Aaron W. Hughes | |
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Born | |
Citizenship | Canadian, British, U.S. |
Occupation(s) | author, scholar |
Spouse | Liliana Leopardi |
Awards | SSHRC, NEH, Lady Davis Fellow, The Killam Trusts fellowship, Fulbright Distinguished Chair |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | The University of Alberta |
Academic work | |
Discipline | |
Sub-discipline | |
Institutions | |
Website | Official website |
Aaron W. Hughes is a Canadian academic, author, and professor of religious studies. He holds the Dean's Professor of the Humanities and the Philip S. Bernstein Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester. Previously, he was the Gordon and Gretchen Gross Professor at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York from 2009 to 2012, and, from 2001 to 2009, professor of religious studies at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
The first-born son of William Hughes (1927–2013) and Sadie Alley (1936– ), Aaron was born on August 15, 1968, at the University Hospital in Edmonton, AB. His father was a native of Glasgow, Scotland and his mother was born in Fort Simpson, NWT, daughter to Bud and Lottie Mabelle (May) Alley. He also has a young brother, Cameron (1972– ). A first-generation college student, Hughes received a B.A. (hons) in Religious studies at the University of Alberta in 1993. He worked primarily there with Earle H. Waugh, Ehud Ben Zvi, and Francis Landy. Following this, he went to the department of religious studies at Indiana University in Bloomington, where he received a M.A. in 1995 and a Ph.D. in 2000 for a dissertation entitled Philosophy's Mythos: Aesthetics, the Imagination, and the Philosophical Novel on Medieval Jewish and Islamic Thought. This was subsequently published as The Texture of the Divine: Imagination in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Thought (Indiana University Press, 2004), which was one of three finalists for a Koret Jewish Book Award in the Thought/Philosophy category.[1] In addition to his coursework at Indiana University, Hughes also spent a year, 1996-1997, at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and then later as a Lady Davis fellow in 2004-2005. He also spent several years at the University of Oxford, in 1999-2000 and then again in 2019–2020, at the faculty of Oriental studies. In November of 2023, Hughes married his long-term partner Liliana Leopardi, an art historian of the Italian Renaissance.
Hughes is a scholar of three distinct, yet interrelated, fields of research: Jewish studies, Islamic studies, and Theory and Method in the Academic Study of Religion. What connects these diverse areas, for Hughes, is the meta questions that govern scholarly production. Working on the assumption that scholarly categories are not natural, but products of often highly idiosyncratic, political, and ideological choice, Hughes seeks to critique such motivations. This is seen in his dismantling of the category "Abrahamic religions." It is also visible in his critiques of the subfields of Islamic and Jewish studies.
In terms of Islamic Studies, Hughes has primarily been interested in critiquing what he regards as the overly apologetical and ecumenical approach to the field. This can be witnessed, for example in his two books that take aim at the field (Situating Islam and Theorizing Islam).[2] However rather than just critique, Hughes has also attempted a corrective with his Muslim Identities, which is meant to be an attempt to provide an introduction to Islam in ways that eschews the approaches of scholars like Fred Denny and John Esposito. Writing in the Journal of Islamic Studies, Murad Wilfried Hofmann describes Hughes' Muslim Identities as "the very best introduction currently available in English for non-Muslims seeking a sound approach to Islam."[3] However, writing in the Review of Middle East Studies, while Peter Matthews Wright described the book as a worthy introduction, he criticized the author's uneven tone and reversion to language that undermines Hughe's stated aims.[4]
Hughes was the co-editor of Method and Theory in the Study of Religion (MTSR), the leading journal devoted to the subject.[5] In addition, he was the Editor of the Academy Series, published by Oxford University Press for the American Academy of Religion,[6] and co-editor for the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers.[7]
In 2022, he cofounded (and coedits) a new journal Journal of Religious Minorities Under Muslim Rule (JRMMR).
Hughes has always been a student of Canadian history and has maintained an avid interest in Canada, the land of his birth and the country he has always called home. In 2020, he published From Seminary to University: An Institutional History of the Study of Religion in Canada (University of Toronto Press). The book, critically acclaimed, offers the first history of the study of religion in Canada, tracing its history from a largely seminary setting to one of the academic study of religion. This was followed by 10 Days that Shaped Modern Canada, which he wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic while a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. In his own words:
I would also like to thank the National Endowment for the Humanities, (NEH) which funded a year of research at the University of Oxford. While they thought they were funding a project on the history of medieval Islam, the world, alas, had other ideas. When COVID-19 brought so much of what we thought was normalcy to a halt, and the libraries closed in Oxford as they did pretty much everywhere, I finally found the time to write this book, which I had wanted to do for a number of years. 10 Days That Shaped Modern Canada not only helped me get through those very difficult times, but it also rekindled my love for Canadian history.
Through the work on medieval Islam—An Anxious Inheritance—did indeed come out in 2022, 10 Days did as well. The latter work chose 10 significant days in Canadian history over the past 50 years (e.g., the Patriation of the Constitution, the Ecole Polytechnique massacre, The Tragically Hip’s Final concert, and the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission) and describes what happed on that date and, more importantly, what happened because of it. Hughes has subsequently written on the papal apology in Maskwacis, Alberta, and has written a biography of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in many ways inspired by his love of the document and the Occupation Convoy in Ottawa that occurred in January of 2022, while he was a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at Carleton University there. He is currently working on a history of Islam and Muslims in Canada, in addition to a history of the Ismaili Community in Canada.
Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair in Canada and North America, College of the Humanities, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, 2022-2023
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Fellowship, 2019-2020
Bluma Appel Visiting Scholar in Jewish Studies, Dept. of Religious Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, Spring 2016
Katz Center for Advanced Jewish Studies (declined), University of Pennsylvania, Fall 2015
Bernard and Audre Rapoport Fellow, American Jewish Archives Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, OH, 2014
Schreiber Visiting Professor of Jewish Studies, McMaster University, Winter 2008
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
Lady Davis Fellowship, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2004–2005
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