Swami Vivekananda

With historical-critical analysis and dialogical even-handedness, the essays of this book re-assess the life and legacy of Swami Vivekananda, forged at a time of colonial suppression, from the vantage point of socially-engaged religion at a time of global dislocations and international inequities. Due to the complexity of Vivekananda as a historical figure on the cusp of late modernity with its vast transformations, few works offer a contemporary, multi-vocal, nuanced, academic examination of his liberative vision and legacy in the way that this volume does. It brings together North American, European, British, and Indian scholars associated with a broad array of humanistic disciplines towards critical-constructive, contextually-sensitive reflections on one of the most important thinkers and theologians of the modern era.

Because Swami Vivekananda was such a well known and respected teacher in India, he is present in nearly every English language textbook on world religions. However, although his name has become familiar to many in the west, relatively little about him and his tremendous legacy is actually known. The present volume, edited by Professor Rita D. Sherma, is an important vehicle to aid in fulfilling this lacuna. To do so, Prof. Sherma has assembled a collection of respected scholars from various disciplines and backgrounds, and each one brings to light significant aspects of Swami Vivekananda's life, work, and teachings from their own varied and unique perspectives. In their diverse understandings of him, the various authors provide valuable insights, and in the process challenge some of the misunderstandings and assumptions about Vivekananda and also about the broader Hindu tradition. Every reader will likely come away with a heightened awareness about and respect for Swami Vivekananda and the legacy of wisdom he left for us to learn from and follow.--Ramdas Lamb, University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Swami Vivekananda is an important and complex figure on the religious landscape, whose legacy is hotly contested more than a hundred years after his death. This superb volume, which includes essays by many of the top Vivekananda scholars, portrays both his complexity and his continuing importance in a context both similar to and different from that in which he worked. It insightfully engages many of the issues that challenge us today from religious commitment and social reform to post-colonialism and inter-religious understanding.--Joseph Prabhu, California State University, Los Angeles, Swami Vivekananda: His Life, Legacy, and Liberative Ethics is a superb collection of essays which revisit, and resituate for our own times, the legacy of Swami Vivekananda in the fields of Hindu self-understanding, religious dialogue, women and spirituality, and socially engaged liberation. The thematic landscape framed by the book encompasses highly creative engagements with the Swami's work and writings.--Ankur Barua, Cambridge University, The book is a comprehensive multi-disciplinary, multi-layered analysis of Swami Vivekananda's philosophical and religious ideas within South Asian historical and sociological background. His life, ideology and achievements have been viewed in terms of his continuity with past Vedanta traditions as well as his roots in contemporary colonial discourse of modernism. The book is a brilliant exposition of the contributions of Swami Vivekananda to philosophy, ethics and social justice--issues that are relevant to contemporary global society.--Nalini Rao, Soka University of America

Rita D. Sherma is founding director and associate professor at the Shingal Center for Dharma Studies and Core Doctoral Faculty at Graduate Theological Union.