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LEE IRWINChair & Professor Dept. of Religious Studies office: 4B Glebe, Room 201 |
SyllabiRELS 115 (Lakota Religion & Society) Reading Assignments Study Guides |
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LEE IRWIN (Ph.D. Indisciplinary: Religion, Folklore, Anthropology at Indiana University)
I have had a life-long interest in religion, spirituality, and comparative phenomenology of religious experience. In pursuit of that interest, I have studied the world religions intensively with a strong emphasis on religious experience, such as visions and dreams, and comparative mythology. My area of specialization is comparative religions of Native North American (including Maya and Aztec) and shamanism of Asia and Siberia. I also have a very strong interest in eastern religions (MA thesis on Taoism) and Islamic Sufism. As a comparativist, I am interested in studying religious phenomenology in its typological and morphological structures throughout all world religions. I am also interested in the historical study and teaching of world religions. My most recent research and teaching has been in the area of Western Esotericism and contemporary Gnostic and Hermetic spirituality. I also teach Theory and Method in the history of religious studies as well as other topical courses in phenomenology.
Selected Publications
Books:
The Dream Seekers: Native American Visionary Traditions of the Great Plains. University of Oklahoma, The Civilization of the American Indian Series, Volume 213, 1994. On the traditional "vision quest" as practiced among 23 tribes of the Greater Plains.
Visionary Worlds: The Making and Unmaking of Reality. State University of New York, Series on Western Esoteric Traditions. Winter, 1996. A largely deconstructive work on issues of contem-porary religious identity and the creative aspects of religious pluralism.
Awakening to Spirit: On Life, Illumination, and Being. State University of New York, Explorations in Contemporary Spirituality Series, Editor, Lee Irwin. Summer, 1999. A reconstructive post-modern work on the concept of "Spirit" in the form of philosophical meditations on 90 aphorisms.
Native American Spirituality: A Critical Reader. University of Nebraska Press, 2000. A revised version with new articles of the American Indian Quarterly for which I was guest editor (1996 v20 n3-4 p1-309; Winter 1997 v21 n1 p1-72).
Gnostic Tarot: Mandalas for Spiritual Transformation. U.S. Games System, 2005. This book is a discussion of the history of Tarot in Western Esotericism and a "gnostic" interpretation of each card aligned with reflections on elemental theory and a complex set of mandala layouts for doing self-reflexive readings.
Selected Articles:
"Cherokee Healing: Myth, Dreams and Medicine." American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 16 (Spring, 1992): 237-257.
"Walking the Sky: Visionary Traditions of the Great Plains." The Great Plains Quarterly, Vol 14.4, (Fall, 1994): 257-271.
"The Divine Sophia: Isis, Achamoth and Ialdabaoth." Alexandria: Journal of Western Cosmological Traditions, Vol. 3 (1995): 51-81.
"Different Voices Together: Preservation and Acculturation in Early 19th Century Cherokee Religion." Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. 18 (1997): 3-26.
"Words of the God: Ancient Oracle Traditions of the Mediterranean World." Alexandria: Journal of Western Cosmological Traditions, Vol. 4 (1997): 343-377.
"Native Voices in the Teaching of Native Religions." Critical Review of Books in Religion, Vol.11: 1998. Also in European Review of Native American Studies (Winter 1998).
"Sending a Voice, Seeking a Place: Visionary Traditions Among Native Women of the Plains." In Dreams: A Reader on the Religious, Cultural, and Psychological Dimensions of Dreaming, edited by Kelly Bulkeley. Palgrave Press, 2001: 93-110.
"Western Esotericism, Eastern Spirituality, and the Global Future," Esoterica Vol. 3 (2001): 1-47.
"Native American Spirituality: History, Theory, and Reformulation." In A Companion to Native American History edited by Phil Deloria and Neal Salibury. Blackwell Publishers, 2002: 103-120.
"Daoist Alchemy in the West: The Esoteric Paradigms." Esoterica Vol. VI (2004): 31-51.
"World and Soul: An Alchemy of Conjoined Loves." Elixir: The Journal of Consciousness, Conscience, and Culture Vol. 1. Issue 2 (2006) 17-22, 117.