The American Academy of Religion (AAR) is the world's largest association of scholars in the field of religious studies and related topics. It is a nonprofit member association, serving as a professional and learned society for scholars involved in the academic study of religion. It has some 10,000 members worldwide, with the largest concentration being in the United States and Canada. AAR members are university and college professors, independent scholars, secondary teachers, clergy, seminarians, students, and interested lay-people.
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Roderick Ninian Smart (6 May 1927 – 29 January 2001) was a Scottish writer and university educator. He was a pioneer in the field of secular religious studies. He is best known for his seven-dimensional definition of religion.
In 1967 he established the first department of religious studies in the United Kingdom at the new University of Lancaster where he was also Pro-Vice-Chancellor, having already chaired one of the largest and most prestigious departments of theology in Britain at the University of Birmingham. In 1976, he became the first J.F. Rowny Professor in the Comparative Study of Religions at University of California, Santa Barbara. Smart presented the Gifford Lectures in 1979–80. In 1996, he was named the Academic Senate's research professor, the highest professorial rank at UC Santa Barbara. In 2000, he was elected president of the American Academy of Religion, while simultaneously retaining his status as president of the Inter Religious Federation for World Peace. Smart held both titles at the time of his death.
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