Dimock, Edward C.

Edward C. Dimock was born in Massachusetts in 1929 and graduated from Yale University in 1950. Continuing his education at Harvard University, he received a Masters of Sacred Theology and became an ordained minister in 1954. Dimock completed his Ph.D at Harvard's Divinity School in 1959. While in graduate school, Dimock, his wife Lorraine, and their first child (the first of five children), traveled and researched in India with grants from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Internship. Dimock began teaching at the University of Chicago in 1959 and remained there until his retirement in 1989.

While teaching at the University of Chicago, Dimock focused his attention on religion and poetry in India. Dimock's work on Bengali textbooks was the first introduction of the language into the American academy. His achievements were recognized in India when the Indian government awarded him the honorary title of "Desikottama," in 1992.

Although Dimock was a self-described "curmudgeon", he felt a connection to India that began on his first visit in 1956 and deepened on his twice-yearly trips. He last traveled to India in 1999. Dimock died in 2001.

From the guide to the Dimock, Edward C. Papers, 1954-1994, (Special Collections Research Center University of Chicago Library 1100 East 57th Street Chicago, Illinois 60637 U.S.A.)