Gregory “G.A.” Lipton, a doctoral candidate in religious studies in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, has received a prestigious award for Ph.D. candidates in the humanities and social sciences who are addressing questions of ethical and religious values.
Lipton was among 21 recipients of the Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships for 2012, administered by The Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Of the 550 applicants for the 2012 fellowships, 58 were named as finalists. The 21 fellows ultimately selected include scholars in religion, philosophy, anthropology, sociology, history, literature, political science, art history, Asian studies and Near Eastern studies. They come from 13 institutions nationwide.
Lipton’s dissertation, “Making Islam Fit: Ibn ‘Arabi and the Idea of Sufism in the Secular Age,” explores how the contemporary Western reception of the 13th century Muslim mystic Ibn ‘Arabi and the attendant post-Enlightenment understanding of Sufism have supported the construction of alternate, secular-liberal models for Muslim subjectivity. He also completed both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees at UNC.
Lipton’s research interests include Sufism and Islamic intellectual traditions, Islam in South Asia, theoretical approaches to mysticism, and religion-making, secularism and coloniality.
Each 2012 Newcombe Fellow will receive a 12-month award of $25,000.
Funded by the Charlotte W. Newcombe Foundation, the Newcombe Fellowship was created in 1981. Over the past three decades, the Newcombe Fellowship has supported just over 1,100 doctoral candidates, most of them now noted faculty members at colleges and universities throughout the U.S. and abroad.
