James S. Cutsinger ’75

Religious studies scholar and author James S. Cutsinger ’75 died Feb. 19, 2020, in Aiken, South Carolina.He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell College in political theory and Russian language and literature, and a doctorate in theology and comparative religious thought from Harvard University. He was a professor of religious studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia from 1980–2018, where he earned three teaching awards including the university’s highest honor, the Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year award.

Cutsinger was widely published, primarily on comparative religion, the modern Traditionalist School of perennial philosophy, Eastern Christian spirituality, and the mystical tradition of the Orthodox Church. He was a secretary to the Foundation for Traditional Studies and was an authority on the Sophia Perennis, the traditionalist school, and comparative religion. He is best known for his work on Swiss philosopher and traditionalist Frithjof Schuon.

He was a spiritual man himself, one who found incomparable beauty and inspiration in the liturgy, iconography, and music of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was a man of strict routine, he was a man of humor, and he was a man who liked to eat.

His parents, Madonna and Everett Cutsinger, established Cornell’s highly regarded academic Madonna Cutsinger Award. His survivors include his wife, Carol Prestegaard Cutsinger ’77, two daughters, a son, five grandchildren, and sister Margery Cutsinger Pabst ’66.