H-ASIA: Kenneth W. Jones 1934-1996
Frank Conlon
conlon at u.washington.edu
Sat Nov 9 22:27:49 UTC 1996
Colleagues:
I regret any inconvenience by cross-posting to Indology for those members
who also subscribe to H-ASIA. The following obituary was posted today.
Frank Conlon
Date: Sat, 9 Nov 1996 13:48:18 -0800
From: Frank Conlon <conlon at U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list H-ASIA <H-ASIA at h-net.msu.edu>
Subject: H-ASIA: Kenneth W. Jones 1934-1996
H-ASIA
November 9, 1996
Kenneth W. Jones December 21, 1934 - September 22, 1996
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As reported earlier on H-ASIA, Professor Kenneth W. Jones died in
Manhattan, Kansas on September 22, 1996 after an intense struggle
with cancer. A memorial service was held on Sunday, September 29
in Manhattan.
Ken Jones was one of the pillars of South Asian history in North
America. He pioneered critical and in-depth studies of religious
movements in colonial India, particularly in the region of the
Punjab. He achieved international recognition for his scholarly
studies of the Arya Samaj, and, prior to his final illness, had
been working on a study of the Hindu Sanatana Dharma movement.
After attending Stockton College for two years, Ken entered the
University of California at Berkeley, where he earned his
baccalaureate degree in 1958, his M.A. in 1959, and completed his
Ph.D, under the supervision of Thomas Metcalf in 1966. Ken Jones
joined the faculty of Kansas State University in 1965 and served
there with distinction throughout his career. Indeed, in 1989,
his long record of contributions as a scholar and teacher were
recognized when he was appointed as a University Distinguished
Professor. Among his other awards were grants from the American
Council of Learned Societies, the American Institute of Indian
Studies (for which in 1975-76 he was honored as the W. Norman
Brown Fellow) and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
At Kansas State, Ken introduced many students to South Asia,
through his survey courses on Indian history and Indian
civilization, his seminars on Indian nationalism and Gandhi, his
his course on the History of Hinduism. While he was an active
participant in the Kansas State South Asia Center, he also took a
leading role in teacher training, offering an advanced seminar on
Teaching of History in the Secondary Schools. His concern for
the quality of secondary education was furthered as director of
an NEH project "The Introduction of South Asian Studies into the
Elementary and Secondary Schools in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma
and Nebraska" in 1974-75.
Ken's scholarly contributions may be glimpsed in the short
bibliography of his works which follows. The impact of those
works may be underscored by the number of republished/reprinted
editions, particularly in the subcontinent itself. Perhaps
beginning with his studies under Wolfram Eberhard at Berkeley,
Ken consciously explored the historical evolution of religious
institutions and associations in colonial India. His study on
the Arya Samaj was widely cited and acclaimed, leading to his
invitation to write a volume in the New Cambridge History of
India in which he proposed to offer a survey of religious
movements throughout British India. That he had, by editorial
decision, to also accommodate social movements within the limits
of allocated pages, meant that the final work was broader is
coverage, but at the expense of further analysis of religious
organizations. It was his great pleasure to turn back to a study
of the self-styled orthodox "Sanatana dharma" movement of Punjabi
Hindus, a work still in progress at the time of his final
illness.
To scholars active in the Association for Asian Studies, the
American Academy of Religion, the American Institute of Indian
Studies and the South Asia Microform Project, Ken was a reliable
and positive contributor of ideas and of service, both formally
and informally. He was one of the founders, and participants
in, the the first of the regional studies organizations in North
America, the Research Committee on the Punjab.
Ken Jones will be remembered--and cited--for his many scholarly
contributions to the study of religious identity and politics of
India. For those who knew him, as colleagues and students, he
will also be fondly remembered for his penetrating mind and his
hall-mark manner which presented an appearance of a sort of quiet
exasperation at those who would obfuscate, combined with laconic
discourse, dry wit and, always, affirmative engagement with ideas.
We will long feel our loss for what Ken Jones contributed as a
scholar, and even more for what he represented as a human being.
Ken is survived by his wife Marguerite and his son Garth, and a
legion of admiring friends around the world. A memorial fund is
being established at the Department of History, Eisenhower Hall,
Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas 66506, to endow a
prize fund for modern Indian history.
Frank F. Conlon
University of Washington
Co-editor of H-ASIA
Publications by Kenneth W. Jones
Ed. note: I wish to thank Peter Knupfer of Kansas State University
for supplying much of the information that appears below. I apologize
for the absence of pagination details on a few of the entries.
Ken Jones had also written many book reviews, and I believe, had
submitted some essays for a forthcoming Encylopedia of Sikhism.
F.F.C.
1995 "The Arya Samaj in British India, 1875-1947" [revised ed.], in
Robert D. Baird, ed., _Religion in Modern India_. 3rd ed.
New Delhi: Manohar Publishers.
1995 "Politicized Hinduism: The Ideology and Program of the Hindu
Mahasabha," [revised ed.] in Robert D. Baird, ed., _Religion in
Modern India_. 3rd ed. New Delhi: Manohar Publishers.
1992 _Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in
South Asian Languages_ Kenneth W. Jones, Editor.
Albany: SUNY Press.
1991 "Hindu Leaders in British India: The Negative Component of
Communal Consciousness" _Indo-British Review_ 19 i:
57-72.
1989 _Socio-Religious Reform Movements in British India:
Vol. III, Book 1 of New Cambridge History of India_
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1988 "Socio-Religious Movements and Changing Gender Relationships
Among Hindus of British India," in James W. Bjorkman, ed.
_Fundamentalism, Revivalists and Violence in South Asia_
Riverdale, MD: The Riverdale Company.
1986 Five short articles in the _Encyclopedia of Asian History_, gen.
ed., A. T. Embree. New York: Charles Scribner and Sons for
the Asia Society.
1986 "Organized Hinduism in Delhi and New Delhi," in Robert E.
Frykenberg, ed., _Delhi Through the Ages: A festschrift in
honour of T. G. Percival Spear_. Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
1984 "Identity, Ideology and the Arya Samaj," in Peter Gaeffke
and David Utz, eds., _Identity and Division in Cults and
Sects in South Asia_ [Volume 1, _Proceedings of the South
Asia Seminar, 1980-81_]. Philadelphia: Department of South
Asian Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania.
1981 "Religious Identity and the Indian Census," pp. 73-101 in N. G.
Barrier, ed., _The Census of British India: New Perspectives_.
New Delhi: Manohar Publications.
1981 "The Arya Samaj in British India, 1875-1947" pp. 27-54 in Robert
D. Baird, ed., _Religion in Modern India_. New Delhi: Manohar
Publications.
1981 "Politicized Hinduism: The Ideology and Program of the Hindu
Mahasabha," pp. 447-480 in Robert D. Baird, ed., _Religion in
Modern India_. New Delhi: Manohar Publications.
1979 "Social Change and Religious Movements in 19th-Century Punjab,"
pp. 1-16 in M. S. A. Rao, ed., _Social Movements in India_,
Vol. 2. New Delhi: Manohar Publications.
1976 _Arya Dharm: Hindu Consciousness in 19th-Century Punjab_.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
1975 _Sources on Punjab History_. W. Eric Gustafson and Kenneth
W. Jones , eds. New Delhi: Manohar Book Service.
1975 "Resources for Punjab Studies: A Preliminary Investigation,"
pp. 81-95 in Maureen L. P. Patterson and Martin Yanuck, eds.,
_South Asian Library Resources in North America_ Zug,
Switzerland: Inter-Documentation.
1973 "Ham Hindu Nahin: Arya-Sikh Relations, 1877-1905," _Journal of
Asian Studies 33 (May) 457-475.
Reprinted in _The Spokesman Weekly_ "Guru Nanak Number" (1973)
pp. 27-33.
Reprinted in _Punjab Past and Present_ 11 (Ocotber, 1977)
pp. 330-355.
Translated into Punjabi and reprinted in Khan Singh Nabha,
_Ham Hindu Nahin_ 2nd ed. (Amritsar: Kendri Sri Guru Singh
Sabha, 1978)
1969 "Sources of Arya Samaj History: An Exploratory Essay," _Indian
Archives_ 18 i (January-June): 1-17.
Reprinted in Gustafson and Jones, _Sources on Punjab History_
[see above, 1975] 130-164.
1968 "Commnalism in the Punjab: The Arya Samaj Contribution,"
_Journal of Asian Studies_ 27 i (November) 39-54.
Reprinted in Thomas R. Metcalf, ed., _India: An Interpretive
Anthology_ (New York: Macmillan, 1971) 206-220.
1966 "The Bengali Elite in Post-Annexation Punjab: An Example of
Inter-Regional Influence in 19th-Century Punjab," _Indian
Economic and Social History Review_ 3 (December) 376-395.
Reprinted in David Kopf, ed., _Bengal Regional Identity_ (East
Lansing, Michigan State University, 1969) 133-150.
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