Editor’s Corner: Critics or Caretakers?

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-39
Author(s):  
Philip Tite
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Short Piece ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Academic Study

A short essay, in responding to an online roundtable (the Religious Studies Project), explores the role of progressive ideology in the academic study of religion, specifically with a focus on debates over Russell McCutcheon's distinction between scholars functioning as cultural critics or caretakers of religious traditions. This short piece is part of the "Editor's Corner" (an occasional section of the Bulletin where the editors offer provocative musings on theoretical challenges facing the discipline).

Material Culture and Embodiment in American Religion

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Body ◽  
American Religion ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Will

In recent years, the study of religion has undergone a useful materialization in the work of many scholars, who are not inclined to define it in terms of ideas, creeds, or doctrines alone, but want to understand what role sensation, emotion, objects, spaces, clothing, and food have played in religious practice. If the intellect and the will dominated the study of religion dedicated to theology and ethics, the materialization of religious studies has taken up the role of the body, expanding our understanding of it and dismantling our preconceptions, which were often notions inherited from religious traditions. As a result, the body has become a broad register or framework for gauging the social, aesthetic, and practical character of religion in everyday life. The interest in material culture as a primary feature of religion has unfolded in tandem with the new significance of the body and the broad materialization of religious studies.

scholarly journals Comparison and the Academic Study of Indigenous Religious Traditions

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 464-474
Author(s):  
Seth Schermerhorn
Keyword(s):  
Native American ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
Academic Study

Abstract The recent publication of two excellent volumes—Bruce Lincoln’s Apples and Oranges and Oliver Freiberger’s Considering Comparison—provides an auspicious moment to reflect on and interrogate the nature of comparison within religious studies generally, as well as a variety of subfields, including the academic study of indigenous religious traditions. This article carefully examines both books, analyzes Lincoln’s interpretations of Native American religious traditions within broader comparative frameworks, and discusses several recent developments regarding comparison in the academic study of indigenous religious traditions.

The Hegemony of Critique

2021 ◽  
pp. 241-264
Author(s):  
William Wood
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Rational Behavior ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
Crowd Out ◽  
Academic Study

Part IV turns to an extended engagement with the academic study of religion, which is often constitutively hostile to any form of theology. Chapter 13 concerns the role of “critique” in the academic study of religion, where “critique” is understood as a specific discourse—something more than mere criticism. Critique remains valuable, but in the contemporary religious studies academy, it has become hegemonic, to the point where it threatens to crowd out other equally legitimate methods of inquiry. Analytic theologians are well positioned to grasp the limitations of critique precisely because critique’s moves and methods are so different from those of analytic theology. I argue that the academic study of religion needs to supplement critical inquiry’s “epistemology of power” with a more analytic “epistemology of truth,” one that allows us to assess religious adherence as a form of rational behavior. At the same time, analytic theologians have much to learn from the tradition of critical inquiry.

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.

Responding to the Wendy Doniger Controversy

2014 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-39
Author(s):  
Steven Ramey
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
Contemporary Society ◽  
Robust Analysis ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Academic Study

The controversy over Penguin India withdrawing Wendy Doniger's book, announced in February 2014, provides an occasion to consider the problems and possibilities within the academic study of religion. As the controversy centered on representations of what both Doniger and her opponents termed Hinduism, the problems with adjudicating contested definitions of religions or the category religions becomes apparent. Rather than assuming that we can present a normative definition of any of these terms, I argue that scholars should avoid applying these contested labels themselves and recognize instead whose application of contested labels that they use. This approach facilitates a more robust analysis of the ways these terms enter the negotiation of various conflicts and the interests and assumptions behind them, making religious studies more relevant to contemporary society.

The Academic Study of Sufism at American Universities

2007 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 24-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Hermansen
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Current Situation ◽  
Muslim World ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
Academic Institutions ◽  
Academic Context ◽  
American Universities ◽  
Islamic Studies ◽  
Academic Study

This article provides an overview of the history and current situation of the academic study of Sufism (Islamic mysticism) at American universities. It examines Sufism’s place within the broader curriculum of Islamic studies as well as some of the main themes and approaches employed by American scholars. In addition, it explains both the academic context in which Sufi studies are located and the role of contemporary positions in Islamic and western thought in shaping its academic study.1 Topics and issues of particular interest to a Muslim audience, as well as strictly academic observations, will be raised. In comparison to its role at academic institutions in the traditional Muslim world,2 Sufi studies has played a larger role within the western academic study of Islam during the twentieth century, especially the later decades. I will discuss the numerous reasons for this in the sections on the institutional, intellectual, and pedagogical contexts.

scholarly journals The Struggle Against Torture: Challenges, Assumptions and New Directions

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-333
Author(s):  
Tobias Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Current State ◽  
New Directions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Emerging Themes ◽  
Short Essay ◽  
Forms Of Violence

Abstract This short essay offers a broad and necessarily incomplete review of the current state of the human rights struggle against torture and ill-treatment. It sketches four widespread assumptions in that struggle: 1) that torture is an issue of detention and interrogation; 2) that political or security detainees are archetypal victims of torture; 3) that legal reform is one of the best ways to fight torture; and 4) that human rights monitoring helps to stamp out violence. These four assumptions have all played an important role in the history of the human rights fight against torture, but also resulted in limitations in terms of the interventions that are used, the forms of violence that human rights practitioners respond to, and the types of survivors they seek to protect. Taken together, these four assumptions have created challenges for the human rights community in confronting the multiple forms of torture rooted in the deep and widespread inequality experienced by many poor and marginalized groups. The essay ends by pointing to some emerging themes in the fight against torture, such as a focus on inequality, extra-custodial violence, and the role of corruption.

Theory and Method and the Stakes of a Fragmented Discipline: Or, What Economics Taught Me About the Study of Religion

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas A Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Religious Studies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Global Pandemic ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Academic Study

Abstract As a discipline, the academic study of religion is strikingly fragmented, with little engagement or shared criteria of excellence across subfields. Although important recent developments have expanded the traditions and peoples studied as well as the methods used, the current extent of fragmentation limits the impact of this diversification and pluralization. At a moment when the global pandemic is catalyzing profound pressures on our universities and disciplines, this fragmentation makes it difficult to articulate to the public, to non-religious studies colleagues, and to students why the study of religion matters. We therefore too often fall back on platitudes. I argue for a revitalized methods and theories conversation that connects us even as it bears our arguments and disagreements about what we do and how. Courses in methods and theories in the study of religion represent the most viable basis we have for bringing the academic study of religion into the common conversation or argument that constitutes a discipline without sacrificing our pluralism.

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