Alan Entwistle

Who was Alan Entwistle?

Alan Entwistle was a scholar of the Hindi language. He was a professor at the University of Washington.

Entwistle was born on March 10, 1949 in Weymouth, England. He completed his undergraduate education with an honors Bachelor of Arts in French language at the University of Southampton in 1971. He then moved on to the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, completing a Master of Arts in South Asia Area Studies in 1975. In 1982 he completed his PhD in Hindi, writing a dissertation The Rasa mana ke pada of Kevalarama, a medieval Hindi text of the Eighth Gaddi of the Vallabha Sampradaya. He was supervised by Professor J. C. Wright, Dr. R. D. Gupta and Dr. R. S. McGregor.

From 1980 to 1985, Entwistle held the post of Universitair Docent at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands where he taught Hindi and courses on Indian civilization, iconography, religion and literature. He joined the faculty of the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington in Seattle in 1986. He was promoted to associate professor with tenure in September, 1990. Entwistle gained a reputation as an effective and dedicated teacher of Hindi language and literature, as well as lecturing on courses about Indian devotional literature, Hinduism, iconography, and a postgraduate seminar on Religion in Comparative Perspective. Aside from his work within his department, Entwistle also worked within Washington's South Asia and Comparative Religion programs in the Jackson School of International Studies.