program. Kraft has also taught at the University of Pennsylvania, Swarthmore College, and the Stanford University Japan Center in Kyoto. His book Eloquent Zen: Daito and Early Japanese Zen (1992) was selected as an “Outstanding Academic Book” by Choice magazine whilst his anthology of present-day Zen masters and scholars, Zen: Tradition and Transition (1988), is widely used in college courses. He has lived in Japan for five years and traveled extensively throughout Asia.

Prof. Kraft has written a new foreword to John C.H. Wu's classic work, The Golden Age of Zen: Zen Masters of the T'ang Dynasty .