Carl W. Ernst

Carl W. Ernst is an American specialist in Islamic studies, with a focus on West and South Asia.

Carl W. Ernst
Occupation	Professor and Author

Biography

His published research, based on the study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, has been mainly devoted to the study of three areas:

1.      General and critical issues of Islamic studies

2.      Premodern and contemporary Sufism

3.      Indo-Muslim culture

He has done extended research tours in India (1978-79, 1981), Pakistan (1986, 2000, 2005), and Turkey (1991), and has been a regular visitor to the Gulf, Turkey, Iran, and Southeast Asia for lectures and conferences

Educations

• Ph.D., Harvard University, the Study of Religion, 1981
• B.A., Stanford University, Humanities Honors/Religious Studies, 1973

Activities

• Professor at Pomona College (1981-1992)
• Visiting lecturer in Paris (EHESS, 1991, 2003, plus each May, 2018-20)
• Department chair (1995-2000) of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Member of the Board of Directors of the Middle East Studies Association
• Co-Director in UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies
• President of the American Society for the Study of Religion
• Co-Editor in Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks Series, University of North Carolina Press
• Co-editors of the Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks Series at the University of North Carolina Press

Honors

• Global Humanities Translation Prize, Buffett Institute – Northwestern University, 2017, for Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr.
• Mellon Distinguished Fellow, Arts the Core Program, Carolina Performing Arts, 2016-17.
• Fellow, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, University of North Carolina, spring 2014.
• Choice Outstanding Academic Title, for Islamophobia in America, 2013.
• John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2010)
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Fellow (2009)
• Book awards for Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World  (Cairo, 2004; Istanbul, 2005; Shiraz, 2007); for Ruzbihan Baqli: Mystical Experience and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism (Tehran, 2008)
• Fulbright Fellow (India, 1978-79; Pakistan, 1986; Spain, 2001; Malaysia, 2005)
• Fellow, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, University of North Carolina, 2001.
• National Endowment for the Humanities (Director, Summer Seminars for College Teachers, 1995, 1999; Research Fellowships, 1989-90, 1993)

Publications

Books

• Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr. Translated by Carl W. Ernst (Chicago: Northwestern University Press, 2018)
• Islamophobia in America
• Ruzbihan Baqli: Mystical Experience and the Rhetoric of Sainthood in Persian Sufism
• Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2003
• It’s not just academic: Essays on Islamic studies and Sufism. New Delhi: Yoda Press/Sage, 2017
• Refractions of Islam in India: Situating Sufism and Yoga. New Delhi: Yoda Press/Sage, 2016
• How to Read the Qur’an: A New Guide with Select Translations. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2011
• Sufism: An Introduction to Islamic Mysticism. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2010

Articles

• “Persianate Islamic Studies in American Universities.” In Iranian Studies in America: Looking Back, Looking Ahead, ed. Franklin Lewis and Erica Ehrenberg (American Institute of Iranian Studies/Eisenbruns, 2019)
• “The Dabistān and Orientalist Views of Sufism.” In Sufism East and West: Mystical Islam and Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Modern World, edited by Jamal Malik and Saeed Zarrabi-Zadeh, Studies on Sufism, 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), pp. 33–52
• “Proto-Orientalist Concepts of Sufism.” In Islamic Studies and the Study of Sufism in Academia: Rethinking Methodologies, Kyoto Kenan Rifai Sufi Studies, 3 (Kyoto: Kenan Rifai Center for Sufi Studies, Kyoto University, 2019), pp. 23–38
• “Wakened by the Dove’s Trill: Structure and Meaning in the Arabic Preface of Rumi’s Mathnawi, Book IV.” In The Philosophy of Ecstasy: Rumi and the Sufi Tradition, ed. Leonard Lewisohn (London: World Wisdom, 2014)
• “‘A Little Indicates Much’: Structure and Meaning in the Prefaces of Rumi’s Mathnawi (Books I-III).” Mawlana Rumi Review V (2014), pp. 14-25
• “Disentangling the Persian Translations of Sanskrit Works on Yoga.” In L’espace Du Sens: Approches de La Philologie Indienne, edited by Silvia d’Intino and Sheldon Pollock, Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne, 84 (Paris: Collège de France. 2018), pp. 411–30
• “A Persian Philosophical Defense of Vedanta.” In Voices of Three Generations: Essays in Honor of Seyyed Hossein Nasr, ed. Mohammad H. Faghfoory and Katherine O’Brien (Chicago: Kazi Publications, 2019)
• “Tabaqat-i adyan-i Hind dar `ahd-i inglisiyan-i Hind (Anglo-Persian Taxonomies of Indian Religions) [in Persian].” Iran Namag 1/3 (Fall 2016), pp. 82-103
• “Muslim Interpreters of Yoga.” In Yoga: The Art of Transformation, ed. Debra Diamond (Smithsonian Books, 2013), pp. 59-68
• “Indian Lovers in Arabic and Persian Guise: Azad Bilgrami’s Depiction of nayikas.” The Journal of Hindu Studies (2013), pp. 1-15
• “Islamic Studies in U.S. Universities,” co-author with Charles Kurzman. Review of Middle East Studies 46/1 (Summer 2012), pp. 24-46
• “The Limits of Universalism in Islamic Thought: The Case of Indian Religions.” Muslim World 101 (January 2011), pp. 1-19
• “‘The West and Islam?’ Rethinking Orientalism and Occidentalism.” Ishraq: Islamic Philosophy Yearbook (Moscow/Tehran), vol. 1 (2010), pp. 23-34
• “Sufism, Islam, and Globalization in the Contemporary World: Methodological Reflections on a Changing Field of Study.” In Memoriam: The 4th Victor Danner Memorial Lecture. Bloomington, IN: Department of Near Eastern Languages, 2009
• “Situating Sufism and Yoga.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Series 3, 15:1 (2005), pp. 15-43

Graduate and postdoctoral advising

• Karen G. Ruffle, “Verses Dripping Blood: A Study of the Religious Elements of Muhtasham Kashani's Karbala-nameh.” M.A., Religious Studies, UNC, 2001.

Sources

• Personal website
• Carl Ernst's Website