‘Religion,’ ‘the Secular’ and the Critical Study of Religion

2011 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Engler
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Il Y A ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Current ◽  
Academic Study

This essay critically engages Timothy Fitzgerald’s Discourse on Civility and Barbarity (2007), arguing that it takes an important step beyond Fitzgerald’s first book, The Ideology of Religious Studies ( 2000 ), in diagnosing a current malaise of the academic study of religion and in modelling a way past this malaise. Highlighting this valuable aspect of the book, I argue, requires correcting certain problems with its argument. Specifically, there is a tension between two overarching goals: writing “a critical history of ‘religion’ as a category,” and criticizing “modern discourses on generic religion.” Once these genealogical and critical projects are brought into more effective alignment, the book models an approach where a properly critical study of religion begins with a contingently and strategically theorized domain of ‘religion’ and explores its relation to other domains—not only ‘the secular.’ Cet essai reconsidère d’un œil critique le livre Discourse on Civility and Barbarity (2007), de Timothy Fitzgerald. Il soutien qu’il donne un pas important au-delà du premier livre de Fitzgerald, The Ideology of Religious Studies ( 2000 ), dans les faits de diagnostiquer une malaise actuelle de l’étude des religions et de modeler une piste alternative. Pourtant, pour accentuer cet aspect important du livre, on doit corriger des problèmes logiques avec son argument. Spécialement, il y a une tension problématique entre les deux buts du livre : l’écriture « d’une histoire critique de ‘religion’ comme une catégorie »; et la critique « des discours modernes sur la religion générique ». Dès que ces projets généalogiques et critiques sont apportés dans une meilleure alignement, le livre modèle une approche de grande valeur : c’est le travail d’une étude proprement critique du concept ‘de religion’ de le suivre où il mène, et d’analyser ses relations avec des autres concepts.

Identity Turn: Managing Decolonialization and Identity Politics in the Study of Religion

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Jørn Borup
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Key Factors ◽  
Theoretical Orientations ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Western Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
Academic Study

Abstract The academic study of religion, with its concepts and theories that originate in a Western, Protestant context, has justly been criticized in postmodern and identity-focused discourses, in recent years under the umbrella of decolonization and social justice activism. It has been suggested that allegedly universally-applicable theories and methodologies are relativized and revealed as particularized Eurocentrism in the hegemonic representations of “white” or “Western” power regimes. While acknowledging such reorientations in the philosophy, sociology, psychology, and history of religion, this article also critically investigates and discusses the “critical study of religion.” It is suggested that the revisionist deconstruction emphasized by contemporary identity perspectives, with their discourses of difference and re-essentialized understandings of religion and culture, are not only problematic as theoretical orientations. Radical identity politics also imply methodological constraints on the academic study of religion, where comparison, analytical categories, and reflexive emic–etic distinctions must remain key factors.

The problem of periodization of the history of religion

1997 ◽  
pp. 3-8
Author(s):  
Borys Lobovyk
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Role Of Religion

An important problem of religious studies, the history of religion as a branch of knowledge is the periodization process of the development of religious phenomenon. It is precisely here, as in focus, that the question of the essence and meaning of the religious development of the human being of the world, the origin of beliefs and cult, the reasons for the changes in them, the place and role of religion in the social and spiritual process, etc., are converging.

scholarly journals Metamorphoses of the Divine Absolute in the Light of Religious Studies Vision (by the Work of Kyiv Theological Academy Professor Yakym Olesnytskyi “From Talmudic Mythology”)

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 48-59
Author(s):  
Serhii Holovashchenko
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
Phenomenology Of Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Biblical Scholar ◽  
Empirical Material

The article continues the series of investigations that demonstrate the experience of religious reading of the significant works of prominent Kyiv professors-academics of the last third of the 19th – early 20th century. These works have accumulated a powerful array of empirical material relevant to the history and theory of religious studies. Accordingly, the reconstruction of the field of theoretical positions important for the formation of the “science of religion” in the domestic intellectual tradition is currently being updated.The work of the Hebrew scholar and biblical scholar Yakym Olesnytsky is represented. This researcher was one of the first in the domestic humanities to analyze the “aggadic” layer of Talmudic writing through the prism of comparative-religious and religious-historical approaches. Metamorphoses of biblical images and plots, events of the ancient history of the Hebrew people, which arose under the influence of various mythological, philosophical, and folk traditions, were revealed. There was a real demythologization of “aggadah” from the standpoint of historical and literary criticism.On the basis of a religious reading of J. Olesnytsky’s text, this article traces some metamorphoses of theistic ideas in the process of the rise of Talmudic Judaism. They are analyzed from the point of view of the categories relevant to the philosophy and phenomenology of religion: Religious Experience, the Supernatural, the Another Reality as Sacred, the Absolute. A number of cognitive situations initiated by Olesnytsky, valuable from the point of view of a wider range of disciplines: philosophy and phenomenology of religion, history of religion, sociology and psychology of religion, religious comparative studies have been identified. This experience will be used in further research on the materials of the work of a well-known Kyiv academician.

scholarly journals The Approach of Islamic Studies In Mapping Richard C. Martin

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-154
Author(s):  
Nur Solikin
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Form ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Historical Evolution ◽  
Academic Anxiety ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

Kajian ini berfokus pada pemetaan pendekatan studi Islam dalam salah satu karya Richard C. Martin yang disunting berjudul Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. Penelitian ini mengambil bentuk deskriptif-analitis yang dimulai dengan mengungkap latar belakang penulisan hingga evolusi sejarah studi agama. Melalui penelitian ini, beberapa kesimpulan yang dapat dikemukakan terkait dengan kecemasan akademik Martin, yang diakuinya dilatarbelakangi oleh kelemahan antara pendekatan teologis yang mempertahankan pemahaman normatif agama, dan sudut pandang sejarah agama yang menekankan pada deskripsi analitis dan membutuhkan jarak bagi para penelitinya. Sementara terkait dengan evolusi studi sejarah agama, ia menilai perkembangan studi independen setelah studi sejarah, antropologi, sosiologi, teologi dan studi timur, dan oleh karena itu, perkembangan studi tersebut cukup berpengaruh dalam cara sejarawan agama bekerja. Pengembangan lebih lanjut dianggap perlu untuk memisahkan studi agama dari disiplin lain. This study focuses on the mapping of the Islamic studies approach in one of Richard C. Martin's edited works entitled Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies. This study takes a descriptive-analytical form which begins by revealing the background of writing to the historical evolution of religious studies. Through this study, several conclusions that can be presented are related to Martin's academic anxiety, which he admits is motivated by a weakness between the theological approach which maintains a normative understanding of religions, and the history of religion point of view which emphasizes analytical descriptions and requires distance for the researchers.While related to the evolution of the study of the history of religion, he assessed the development of independent studies after historical studies, anthropology, sociology, theology and the study of the east, and therefore, developments in these studies were quite influential in the way historians of religions worked. further developments are deemed necessary to separate religious studies from other disciplines.  

scholarly journals Muslim Communities in North America

1995 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-118
Author(s):  
Omar Altalib
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Immigrant Communities ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
The West ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Third ◽  
History Of ◽  
Muslim Communities

This book, which is a collection of 22 articles by 25 authors, is appropriatefor undergraduate courses on religion in the United States, religiousminorities, immigrant communities, the history of religion, and the sociologyof Islam and Muslims. The first part contains five articles on religiouscommunities, the second part has nine articles on the mosaic of Islamiccommunities in major American metropolitan centers, and the third partconsists of eight articles on ethnic communities in metropolitan settings.Each part should have been a separate book, as this would have made thebook less bulky and more accessible to those who are interested in onlyone of the areas covered.Reading this book makes it clear that there is great need for Muslimscholars to study and analyze their own communities, which have a richhistory and have only been studied recently. Books such as this are animportant contribution to the understanding of Muslims in the West andalso serve to clear up many misconceptions about Muslims, a developmentthat makes interfaith and intercommunity dialogue easier.Part 1 begins with an article on the Shi'ah communities in NorthAmerica by Abdulaziz Sachedina (professor of religious studies, University ...

scholarly journals Robert Bellah, religion og menneskelig evolution

2013 ◽  
pp. 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Lundager Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Human Evolution ◽  
English Abstract ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Early States ◽  
Axial Age ◽  
The Future ◽  
History Of ◽  
Robert Bellah ◽  
Academic Study

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Introduction to and discussion of Robert Bellah's major book, Religion in Human Evolution (2011). which defines and describes tribal religion (religion in pre-state societies), archaic religion (religion in early states) and religious currents in the axial age, the period in the middle of 1st mill. BC, where new radical and intellectual ideas and practices, sceptial or world renouncing, appeared in China, India and Greece. Hopefully, Bellah's book will be a standard reference work in the academic study of religion and an inspiration for the history of religion in the future to engage in historical and comparative studies.DANSK RESUMÉ: Introduktion til og diskussion af Robert Bellahs hovedværk fra 2011, Religion in Human Evolution, der definerer og beskriver tribal religion, dvs. religion i før-statslige samfund, arkaisk religion, dvs. religion i tidlig-statslige kulturer samt religiøse strømninger i aksetiden, perioden i midten af 1. årt. f.Kr., hvor nye radikale og intellektuelle, skeptiske eller verdensafvisende, tankegange og livsformer formuleres i Kina, Indien og Grækenland. Bogen bør betragtes som et hovedværk i aktuel religionsforskning, og den vil forhåbentlig kunne inspirere religionshistorien til også at drive historisk-komparativ forskning.

scholarly journals Poblisk v religiološko misel Hjalmarja Söderberga

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (32) ◽  
pp. 357-367
Author(s):  
Nada Grošelj
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious History ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Special Effects ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Fire Smoke ◽  
History Of ◽  
Century Thought

A Glimpse into the Religious Studies of Hjalmar Söderberg While the Swedish writer Hjalmar Söderberg (1869–1941) gained a worldwide reputation with his fiction, his later studies in the history of religion, with their discussions of daring reconstructions and interpretations of Biblical events, are more obscure. Of his three monographs on religious history, the paper focuses on his début, The Fire of Yahweh (Jahves eld, 1918). The key thesis about the story of Moses as proposed by Markel, the protagonist, claims that the supernatural events in the Book of Exodus which took place on and at the foot of the mountain, and were witnessed by the Israelite crowd from a distance, were in fact an elaborate and spectacular form of pre-Jewish worship in the area. According to Markel, the fire, smoke and thunder accompanying God’s appearances in the Bible were simply a spectacle for the crowd, and these ‘special effects’ might well have been produced by Moses and his successors through gunpowder. The final part of the paper outlines Söderberg’s immersion in his time and in the spiritual and intellectual shifts of the period, as well as his attitude to religion as demonstrated in some examples of his fiction. Keywords: history of religion, Swedish literature, Moses, Bible interpretation, early 20th century thought

Religion, Politics, History, and Culture

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 386-422
Author(s):  
Timothy Fitzgerald
Keyword(s):  
Private Property ◽  
Nation State ◽  
Cultural Authenticity ◽  
History Of Religion ◽  
Critical History ◽  
Accumulation By Dispossession ◽  
History Of ◽  
Democratic Rights ◽  
Empty Term ◽  
Critique Of Religion

Abstract In his critique of my 2007 monograph Discourse on Civility and Barbarity: a Critical History of Religion and Related Categories, Daniel Miller attributes me with the error of transcendental historicism and an illusion of cultural authenticity. Miller’s challenge leads me to the question ‘what is history?’—what does it mean to be ‘in history’, or to be ‘out of history’, or to be a ‘historical agent’? I also defend myself against the charge of cultural essentialism by questioning the essentially empty term ‘culture’. First, though, I challenge Miller for his continual insistence that my work is ‘political’. Miller seems to accept at least some aspects of my critique of ‘religion’. However, he does not mention that DCB is as much concerned with the invention of a noun word discourse on ‘politics’ as it is with the invention of ‘religion’. ‘Politics’ and the ‘nation state’ were invented by men of substantial property ambitions to organise, normalise and protect male private property accumulation. Rather than being the foundation of our democratic rights, a gateway to equality and emancipation, ‘politics’ promotes and globally facilitates the processes of ‘accumulation by dispossession’.

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