Joseph A. Fitzgerald

Joseph Fitzgerald has authored or edited several books on diverse world religions and philosophy that have won more than ten awards, including the prestigious Benjamin Franklin Award. The subjects include Buddhism, Hinduism, the American Indians, Christianity, the ecological crisis and the Perennial Philosophy. Fitzgerald holds an Honor’s Degree in Religious Studies from Indiana University, with Phi Beta Kappa and Magna Cum Laude distinctions, and a Doctor of Jurisprudence from Indiana University with Magna Cum Laude distinction.

Fitzgerald’s love of the American Indians was nurtured from his earliest memories, as he attended sacred rites of the Plains Indians for the first time before he could walk. At four years of age he was adopted into the Crow tribe and the family of Thomas Yellowtail, one of the most honored American Indian spiritual leaders of the past century. Yellowtail was to provide Fitzgerald and his parents with introductions to many spiritual leaders of other American Indian tribes; thus Fitzgerald has spent extended periods of time over more than thirty years visiting traditional cultures and attending sacred ceremonies throughout the American West, including the sacred rites of the Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Bannock, and Apache Tribes. These experiences led to the publication of his fully illustrated and revised edition of George Bird Grinnell’s classic work The Cheyenne Indians.

All royalties for Fitzgerald’s books on American Indians are donated to various American Indian charities, including the support of Crow, Shoshone and Lakota Sun Dances and to provide books and films to tribal colleges and high schools located on Indian reservations throughout the US and Canada.

Fitzgerald was home schooled until he entered Indiana University at age fourteen. This allowed him the opportunity for more than twenty years to travel extensively throughout the Oriental world, including visits to India, Bhutan, Mongolia, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, and Japan, and the Islamic World, including visits to Morocco, Niger, Iran, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Syria and Xinxiang, China. These experiences led to the publication of The Essential Sri Anandamayi Ma and three books on Buddhism.

The Fitzgerald family provides ongoing financial contributions that include underwriting Crow language textbooks for the Crow Language Consortium and the establishment of a permanent endowment for the Language Conservancy with the Bloomington Community Foundation.