Aaron W. Hughes

Aaron W. Hughes is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. [ [http://www.ucalgary.ca/rels/hughes Aaron Hughes | University of Calgary ] ]

B.A., University of Alberta; M.A, Ph.D. University of Indiana.

Hughes is a scholar of the medieval Jewish and Islamic Neo-Platonists, Avicenna, Abraham Ibn Ezra, and Ibn Tufayl, praised for his ability to discuss both the Hebrew and Islamic philosophers of the Jewish-Islamic symbiosis of medieval al-Andalus. [ The Texture of the Divine, Jonathn P. Decter, Jewish Quarterly Review 97.3 (2007) e82-e84 ] His work on Abraham Ibn Ezra is especially noted. [ Abraham Ibn Ezra, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ibn-ezra/ ]

Recent years have seen him engage in work on Jews in the Italian Renaissance, especially the philosophy of Judah Abravanel, aka Leone Ebreo (1465-after 1521).

Books

* Situating Islam; The Past and Future of an Academic Discipline (Equinox Publishing, 2008)

* The Art of Dialogue in Jewish Philosophy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007

* The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought (Indiana UP 2004)

* Jewish Philosophy A-Z (Edinburgh UP, 2005).

Honors and Awards

Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Standard Research Grant, 2008-2011

Fellow, Calgary Institute of the Humanities University of Calgary, 2008-2009

Schreiber Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies McMaster University, Winter 2008

Killam Residential Fellowship University of Calgary, Fall 2007

American Academy in Rome Visiting Scholar in Residence, July-August 2006

American Academy in Rome Visiting Scholar in Residence, July-August 2005

Lady Davis Fellowship Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2004-2005

Koret Jewish Book Awards Finalist for 2004 Award in Thought/Philosophy category (for Texture of the Divine)

Students’ Union Teaching Excellence Award University of Calgary, 2004

Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Standard Research Grant, 2004-2007.

Ruth and Mark Luckens Prize in Jewish Thought University of Kentucky, 2004

Chapters in Edited Books

* “Miraj and the Language of Legitimation in the Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophical Traditions.” In Exploring Other Worlds: New Studies on Muhammad’s Ascension. Edited by Christiane Grubar and Fredrick S. Colby. Bloomington: Indiana University Press(forthcoming, 2008).

* “Jewish Philosophies: Update.” In Ninian Smart’s World Philosophies, 2nd ed. Edited by Oliver Leaman. New York: Routledge (forthcoming, 2008).

* “Outside Looking In, Inside Looking Out: An Epilogue (of sorts). In Religious Studies in Canada: Past, Present, and Future (= Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses 35/3-4), 561-575. Edited by Michel Gardaz. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006.

* “Epigone, Innovator, or Apologist?: The Case of Judah Abravanel.” In Epigonism and The Dynamics of Jewish Culture. Edited by Shlomo Berger and Irene Zweip. Louvain: Peeters, 2007 (in press).

* “’The Torah Speaks in the Language of Humans’: On Some Uses of Plato’s Theory of Myth in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy.” In Plato Redivivus: Studies in the History of Platonism, 237-252. Edited by John Finamore and Rob Berchman. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2005.

* “The Golden Age of Muslim Spain: Religious Identity and the Invention of a Tradition in Modern Jewish Studies.” In Historicizing “Tradition” in the Study of Religion, 51-74. Edited by Steven Engler and Greg Greive. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2005.

* “Abrabanel, Judah.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Edited byEdward N. Zalta (Winter 2005 Edition)

Articles

* “The Art of Philosophy: The Use of Dialogue in Halevi’s Kuzari andAbravanel’s Dialoghi.” Medieval Encounters 13.3(2007): 470-498.

* “Haven’t We Been Here Before?: Rehabilitating ‘Religion’ in Light ofDubuisson’s Critique.” Part of “Review Symposium: Critical Perspectives onDubuisson’s The Western Construction of Religion.” Religion 36.6(2006): 127-131.

* “Transforming the Maimonidean Imagination: Aesthetics in the RenaissanceThought of Judah Abravanel.” Harvard Theological Review 97.4 (2004):461-484.

* “A Case of 12TH-Century Plagiarism? Abraham ibn Ezra’s Hay ben Meqitz andAvicenna’s Hayy ibn Yaqzân.” Journal of Jewish Studies 55.2(2004): 306-331.

* “Mapping Constructions of Islamic Space in North America: A Framework forFurther Inquiry.” Studies in Religion 33.3-4 (2004): 339-357

* “The Stranger at the Sea: Mythopoesis in the Qur’ân and Early Tafsîr.”Studies in Religion 32.3 (2003): 261-279.

* “Making the Past Present: the Genre of Commentary in ComparativePerspective.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 15.2 (2003):148-168.

* “The Three Worlds of ibn Ezra’s Hay ben Meqitz.” Journal of Jewish Thoughtand Philosophy 11.1 (2002): 1-24.

* “Imagining the Divine: Ghazali’s Defense of Dreams and Dreaming.” Journalof the American Academy of Religion 70.1 (2002): 33-53.

* “Reading Islamic Philosophy: Recent Contributions in the Field ofSuhrawardî Studies.” Religious Studies Review 68.1 (2002): 19-24.

* “Two Approaches to the Love of God in Medieval Jewish Thought: The Conceptof devequt in the Works of Ibn Ezra and Halevi.” Sciences Religeuses/Studiesin Religion 28.2 (1999): 139-152.

Encyclopedia Articles

* “Jewish Philosophy” (5,000 words) and “Metaphysics, Jewish” (3,000 words).Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy, ed. Henrik Lagerlund (Heidelberg:Springer, forthcoming 2008)

* “Andalus, al-”; “Asabiyya”; “Heresiography”; “Science, Islam and.”Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. (New York: Macmillan, 2004).

References