James Cutsinger

{{Redirect|Cutsinger|the American football player|Gary Cutsinger}} {{Short description|American author (1953–2020)}} {{More citations needed|date=December 2025}} {{Infobox academic |birth_date={{Birth date|1953|5|4}} |death_date={{Death date and age|2020|2|19|1953|5|4}} |workplaces=University of South Carolina |title=Professor of Theology and Religious Thought |discipline=Religious studies }} '''James Sherman Cutsinger''' (May 4, 1953 – February 19, 2020)<ref name="home"/> was an author, editor, and professor of religious studies (emeritus) at the University of South Carolina, whose works focused primarily on comparative religion, the modern Traditionalist School of perennial philosophy, Eastern Christian spirituality, and the mystical tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

==Early and personal life== Cutsinger earned his bachelor's degree in Political Theory, Russian Language and Literature at Cornell College in 1975 and his doctorate in Theology and Religious Thought at Harvard University in 1980.

Cutsinger died on February 19, 2020.

== Career ==

=== Traditionalism === Cutsinger served as secretary to the Foundation for Traditional Studies and was a widely recognized authority on the Sophia Perennis, the traditionalist school, and comparative religion – subjects on which he wrote extensively. His works also focused on the theology and spirituality of the Christian East. He is perhaps best known however, for his work on Swiss philosopher and traditionalist, Frithjof Schuon.<ref name="home">{{cite web|url=http://www.cutsinger.net/ |title=Home |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200226091254/https://www.cutsinger.net/ |archive-date=February 26, 2020 |url-status=live|website=cutsinger.net}}</ref>

=== Teaching === Cutsinger was a professor of Theology and Religious Thought at the University of South Carolina and an advocate of Socratic Teaching. The recipient of three University of South Carolina Mortar Board Excellence in Teaching awards, he was also named a Distinguished Honors Professor and was selected as one of his university's Michael J. Mungo Teachers of the Year (2011).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.cutsinger.net/bio/index.shtml |title=Biography |access-date=2008-05-13 |archive-date=2008-12-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081225165243/http://www.cutsinger.net/bio/index.shtml |url-status=dead |website=cutsinger.net}}</ref> He also served as director of three National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminars.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.worldwisdom.com/Public/Authors/Detail.asp?AuthorID=5&WhatType=1 |title=Author Page |access-date=2008-05-13 |archive-date=2007-10-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023101310/http://www.worldwisdom.com/Public/Authors/Detail.asp?AuthorID=5&WhatType=1 |url-status=dead |website=worldwisdom.com}}</ref>

==Bibliography==

===Books=== * {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9z5x0EGhJK0C |title=The Form of Transformed Vision: Coleridge and the Knowledge of God |date=1987 |publisher=Mercer University Press |isbn=978-0-86554-280-8 |language=en}};<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Rule |first=Philip C. |date=1991 |title=Review of Coleridge's Defense of the Human; Coleridge and the Power of Love; The Form of Transformed Vision: Coleridge and the Knowledge of God |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40059478 |journal=Religion & Literature |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages=97–103 |jstor=40059478 |issn=0888-3769}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vanderlip |first=Eldad C. |date=September 1988 |title=Review: The Form of Transformed Vision: Coleridge and the Knowledge of God |url=https://doi.org/10.1177/014833318803700414 |journal=Christianity & Literature |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=61–62 |doi=10.1177/014833318803700414 |issn=0148-3331|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ferreira |first=M.J. |title=J.S. Cutsinger, "The form of transformed vision: Coleridge and the knowledge of God" |journal=International Journal for Philosophy of Religion}}</ref> Foreword by Owen Barfield * {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AB3fnQEACAAJ |title=Advice to the Serious Seeker: Meditations on the Teaching of Frithjof Schuon |date=1997-04-25 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-3250-1 |language=en}} *''Reclaiming the Great Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox in Dialogue'', ed. (InterVarsity Press, 1997) * {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6wcEQdkvt3EC |title=Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East |date=2002 |publisher=World Wisdom |isbn=978-0-941532-43-3 |language=en}}<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Paths to the Heart: Sufism and the Christian East |last=Stang |first=Charles M. |journal=Anglican Theological Review|place=London |volume=85 |issue=2 |date=Spring 2003 |pages=384–386}}</ref> *''Not of This World: A Treasury of Christian Mysticism'' (World Wisdom, 2003) *''The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity'' (World Wisdom, 2004) *''Prayer Fashions Man: Frithjof Schuon on the Spiritual Life'' (World Wisdom, 2005)

===Translations of works by Frithjof Schuon=== * {{Cite book|title=Gnosis: Divine Wisdom|publisher=World Wisdom|year=2006}} * {{Cite book|title=Sufism: Veil and Quintessence|publisher=World Wisdom|year=2006}} *''Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts'' (World Wisdom, 2007) *''Christianity/Islam: Perspectives on Esoteric Ecumenism'' (World Wisdom, 2008) *''Logic and Transcendence'' (World Wisdom, 2009) * {{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ql8ozgjgwXQC |title=Splendor of the True: A Frithjof Schuon Reader |date=2013-05-01 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-1-4384-4611-0 |language=en}}

=== Chapters ===

* {{Cite book |last=Cutsinger |first=James S. |chapter=Inside without Outside: Coleridge, the Form of the One, and God |date=1986 |title=The Interpretation of Belief: Coleridge, Schleiermacher and Romanticism |pages=66–80 |editor-last=Jasper |editor-first=David |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18333-3_4 |place=London |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan UK |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-1-349-18333-3_4 |isbn=978-1-349-18333-3}} * {{Cite book |last=Cutsinger |first=James S. |chapter=Disagreeing to Agree: A Christian Response to "A Common Word" |date=2010 |title=Muslim and Christian Understanding: Theory and Application of "A Common Word" |pages=111–130 |editor-last=El-Ansary |editor-first=Waleed |chapter-url=https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230114401_10|place=New York |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |language=en |doi=10.1057/9780230114401_10 |isbn=978-0-230-11440-1 |editor2-last=Linnan |editor2-first=David K.}}

===Selected articles=== * {{Cite journal |last1=Cutsinger |first1=James S. |date=January 1983 |title=Coleridgean Polarity and Theological Vision |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/abs/coleridgean-polarity-and-theological-vision/3F917F806E7DD3DE63D82AADFD99893C |journal=Harvard Theological Review |language=en |volume=76 |issue=1 |pages=91–108 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000018484 |issn=1475-4517|url-access=subscription }} * {{Cite journal|title=Toward a Method of Knowing Spirit|journal=Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses|volume=14|issue=2 |year=1985}} *"Femininity, Hierarchy, and God", ''Religion of the Heart: Essays Presented to Frithjof Schuon'', ed. Nasr and Stoddart (Foundation for Traditional Studies, 1991) *"Listening More Closely to Schuon", ''ARIES: Association pour la Recherche de l'Information sur l'Esoterisme'', 14 (1992) * {{Cite journal |last=Cutsinger |first=James S. |date=1992 |title=A Knowledge That Wounds Our Nature: The Message of Frithjof Schuon |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1465286 |journal=Journal of the American Academy of Religion |volume=60 |issue=3 |pages=465–491 |doi=10.1093/jaarel/LX.3.465 |jstor=1465286 |issn=0002-7189}} *"The Mystery of the Two Natures", ''Sophia: Journal of Traditional Studies'', 4:2 (1998) - also published as "Le Mystère des Deux Natures", ''Connaissance des Religions'' (Numero Hors Serie, 1999) *"On Earth as It Is in Heaven: A Metaphysical Cosmogony", ''Sacred Web: A Journal of Tradition and Modernity'', 1:1 (1998) * {{Cite journal|title=The Virgin|journal=Sophia: Journal of Traditional Studies|volume=6|issue=2 |year=2000}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== *[http://www.seriousseekers.com/Audio%20and%20Video/Audio_pathstoheart/audio_cutsinger_hesychia.htm Real Audio clips of ''Hesychia: An Eastern Orthodox Opening to Esoteric Ecumenism'' (2001 Paths to the Heart Conference)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006180626/http://www.seriousseekers.com/Audio%20and%20Video/Audio_pathstoheart/audio_cutsinger_hesychia.htm |date=2008-10-06 }}

==External links== *[http://www.cutsinger.net/ Personal websute] *[http://www.worldwisdom.com/public/authors/James-Cutsinger.aspx James Cutsinger’s life and work]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cutsinger, James}} Category:1953 births Category:2020 deaths Category:Deaths from lung cancer Category:20th-century Eastern Orthodox theologians Category:21st-century Eastern Orthodox theologians Category:Harvard University alumni Category:American Christian theologians Category:Scholars of Eastern Orthodoxy Category:Traditionalist School Category:University of South Carolina faculty Category:Place of birth missing Category:Eastern Orthodox Christians from the United States Category:Western esotericism scholars