Sunday, January 07, 2018

Smith obituary

AAR RELIGIOUS STUDIES NEWS: In Memoriam: Jonathan Z. Smith (1938–2017) (Russell T. McCutcheon).
On the recent afternoon and early evening of New Year’s Eve many of us were shocked to learn the sad news that Jonathan Z. Smith, arguably the world’s most influential scholar of religion over the past fifty years, had died the previous day from complications due to lung cancer. He was 79 and had been undergoing treatments since his diagnosis last summer.

As should be evident, there is a tremendous challenge to writing about Jonathan’s life and career. ...
What follows is a densely informative account of both. Worth a read.

Background here.

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