Eleanor Nesbitt (born 1951) is a British emerita professor in Education Studies at the University of Warwick, and a founding member of the UK's Punjab Research Group and the Journal of Sikh and Punjab Studies as well as coediting Brill's Encyclopedia of Sikhism.
Early life and education Eleanor Nesbitt was born in 1951 to Martha Eleanor Nesbitt and the Reverend William Ralph Nesbitt. She attended Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth before reading classics and theology at Girton College, Cambridge. Career Nesbitt completed teacher training at Oxford. From 1974 to 1977, she taught in Nainital and travelled widely in India. In 1977, she returned to England, taught for two years in a comprehensive in Coventry, then carried out research in Nottingham. She became professor in education studies at the University of Warwick.
Nesbitt published studies on Sikh children in Coventry in 1991, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2004, and 2009. Her 1993 book, titled Hindu children in Britain and co-authored with Robert Jackson, is considered by several scholars in religious studies, including Dermot Killingley, as important in that field. In 1998 she published an article on British, Asian, and Hindu identity. In 2001, she published her research on what Hindus in the UK believed.
Her 2024 book, titled Sikh: Two Centuries of Western Women's Art & Writing, documents Sikh history through western women's encounters with Sikhs and their culture.
Awards and honours In 2003, Nesbitt delivered the Swarthmore Lecture, and in 2009 gave the George Richardson lecture.
Selected publications Books Listening to Hindus Harper Collins 1990 (coauthored with Robert Jackson) (Co-authored with Robert Jackson) (Coauthored with Gopinder Kaur) Interfaith Pilgrims Quaker Books 2003
(2nd edition 2016) (Co-authored with Kailash Puri) Making Nothing Happen: Five Poets Explore Faith and Spirituality 2014 Routledge . (coauthored with Gavin D'Costa, Mark Pryce, Ruth Shelton and Nicola Slee) Coventry's Literary Trail. Positive Images Festival
Sikhism: The Basics 2025 Routledge Co-authored with Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh Towards Hope, 2026, Universe Press,
Articles
Nesbitt, Eleanor, (2015) '"The Fools Argue about Flesh and Meat" Sikhism and Vegetarianism', Religions of South Asia, 9, 1, 81-101.
Chapters in edited volumes '"Deg tegh fateh!" Metal as Material and Metaphor in Sikh Tradition' in Fabrizio Ferrari and Thomas Dahnhardt (eds) Soulless Matter, Seats of Energy - Metals, Gems and Minerals in South Asian Traditions, London: Equinox, 174-200, 2016. 'Sikhism in Mainland Europe' in Pashaura Singh and Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair (eds) The Sikh World, London: Routledge, 160-170, 2023.
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