Ninian Smart - Career

Career

After teaching in the University of Wales from 1952 until 1955, Smartspent a year as a visiting lecturer at Yale University, where he also studied Sanskrit and Pali, the language of the Buddhist scriptures. In 1956, he was appointed Lecturer in the University of London, then in 1961 at the very young age of 34 – extraordinarily young for a full chair in the British system – he became the first H. G. Wood Professor of Theology at the Birmingham – one of the largest departments of theology, where he also served as head of department. By now author of several publications, including Reasons and Faiths (1958), based on his B.Phil work and World Religions: A Dialogue (1960), Smart was a rising star in the newly developing field of Religious Studies, rather than in Theology, despite the name of the chair he occupied. Already known internationally, he received several offers to take up positions in North America, including as Chair of the Columbia and Pennsylvania Departments, and an invitation to apply for a chair at Oxford. However, he was already involved in a consultative capacity in forming the first major department of Religious Studies at the new Lancaster, and found himself "cajoled from being adviser to being candidate" for the Chair.

Despite the attraction of prestigious posts elsewhere, he chose Lancaster because it represented a "tabula rasa, a new field" where he could practice his ideas. He took up appointment in 1967, as Foundation Professor of Religious Studies. His tenure at Birmingham had also done much to shift the department from an exclusive focus on Christianity to encompass world religions. His successor at Birmingham, John Hick, would emerge as the most well-known exponent of a pluralist theology of religions. Between 1969 and 1972, he was also Pro-Vice Chancellor at Lancaster. In 1977, Smart started to divide his time between Lancaster and another new venture, the Religious studies department at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1976–98) where he became the first J. F. Rowny Professor in the Comparative Study of Religions at Santa Barbara, from 1988 (he was a professor from 1976). As at Birmingham and Lancaster, he was again also department chair. He spent six months each year at both campuses. In 1996, he was named Research Professor at Santa Barbara, the highest academic honor. Toward the end of his career, he was elected President of the American Academy of Religion. Proud of his Scottish identity, he often wore his kilt on campus at Santa Barbara, where he was renowned for riding his bicycle very slowly, for "his bow ties and the ever-present flower in his lapel, and most of all the twinkle in his eye."