Eleanor Nesbitt


Eleanor Nesbitt is a British emeritus 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 William Ralph Nesbitt. She attended Talbot Heath School in Bournemouth before studying classics and theology at Girton College, Cambridge.

Career

Nesbitt completed teacher training at Oxford before travelling to India. There, she taught in Nainital from 1974 to 1977. After returning to England in 1977 she spent two years teaching in a comprehensive school in Coventry, and subsequently 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 ISBN 9780044481218
  • Interfaith Pilgrims Quaker Books 2003 ISBN 0852453477
  • Making Nothing Happen: Five Poets Explore Faith and Spirituality 2014 Routledge ISBN 9781409455158.
Coventry's Literary Trail. Positive Images Festival ISBN 9780956277916
Sikhism: The Basics 2025 Routledge
Co-authored with Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh isbn 9781032416779

Articles

Nesbitt, Eleanor, '"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 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 The Sikh World, London: Routledge, 160-170, 2023.