1938–2007 · British-born American Buddhist studies scholar · Duke University
Roger Corless was born in Merseyside, England in 1938 and spent his career in the United States as Professor of Religion at Duke University, where he specialised in Pure Land Buddhism and Buddhist–Christian dialogue. He co-founded the journal Buddhist-Christian Studies and wrote more than sixty scholarly articles, but his best-known book for general readers is The Vision of Buddhism: The Space Under the Tree (Paragon House, 1989), a survey written in a deliberately plain, wry register. He died in San Francisco in 2007 — almost certainly without knowing that his sandwich simile had begun a second life under a comedian’s name.