|
Huston Smith
Huston Cummings Smith (May 31, 1919 – December 30, 2016) was an influential scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, '' The World's Religions'' (originally titled ''The Religions of Man'') sold over three million copies as of 2017. Born and raised in Suzhou, China in a Methodist missionary family, Smith moved back to the United States at the age of 17 and graduated from the University of Chicago in 1945 with a PhD in philosophy. He spent the majority of his academic career as a professor at Washington University in St. Louis (1947-1958), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1958–1973) and Syracuse University (1973–1983). In 1983, he retired from Syracuse and moved to Berkeley, California, where he was a visiting professor of religious studies at the University of California, Berkeley until his death. Early life On May 31, 1919, Huston Cummings S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suzhou
Suzhou (; ; Suzhounese: ''sou¹ tseu¹'' , Mandarin: ), alternately romanized as Soochow, is a major city in southern Jiangsu province, East China. Suzhou is the largest city in Jiangsu, and a major economic center and focal point of trade and commerce. Administratively, Suzhou is a prefecture-level city with a population of 6,715,559 in the city proper, and a total resident population of 12,748,262 as of the 2020 census in its administrative area. The city jurisdiction area's north waterfront is on a lower reach of the Yangtze whereas it has its more focal south-western waterfront on Lake Tai – crossed by several waterways, its district belongs to the Yangtze River Delta region. Suzhou is now part of the Greater Shanghai metro area, incorporating most of Changzhou, Wuxi and Suzhou urban districts plus Kunshan and Taicang, with a population of more than 38,000,000 residents as of 2020. Its urban population grew at an unprecedented rate of 6.5% between 2000 and 2014, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Comparative Religion
Comparative religion is the branch of the study of religions with the systematic comparison of the doctrines and practices, themes and impacts (including migration) of the world's religions. In general the comparative study of religion yields a deeper understanding of the fundamental philosophical concerns of religion such as ethics, metaphysics and the nature and forms of salvation. It also considers and compares the origins and similarities shared between the various religions of the world. Studying such material facilitates a broadened and more sophisticated understanding of human beliefs and practices regarding the sacred, numinous, spiritual and divine. In the field of comparative religion, a common geographical classification of the main world religions distinguishes groups such as Middle Eastern religions (including Iranian religions), Indian religions, East Asian religions, African religions, American religions, Oceanic religions, and classical Hellenist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Alpert
Ram Dass (born Richard Alpert; April 6, 1931 – December 22, 2019), also known as Baba Ram Dass, was an American spiritual teacher, guru of modern yoga, psychologist, and author. His best-selling 1971 book '' Be Here Now'', which has been described by multiple reviewers as "seminal", helped popularize Eastern spirituality and yoga in the West. He authored or co-authored twelve more books on spirituality over the next four decades, including ''Grist for the Mill'' (1977), ''How Can I Help?'' (1985), and ''Polishing the Mirror'' (2013). Ram Dass was personally and professionally associated with Timothy Leary at Harvard University in the early 1960s. Then known as Richard Alpert, he conducted research with Leary on the therapeutic effects of psychedelic drugs. In addition, Alpert assisted Harvard Divinity School graduate student Walter Pahnke in his 1962 " Good Friday Experiment" with theology students, the first controlled, double-blind study of drugs and the mystical experi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timothy Leary
Timothy Francis Leary (October 22, 1920 – May 31, 1996) was an American psychologist and author known for his strong advocacy of psychedelic drugs. Evaluations of Leary are polarized, ranging from bold oracle to publicity hound. He was "a hero of American consciousness", according to Allen Ginsberg, and Tom Robbins called him a "brave neuronaut". As a clinical psychologist at Harvard University, Leary founded the Harvard Psilocybin Project after a revealing experience with magic mushrooms in Mexico. He led the Project from 1960 to 1962, testing the therapeutic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) and psilocybin, which were legal in the U.S., in the Concord Prison Experiment and the Marsh Chapel Experiment. Other Harvard faculty questioned his research's scientific legitimacy and ethics because he took psychedelics along with his subjects and allegedly pressured students to join in. One of Leary's students, Robert Thurman, has denied that Leary pressured unwilling studen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Psychedelics
Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence'' Sometimes, they are called classic hallucinogens, serotonergic hallucinogens, or serotonergic psychedelics, and the term ''psychedelics'' is used more broadly to include all hallucinogens; this article uses the narrower definition of ''psychedelics''. Psychedelics cause specific psychological, visual, and auditory changes, and often a substantially altered state of consciousness.Leary, Timothy; Metzner, Ralph (1964). ''The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on The Tibetan Book of the Dead'' Psychedelic states are often compared to meditative, psychodynamic or transcendental types of alterations of mind. The "classical" psychedelics, the psyc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Washington University
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is ranked among the top universities in the United States. The university's 169-acre Danforth Campus is at the center of Washington University and is the academic home to the majority of the university’s undergraduate, graduate, and professional students. The Danforth Campus features predominantly Collegiate Gothic architecture in its academic buildings and is bordered by Forest Park and the cities of St. Louis, Clayton and University City. The university also has a West Campus in Clayton, North Campus in the West End neighborhood of St. Louis, and Medical Campus in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis. The Washington University Medical Campus spreads over 17 city blocks and 164 acres. The center is home to the Washington Univers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
University Of Chicago Divinity School
The University of Chicago Divinity School is a private graduate institution at the University of Chicago dedicated to the training of academics and clergy across religious boundaries. Formed under Baptist auspices, the school today lacks any sectarian affiliations. It is ranked number one in the field of the study of religion according to the National Research Council's measure of faculty quality in its survey of all doctoral granting programs in religious studies. The scholarly work of the School is organized through the work of three faculty committees, each of which is further subdivided into areas of study. PhD students concentrate their work in one of the eleven areas of study. Students in the various master's programs combine study in these areas with courses specific to their programs. All students are taught by the same faculty. History A distinguished Semiticist and a member of the Baptist clergy, Chicago's first university president William Rainey Harper believed t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Nelson Wieman
Henry Nelson Wieman (1884–1975) was an American philosopher and theologian. He became the most famous proponent of theocentric naturalism and the empirical method in American theology and catalyzed the emergence of religious naturalism in the latter part of the 20th century. His grandson Carl Wieman is a Nobel laureate, and his son-in-law Huston Smith was a prominent scholar in religious studies. Early life Wieman studied at Park College in Missouri, graduating in 1907. In 1910, he graduated from the San Francisco Theological Seminary and moved to Germany for two years to study at the universities in Jena and Heidelberg. There, he studied under the theologians Ernst Troeltsch and Adolf von Harnack and the philosopher Wilhelm Windelband, but they all had little impact on Wieman. Wieman moved back to the United States and spent four years as a Presbyterian pastor in California. Then, he moved to Harvard to do a doctorate in philosophy, which he received in 1917, under the tutel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of China. Because Mandarin originated in North China and most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as Northern Chinese (). Many varieties of Mandarin, such as those of the Southwest (including Sichuanese) and the Lower Yangtze, are not mutually intelligible with the standard language (or are only partially intelligible). Nevertheless, Mandarin as a group is often placed first in lists of languages by number of native speakers (with nearly one billion). Mandarin is by far the largest of the seven or ten Chinese dialect groups; it is spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretches from Yunnan in the southwest to Xinjiang in the northwest and Heilongjiang in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Changshu
Changshu (; Suzhounese: /d͡ʐan¹³ ʐoʔ²³/) is a county-level city under the jurisdiction of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, and is part of the Yangtze River Delta. It borders the prefecture-level city of Nantong to the northeast across the Yangtze River. Due to the mild climate and terrain there, it has enjoyed a high level of agricultural civilization since ancient times, and is named after this, for the first character of its name () means "always, often", while the second () means "ripe". The name of the adjacent county-level city of Taicang means "great granary". History Changshu first became an independent county in 540 AD, but in 581 was made subordinate to Suzhou. It was promoted to seat of a full prefecture in 1295, was rebuilt and fortified in the 14th century, but in 1370 was reduced again to the level of a county. In the 15th and 16th centuries Changshu was several times attacked by Japanese pirates. Changshu has traditionally been a market town for locally produced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Daily Californian
''The Daily Californian'' (''Daily Cal'') is an independent, student-run newspaper that serves the University of California, Berkeley, campus and its surrounding community. It formerly published a print edition four days a week on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday during the academic year, and twice a week during the summer. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in California, however, ''The Daily Californian'' has been publishing a print newspaper once a week on Thursdays. History ''The Daily Californian'' became independent from UC Berkeley in 1971 after the campus administration fired three senior editors over an editorial that encouraged readers to "take back" People's Park. Both sides came to an agreement, and ''The Daily Californian'' gained financial and editorial independence from the university and is now published by an independent corporation called the Independent Berkeley Students Publishing Company, Inc. The paper licenses its name from the Regents o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visiting Professor
In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor is valued. In many cases the position is not salaried because visitor is salaried by their home institution (or partially salaried, as in some cases of sabbatical leave from US universities). Some visiting positions are salaried. Typically, a visiting scholar may stay for a couple of months or even a year,UT"Visiting Scholar". The University of Texas at Austin. though the stay can be extended. Typically, a visiting scholar is invited by the host institution, and it is not unusual for them to provide accommodation. Such an invitation is often regarded as recognizing the scholar's prominence in the field. Attracting prominent visiting scholars often allows the permanent faculty and graduate students to cooperate with prominent academic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
