Collection
Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker
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Recently, scholars writing on colonial Indian thinkers such as Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902) have begun to move away from the “Neo-Hindu” approach, which tends to view their thought reductively as a Hindu nationalist response to Western hegemony, in favor of a more charitable and fruitful cosmopolitan hermeneutic approach, which views colonial Indian philosophers as cosmopolitan intellectuals working on a global stage who actively and creatively drew upon Western and Indian thought-currents to develop original philosophical positions and arguments. The six articles in this Special Issue explore numerous dimensions of Vivekananda’s cosmopolitan thought that have not yet received the sustained attention they deserve, including his theology of religions, his views on rebirth and eschatology, his ethical philosophy, his canny strategies for making Vedānta appealing to Western audiences, his philosophical reconciliation of self-denial with social activism, and his views on knowledge as the final goal of humanity. As a whole, this Special Issue makes the case that Vivekananda’s philosophical ideas and arguments, far from being of merely historical interest, have profound relevance to contemporary discussions and debates in philosophy and theology.
Editors
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Swami Medhananda
Swami Medhananda is Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He also serves as Hindu Chaplain at both UCLA and the University of Southern California. He is the author of three books: Swami Vivekananda’s Vedāntic Cosmopolitanism (Oxford UP, 2022), Infinite Paths to Infinite Reality: Sri Ramakrishna and Cross-Cultural Philosophy of Religion (Oxford UP, 2018), and The Dialectics of Aesthetic Agency (Bloomsbury, 2013). He is the editor of The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Vedānta (2020) and co-editor of Panentheism in Indian and Western Thought (Routledge, forthcoming). medhananda@rkmm.org
Articles (7 in this collection)
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Swami Vivekananda and Knowledge as the One Final Goal of Humankind
Authors
- Christopher G. Framarin
- Content type: Article: Special Issue on Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker
- Published: 05 January 2023
- Pages: 149 - 171
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Religions as Yogas: How Reflection on Swami Vivekananda’s Theology of Religions Can Clarify the Threefold Model of Exclusivism, Inclusivism, and Pluralism
Authors
- Jeffery D. Long
- Content type: Article: Special Issue on Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker
- Published: 26 December 2022
- Pages: 7 - 32
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Introduction
Authors
- Swami Medhananda
- Content type: Special Issue on Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker
- Published: 24 December 2022
- Pages: 1 - 5
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Living in the World by Dying to the Self: Swami Vivekananda’s Modernist Reconfigurations of a Premodern Vedāntic Dialectic
Authors
- Ankur Barua
- Content type: Article: Special Issue on Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker
- Open Access
- Published: 24 December 2022
- Pages: 125 - 148
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Hindu-Christian Dialogue on the Afterlife: Swami Vivekananda, Modern Advaita Vedānta, and Roman Catholic Eschatology
Authors
- Michael Stoeber
- Content type: Article: Special Issue on Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker
- Published: 22 December 2022
- Pages: 33 - 65
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From Good to God: Swami Vivekananda’s Vedāntic Virtue Ethics
Authors
- Swami Medhananda
- Content type: Article: Special Issue on Swami Vivekananda as a Cosmopolitan Thinker
- Published: 21 December 2022
- Pages: 67 - 96