Talk:David Gordon White

Notability

I am struggling to see the notability here. He is a mere professor, not holding a named chair, who has written some books about which little seems to be said other than a minor academic spat that seems fundamentally (sic) to be driven by the fringe Hindutva theories. - Sitush (talk) 11:26, 30 August 2016 (UTC)

Hello Sitush,

I have nothing to do with this article version, but I authored the article on his name on German W.P. (alone) (way before the English one appeared!), so I can help you.

I shall give you three reasons for notability:

(1) According to W.P. rules, an article is justified if the person has authored three or more books with an established publishing house (i.e. not his own one / self-published, and not print on demand).

(2) My article version is much better and more detailed than this one (have a look, if you can read German, or at least to compare the volume of them). It makes clear that he is not "just a scholar" with "some contributions", but has a scholarly mission (vide his mission statement on his department website / if it is still there, I am quoting from memory, from the time I prepared my article): to show that the whole portrait of "Indian religion" in the "west" (Europe and then North America, for centuries) is very much biased, because of a variety of reasons, of which he emphasizes the fact that it is based on selected theological texts and not observation on the ground. His point is, that the complex of "yoga" and "tantra" with their experts and practices, actually build the bulk of religion in India/South Asia, from the point of view of experience and lived reality, from antiquity to modern times!

I met him in person twice, when he was invited to a University of long tradition in continental Europe to lecture there (and on the second occasion I authored my article, as a welcome gift, like garlands in India..).

Before that, I encountered him through his writings in a very large specialist library. Both his books, and even before reviews by other scholars in academic journals. -> That leads to my third point:

(3) Reception by colleagues: The first review I read was outright hymnic in praise (on The Alchemical body, in the - meanwhile defunct - Journal of the European Ayurvedic Society / a periodical not for practitioners, but Indologists)! And others followed (do have a look, History of religion and the likes will certainly have book reviews to support this).

One professor of Indology (meanwhile retired, author and editor of many publications herself, including a journal on religious studies) described it as wunderbar sorgfältig (literally: wonderfully carefully [crafted]) in a private interview to me (I never formally studied these subjects, but study on my own, through libraries and attending lectures as a guest). And she is not given to hyperbole (the American habit to praise everything and everyone in the shrillest of voices, if it suites on's purposes, is not one common among mature scholars in Germany)! She is right. He worked on it for 12 years.

I also noticed that this book was included in the assignments/required readings for a seminar on Modern classics (in Indology), so at least those two lecturers felt it justified to lift it to that level.

If you look at his publications list, you shall notice that he was requested by his editing colleagues to contribute articles in his field of expertise to major encyclopaediae. That fact is a mirror of his reputation as "the one to be asked" on this, is it not?! And the Encyclopedia of religion is THE reference work of the subject!

By the way: D. G. White is a scholar of comparative religious studies (not just Indologist, as this article tells you). He wrote his PHD thesis on central Asia (the dog man book). He also was student of and assistant of Mircea Eliade, who at his time was the best known scholar of comparaive religious studies in the world. Who accidentally edited the first edition of said Encyclopaedia...

To sum it up: I wholeheartedly agree with you that this article is a shame (and even my version could be much expanded and improved if I had the time - my research is in another field, I just wrote some articles on interesting scholars and authors as an "aside" in my pasttime - or others would do it...).

But he does deserve an article! I admired his work. Hence the mutual honour of investing my time and energy in his cause.

Could I convince you?

Scholarly regards, -- 147.142.186.54 (talk) 18:04, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Two additions:

(a) When I prepared my article, I researched that White's books were already given as reference in a couple of W.P. articles before, so I provided links to my new article on the person himself. That is telling that he is being read, is it not? I am sure the same must be true here in English.

(b) Regarding the criticism section of the article: The first dispute is between Anglo-Indologists. I learned of it only today, so I shall follow it some time. The publication given as reference is generally taken as a serious one, is it not?

The second one smells like Hindutva, you are certainly right there. But while Hindutva is of no importance for scholarly discourse (other than a nuisance that one is sometimes molested by), it is very much a force to be recognized in the field of social and political reality in today's India! White mentioned to me in personal talk that he was being fed up with having to deal with those people and that he was included in the target group of one volume of hateful outpurings of theirs. So in general, if presented in a sober, detailed and readable way such information may be justified in the context of such an article. -- 147.142.186.54 (talk) 18:19, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

Honestly, this looks like a very subjective opinion, and might not be shared by many. Basically, you have detailed how you find him notable. Crawford88 (talk) 06:04, 22 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello Crawford,

Unfortunately I get the impression that you did not (carefully) read my text. Your accusation that it was a mere opinion, and in addition even very subjective, is obviously plain nonsense (and these sort of things do not contribute to increase authors' enthusiasm for contributing to "W.P.").

As you could have noticed above, "Sitush" questioned that he deserves an article to his name. To which I replied first with pointing out that "W.P." has established formal criteria for that question to be settled sort of objectively (saving time of debate), among these the rule: three or more books with independent publishers means that it is allowed to include an article about this author-person. That settles it (I do not assume that this rule has changed since I learned of it, or that it differs with language branches of "W.P.", which would not make sense). I could have stopped there. If you oppose that rule (for which there might perhaps be good reasons), it is your turn to discuss that issue with "W.P." decision makers, but not in the context of specific articles. This is so clear that I do not see a reason why I have to spend my valuable time to outline such things.

In case you have in mind that notability does not equal "deserves an article by formal W.P. rules" or sort of "superseeds" that point, you may wish to discuss that, but it has no place here, as W.P. discussion pages are only designed for improving the article and not for anyone's desire to talk about the subject of the article.

The second point which you chose to overlook is that I pointed out that White is already quoted multiply on W.P. in articles that deal with subjects which he wrote about. So he is viewed by several others (whom I do not have any contact with) as an author that matters in his field. - Hence it is very annoying to read your hasty post about my alledgedly mere subjective opinion.

In the same line: I took quite some time to detail how he was viewed by fellow scholars in the field as noteworthy and an authority. Vide editors, lecturers, reviewers. It was the repeated encounters with such proves of high estimation by experts which made me interested in the person in the first place.-

Again, in the plainest sort of English (so that you may not be able to overlook it again): --> If he is chosen to write articles for the Number One Encyclopaedia of the field of studies (in turn measured by volume, and then reviews in reputed journals), this is a proof that he is indeed seen as outstanding in knowledge in those fields. Fullstop.

In case that your criterion for being notable as a scholar is: Not just being good, but innovative: I also hinted at that. His very aim is to sort of turn current or traditional western general views of Indian Religion on their head! In additon to his writings (and the guest lectures by him which I attended) he makes that clear in the mission statement on his Homepage (from memory, when I wrote my article and gave a German rendering of that). In other words: within his particular field of studies he is almost sort of revolutionary (my terminology, not his, as far as I remember)! - If the author of this poor English article did not make that clear it is not I who is to blame for that (and I am fed up here and certainly not going to spend my time contributing/improving it).

If perhaps you are of the opinion that scholarly research and results in this field are not interesting and hence do not matter, then that is purely subjective and has no place to be discussed here in the context of an Encyclopaedia.

I shall stop here as I do not see it worth spending more time./ Regards to all well-intended --147.142.186.54 (talk) 18:45, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Notability: Every wiki has its own guidelines for notability. On the English Wikipedia, "three or more books with independent publishers means that it is allowed to include an article about this author-person" is not one of the current guidelines for notability. I don't think it ever has been, though I may be wrong. The English Wikipedia Notability Guidelines for academics are here: Wikipedia:Notability (academics). Based on those guidelines, it's questionable whether White meets English WP standards for notability. It would take someone nominating this article for deletion to really open up that debate. If that happens, it would be based on the English WP notability guidelines. First Light (talk) 05:43, 17 October 2016 (UTC)