Aaron W. Hughes

Aaron W. Hughes is a Canadian academic in the field of religious studies and history. He holds the Dean's Professor of the Humanities and is the Philip S. Bernstein Professor in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester. 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.

Biography

The son of William Hughes and Sadie Alley, Aaron Hughes was born on August 15, 1968 in Edmonton, AB. His father was a native of Glasgow, Scotland and his mother was born in Fort Simpson, NWT to parents from Srifa, Lebanon.

Hughes received a B.A. in Religious studies at the University of Alberta in 1993. He then 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) and was one of three finalists for a Koret Jewish Book Award in the Thought/Philosophy category.

Career

Hughes is a scholar of three interrelated fields of research: Jewish studies, Islamic studies, and theory and method in the study of religion.

Islamic studies

Hughes has primarily been interested in critiquing what he regards as the overly apologetical and ecumenical approach to Islamic Studies. Two of his books take aim at the field: ''Situating Islam'' and ''Theorizing Islam''. Hughes has also attempted a corrective with his ''Muslim Identities'', which is 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." However, writing in the '' Review of Middle East Studies'', Peter Matthews Wright criticized the author's uneven tone and reversion to language that undermines Hughes' stated aims.

In 2022, his work on medieval Islam—''An Anxious Inheritance'' was published.

In 2023, he was the inaugural co-editor for the ''Journal of Religious Minorities Under Muslim Rule'' (JRMMR).

Theory and method in religious studies

Hughes was co-editor of ''Method and Theory in the Study of Religion'' (MTSR). He was the editor of the Academy Series, published by Oxford University Press for the American Academy of Religion, and co-editor for the Library of Contemporary Jewish Philosophers.

Canadian studies

In 2020, Hughes published From ''Seminary to University: An Institutional History of the Study of Religion in Canada'' with University of Toronto Press. The book offers the first history of the study of religion in Canada.

This was followed in 2022 by ''10 Days that Shaped Modern Canada,'' which he wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic while a visiting fellow at the University of Oxford. The latter work chose 10 significant days in Canadian history over the past 50 years and the events and their impact.

Hughes has subsequently written on the papal apology in Maskwacis, Alberta, and as of 2023 was writing a biography of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Books

Authored

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*''Muslim Identities: An Introduction to Islam''. 2nd ed. Sheffield: Equinox, 2022.
*''10 Days That Shaped Modern Canada''. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2022.
*''An Anxious Inheritance: Religious Others and the Shaping of Sunnī Orthodoxy''. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022.
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Edited

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*''What Is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion'' (with Russell T. McCutcheon). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021.
*''New Methods in the Study of Islam'' (with Abbas Aghdassi). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Aaron W.
1968 births
Canadian people of West Asian descent
Living people
Canadian historians of religion
Canadian people of Scottish descent
Religious studies scholars
Historians of Jews and Judaism
Academic staff of the University of Calgary
University at Buffalo faculty
Historians of Islam
University of Alberta alumni