The legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith
Ellen Bradshaw Aitken (Editor), Arvind Sharma (Editor)
This is the first work to address the legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916-2000), whose intellectual and institutional contributions helped shape the field of religious studies in the latter half of the twentieth century. As a young scholar, Smith taught Indian and Islamic history in Lahore for several years and witnessed the partition of India. Upon his return to North America, he obtained his PhD at Princeton University before embarking upon a long and distinguished career. He founded the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University and served as director of the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Smith emphasized the place of the scholarly study of Islam in the Western academy long before Islam occupied its current position at the center of global politics, challenged the notion of monolithic world religions, and argued for the importance of dialogical processes and a personalist approach to the study of religion. Contributors to this volume, many of whom were Smith's students, provide a wide-ranging exploration of his influence and legacy. Book jacket
Print Book, English, 2017
State University of New York Press, Albany, 2017
Biographies
vi, 254 pages ; 24 cm
9781438464695, 143846469X
961801007
Online version:
Introduction / Ellen Bradshaw Aitken and Arvind Sharma
Religious Studies
The Academic and Moral Challenge : Personal Reflections on the Legacy of Wilfred Cantwell Smith / Diana L. Eck
Wilfred Cantwell Smith : Academic Architect / John B. Carman
The Meaningful "End" of God, Faith, and Scripture / Purushottama Bilimoria
Anticipating the Emergence of "Contemplative Studies" : Reflections on the Work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith / Thomas B. Coburn
Faith and Belief Revisited / Harvey Cox
Wilfred Cantwell Smith and "Orientalism" / William A. Graham
Enabling Antinomies : Tensions and Tensile Strength in Wilfred Cantwell Smith / John Stratton Hawley
Who Cares If the Qur'an Is the Word of God? W.C. Smith's Charge to the Aspiring Public Intellectual / Jonathan R. Herman
Towards a Hermeneutic of Humanity : Wilfred Cantwell Smith and the Study of Muslims / Amir Hussain
Wilfred Cantwell Smith in Lahore 1940
1951 / Sheila McDonough
Diagnosis Rather than Dialogue as the Best Way to Study Religion / Robert A. Segal
Wilfred Smith's Prophetic Sense of History and Proposal Regarding Verification / Peter Slater
Study of Religion as Study of Religious Persons / K.R. Sundararajan
The Moral Imagination of Wilfred Cantwell Smith / Donald K. Swearer