Feminist Methodologies

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 72-87
Author(s):  
Catherine Caufield
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Spiritual Experience ◽  
Faith Communities ◽  
Interdisciplinary Work ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Theological Thought

Abstract Given changing contexts and social discourses, it is theoretically enriching to enlarge the research emphasis of the secular academic discipline of Religious Studies to consider ways in which women who self-identify as religious contribute to their various traditions in ways that deepen spiritual experience for the communities as a whole and make contributions to their larger social contexts. Religious Studies scholars value scientific approaches but also, to be respectful of the communities studied, must recognize that they do a disservice to those communities if they reduce findings to the confines of these approaches. Interdisciplinary work that draws on methodological concepts developed in feminist theological thought, together with naturalist approaches, serves to increase knowledge about and by women in faith communities. By continuing to develop theology in rigorous and thoughtful ways, modern women are carrying forward an important interpretive tradition that strengthens analyses of religion in the secular humanities and social sciences.

Smile or Die

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
René Boomkens
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Studies ◽  
New Media ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Cultural Difference ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Positive Thinking ◽  
Aesthetic Quality ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Cultural Turn

Aufstieg und Entwicklung der interdisziplinären akademischen Disziplin der Cultural Studies sind Teil eines breiteren cultural turn in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften, der für eine Verabschiedung monokausaler und reduktionistischer Methodologien steht zugunsten komplexer, holistischer und dialektischer Analysen sozialer und kultureller Prozesse. In der sogenannten Kritischen Theorie hat dies zu einem Aufmerksamkeitswechsel geführt von ökonomischen und politischen Ursachen sozialer Ungleichheit und sozialer Kämpfe zur Beharrlichkeit und irreduziblen Komplexität kultureller Differenzen oder von Andersheit, belegt durch wichtige Studien über die Rolle des Nationalismus, der Ästhetisierung des Alltagslebens und des wachsenden Einflusses der neuen Medien auf Kommunikation und Imagination. Dieser cultural turn in den Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften ist verbunden mit einem wachsenden Einfluss kultureller und zugleich post-politischer Formen von Macht im Alltagsleben, veranschaulicht durch die Dominanz der leistungsorientierten Kultur ›positiven Denkens‹ in verschiedenen gesellschaftlichen Bereichen, mit anderen Worten: einer neoliberalen Kultur und Ideologie. In den Kulturwissenschaften wird das historische Bewusstsein vom wachsenden Einfluss kultureller Macht kombiniert mit anthropologischer Forschung über die Besonderheiten gegenwärtiger Alltagskultur und einer starken Sensibilität für die Spannungen, Ungleichheiten und Widersprüche in dieser Kultur infolge der anwachsenden Globalisierung ihrer Bedingungen. Diese inter- oder transdisziplinäre Perspektive auf die Macht der Kultur kann schließlich nicht erfolgreich sein, ohne erneut seriös nachzudenken über die ästhetische Qualität oder Dimension der Alltagskultur und zugleich über den Bereich und die Substanz des Ästhetischen selber. <br><br>The rise and development of the interdisciplinary academic discipline of cultural studies is part of a broader cultural turn in the humanities and social sciences that represents a fare- well to mono-causal and reductionist methodologies in favor of a more complex, holistic and dialectical analysis of social and cultural processes. In so-called ‘critical theory’ this has led to a shift from economic and political sources of social inequality and struggles towards the persistence and irreducible complexity of cultural difference or otherness, evidenced by important studies of the role of nationalism, the aestheticization of everyday life or the growing influence of new media of communication and imagination. This cultural turn in humanities and social sciences is related to a growing influence of cultural and at the same time post-political forms of power in everyday life, exemplified by the dominance of a meritocratic culture of ‘positive thinking’ in different areas of society, or in other words: of a neoliberal culture and ideology. In cultural studies historical awareness of this growing influence of cultural power is combined with anthropological research into the specificities of contemporary everyday culture and with a strong sensibility for the tensions, inequalities and contradictions in that culture, due to an ever growing globalization of its conditions. This inter- or transdisciplinary perspective on the power of culture finally cannot do without a serious rethinking of the aesthetic quality or dimension of everyday culture – and at the same time a rethinking of the scope and substance of aesthetics itself.

A Sociotheological Approach to Understanding Religious Violence

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Juergensmeyer ◽  
Mona Kanwal Sheikh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Action ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
World Politics ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
Social Significance ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Narrative Structures ◽  
The Social

This chapter tries to illustrate that there has been a “sociotheological turn” in contemporary scholarship which encourages social scientists to take stock of the religious justifications for social action, and theologians and scholars of religious studies to be more aware of the social significance of spiritual ideas and practices. Sociotheology takes religious thinking and social context seriously. The approximation of the fields of psychology and theology and sociology as poles in the same discursive dynamics contributes to eroding a stonewall dichotomy between theology and the social sciences. Guidelines for sociotheological studies include demarcating an epistemic worldview, bracketing assumptions about the truth of a worldview, entering into an epistemic worldview, conducting informative conversations, identifying narrative structures, and locating social contexts. The revival of religion in world politics and the rising value of transnational religious movements have offered an analytic dispute that sociotheology has risen to meet.

There Is No Brain: Rethinking Neuroscience through a Nomadic Ontology

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 56-87 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R Gruber
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Human Body ◽  
Cultural Theory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Mind Reading ◽  
Interdisciplinary Work ◽  
Brain Decoding ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences

Building from recent attempts in the humanities and social sciences to conceive of creative, entangled ways of doing interdisciplinary work, I turn to Braidotti’s ‘nomadic ontology’ to (re)vision the human body without a brain. Her exploration of the body as a ‘threshold of transformations’ is put into conversation with Deleuze’s comments on neurobiology to consider what a brainless body might do, or undo, in neuroscientific practice. I ground discussion in a case study, detailing the practices of brain decoding or ‘mind reading,’ re-interpreting Rose’s account. Therein, I argue that the technical-social configurations of brain decoding are unlikely to usher in a radically new ontology, as Rose suggests. To better match Rose’s vision and align with new ontologies in cultural theory, I argue that neuroscience must become nomadic and embrace a body without a brain. I then conclude with six recommendations towards a nomadic neuroscience.

(En)gendering religious studies

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 427-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randi R. Warne
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Approaches To Teaching ◽  
Politics Of Knowledge ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Analytical Category ◽  
Academic Study

The analytical category of gender has gained an increasing profile in the humanities and social sciences over the last 20 years. This article considers the extent to which gender-critical approaches to teaching and scholarship have had an impact on the academic study of religion. In so doing it also considers the politics of knowledge-making in the academy.

Comeniology as a process and result of scientific cognition. Social context of education in the thought of John Amos Comenius

2019 ◽  
Vol VI ◽  
pp. 129-143
Author(s):  
Barbara Dobrowolska
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Scientific Discovery ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Scientific Cognition ◽  
Discovery Research ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences ◽  
Pedagogical Research

The research paper is an attempt to justify the importance of comeniology in the humanities and social sciences. Furthermore, it includes some interpretation of the social con-texts of education appearing in the writings by Comenius. The justification of the meaning and nature of comeniology is based on the science term senses by T. Pilch and T. Bauman. Their academic coursebook, Zasady badań pedagogicznych (Principles of Pedagogical Research), is a classic methodological title in pedagogical literature. They give didactic, institutional, content, historic-sociological and functional substance to the idea of science. Each of these substances has been analyzed with respect to comeniology. The scientific category of comeniology covers the whole system of contents involving various stages of human developments and his existence. Social and political conditions become the objects of analyses and interpretation, which conse-quently generate more and more new ideas, statements, interpretations and reinterpretations referring to the works and thoughts of Comenius. Considering the methodology of research of the said works, comeniology is dominated by phenomenology and hermeneutics and their phil-osophical approach. Scientific discovery, research and methodological solutions along with the emerging system of knowledge about Comenius allow one to award comeniology the character of humanistic reflection. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of the subject matters investigated, this reflection concerns the humanities and social sciences. Giving comeniology the status of scientific quality is considering its development in the categories of the process and result of scientific cognition. Reflections on comeniology’s scientific quality and discourse correspond to social issues. Due to the author’s personal interest in social pedagogy, an attempt has been made to indicate social contexts of education. They constitute a largely unexplored area of the works of Comenius and require further analyses. They encompass, inter alia, the issues of school as a social institution, equal access to education, poverty, social inequality and exclusion.

The Sacred is the Profane, Spirituality is not Religion

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-103
Author(s):  
Boaz Huss
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Review Essay ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Significant Power ◽  
Critical Theories ◽  
Major Shift ◽  
Humanities And Social Sciences

The review essay of The Sacred is The Profane takes up the challenge of the authors to offer a historical analysis and contextualization of the discourse that is critical of the concept of religion. The essay observes that criticisms of “religion” emerged and gained significant power in the context of the growing influence of critical theories in the humanities and social sciences in the last decades. Yet, apart from the obvious impact of critical theories on religious studies, the essay suggests that the radical criticism of religion is related to a major shift in the use of the term religion as a folk category in contemporary culture. It claims that criticism of religion as an analytic category and suggestions to dispense with it altogether were made possible by the diminishing social and political power of the modernist dichotomy between the religious and the secular in the postmodern era.

Approach to the Social Sciences in Religion Past and Present

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Robert Segal
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Social

The social sciences do threaten theology/religious studies even when they do not challenge either the reality of God or the reality of belief in the reality of God. The entries in RPP ignore this threat in the name of some wished-for harmony. The entries neither recognize nor refute the challenge of social science to theology/religious studies. They do, then, stand antithetically both to those whom I call "religionists" and to many theologians, for whom there is nothing but a challenge.

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