In Memoriam: Tony K. Stewart

Former NC State professor of religious studies, Tony K. Stewart, died on October 6, 2024, at the age of seventy.

Stewart retired from Vanderbilt University in 2021, where he was the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities. He joined Vanderbilt in 2011 and served for eight years as the chair of its Department of Religious Studies.

Prior to leaving for Vanderbilt, Stewart was for 25 years a professor of religious studies at NC State. He arrived at NC State in 1986 after completing his Ph.D. in South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. He was named a University Outstanding Teacher in 1989 and was inducted into NC State’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers.

Stewart played a prominent role in the field of South Asian religions. He co-founded (with David Gilmartin) the Triangle South Asia Consortium in 1987 and directed it for twelve years. He also directed the North Carolina Center for South Asia Studies from 1998 to 2004. In 2002, he founded the South Asia Summer Language Institute at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and, in 2005, founded the Bangla Language Institute at Independent University, Bangladesh.

Stewart’s scholarship focused on Bengali religious narratives and helped advance the field of literary translation. His field work in India and Bangladesh was supported by the American Institute of Indian Studies, the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies, the Fulbright and Fulbright-Hays Programs, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Over his long and productive career, Stewart authored six monographs and major translations, one edited volume, and more than 50 articles and short translations. His most recent monograph, Witness to Marvels: Sufism and Literary Imagination (University of California Press, 2019), was awarded the Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Prize by the Association of Asian Studies in 2021.