We are all institutionalized: Three works to challenge the conceit of a generically ‘academic’ study of religion

This essay encounters and considers together three very different recent works by scholars of religion, each one with strong Canadian connections: Maureen Matthews, Aaron Hughes and Donald Wiebe. The primary purpose, however, is to illuminate more broadly the importance of institutional dynamics in the formation and operation of the academic study of religion (i.e., not just in Canada). This stands in contrast to a well-established pattern of debating supposedly loftier questions of naming, disciplinary identity, idealized mandates and limits, etc. Furthermore, this essay suggests that scale of investigation matters – with a local, single-institution study revealing more, perhaps, about how we really do our work than either national or transnational efforts. In the end, reading these three books together suggests a tremendous diversity, including dynamic institutional diversity, in academic approaches to religion: scientific and non-scientific (predictably) but also, disciplined or expert and non-expert or academic administrative. Thus, the essay enjoins readers to take seriously a distinction between domains of ‘distributive’ and ‘concentrated’ expertise within the academy (e.g., Religious Studies versus, say, Civil Engineering), as well as the development of patterns of ‘altero-piety’ across the expert/nonexpert divide. In the end, such murky institutional dynamics appear to be shaping and impelling our field from the local institutional level (e.g., at the University of Winnipeg as documented by Matthews) to the transnational institutional level (e.g., in the International Association for the History of Religions as documented by Wiebe). Ultimately, one must conclude that stipulating that Religious Studies entail the academic study of religion is meaningless. ‘The academy’ is no more universal and unique ( sui generis?) than ‘religion’ itself. Rather, academic institutions are diverse and particular; and yet a variety of factors, ranging from deep colonial histories to the current global political economy of postsecondary higher education, all work to conceal the importance of the institutional basis of Religious Studies. Put another way (and pace Jonathan Z Smith): religion certainly is a creation of the scholar’s study – yet, far from imagining this scholar’s study as a place set apart (as it were), we must start imagining it as a historical, social and institutional location. That would take us one small but further step towards the all-important goal of disciplinary ‘reflexivity”.

Dār al-Ṭalīʿah and the Question of Arab Authenticity in the 1960s

Cultural institutions and publishing houses have been essential to the making of Arab intellectual conversations in the post-colonial era. The publishing house of Dār al-Ṭalīʿah (est. 1959) played a central role in naturalizing social classifications, ideological views and cultural expectations that have influenced the then-new articulation of the notion of Arab authenticity. Yet, al-Ṭalīʿah was more than a publishing house: it was an intellectual hub that sustained intellectuals and unified them into a coherent group. Despite its centrality, however, the group of authors published by al-Ṭalīʿah has rarely drawn the attention of literary critics or intellectual historians. This article rethinks the connection between ideas and their institutional location, rejecting the conventional view that institutions are only secondary to, or even parasitic on, the supremacy of ideas. Looking at the idea of cultural authenticity (aṣālah) fiercely opposed by al-Ṭalīʿah authors, this article examines the ways the publishing house informed the meaning and deployment of aṣālah during the 1960s, even while rejecting it.

Iberian Studies: The Transatlantic Dimension

The emergence of Iberian Studies as a challenge to the paradigm of Hispanism has not only forced a revision of the cultural and linguistic relations within the Iberian Peninsula, but also raised some questions about the significance of the transatlantic dimension in our field. There is no question that, both institutionally and intellectually, most programs of Spanish and Portuguese are grounded on a much touted “community of language,” and that for as long as Peninsular Hispanism, Transatlantic Studies, and Latin Americanism remain bound to the ideology of monolingualism, the close association among literatures of both sides of the Hispanic Atlantic seems secured. But this linguistic grounding is precisely what Iberian Studies needs to deconstruct in order to implement its own epistemological agenda. Iberian Studies, which articulates the need to go beyond Spanish (and Portuguese) to properly understand the internal complexity of Iberian culture(s), may indeed widen the oceanic gap between the two blocks into which our discipline has been traditionally divided. However, the intellectual projects of Iberianism, Transatlanticism, and Latin Americanism —to the extent that they depend on the disruption of Hispanism for a successful production of new knowledge— may benefit from a common institutional location and sustained critical dialogue.

The Spectral Presence of Business in India’s 2019 Election

Shifts in the balance of India’s economy towards private production have re-opened a debate over the role of the business in its polity. Business interests have found new ways to influence the state at different levels and through multiple institutions. This article concentrates on the composition of the 17th Lok Sabha and its porosity towards business (around 28.4% of these MPs have self-reported business careers). A growing of number of ‘industrialists’ and entrepreneurs have branched out into a legislative career; they complement a fast-emerging group of entrepreneurial politicians, who already use their legislative and institutional location to develop business interests for themselves and their families. We find that the influence and power of business has become diffuse and central at the same time; it seeped into every aspect of the election campaign and voting process: political recruitment, finance, issues, and policies—in tangible and intangible ways. This spectral presence of business is shaping Indian elections, parties, and democracy and in turn consolidating India’s economic reforms and pro-business polity.

Securitisation and Politicisation

This chapter sets out an original conceptual framework for analysing the shift of ‘security’ from discursive and institutional arenas of ‘exceptional politics’ to ‘normal politics’. It argues that this shift is a conceptual impossibility in securitisation theory, in which by definition an issue cannot be ‘security’ and part of ‘normal politics’ simultaneously. Introducing an alternative approach, the chapter engages the recent debate on politicisation and depoliticisation to unpick contradictions in security theory and develop a conceptual framework to distinguish forms of politicisation from securitisation. The argument is that these literatures conflate the political quality of issues with their institutional location, and that these should be disaggregated analytically. The chapter thus proposes a framework that reserves the terms securitisation, politicisation, and depoliticisation for qualitative changes in the intensity or salience of issues, and adopts the term ‘arena migration’ (rather than deliberate ‘arena shifting’) for the movement of issues, policies, or activities between different institutional locations. Migrations between arenas such as central government and legislatures matter politically because of the historical exclusions of security politics: it matters if ‘security’ is no longer confined to the ‘black box’ of sovereign decision and is increasingly present in the activities of ‘normal politics’.

Do You Love Us?

This chapter focuses on the student academic experience as a whole; it explores the ways that a multi-faith environment can inspire and encourage students and teachers to enter into deeper conversations with one another. More specifically, it can help to focus attention on ultimate questions: What gives life meaning? What counts as a truly good life? How will my own understanding of these questions be reshaped by my encounter with people who hold different beliefs and engage in different practices? How do I understand my own identity in light of these questions? This chapter calls for educators to allow themselves to be shaped by the responsibility, and the joy, of empowering students to participate in an ongoing interreligious conversation about what makes for a good life. It includes an account of the author’s own experience of this kind of education, as well as the ways it is playing out in his current institutional location.

Community Service-Learning in Canada: One Size Does Not Fit All

Community service-learning (CSL) is increasingly seen as an educational approach that can enhance student engagement and serve community needs. However, CSL programs are highly variable in their structures and goals, leading to variability in the outcomes sought and attained. In this paper, we map out the structures and priorities of CSL programs in Canada following a major influx of funding from the McConnell Family Foundation grant competition in 2004. We also contrast key features of these programs, including their institutional location, unit organization, and educational delivery approach, in order to demonstrate the potential implications of different program models. Our aim is to offer new and developing programs some guidance on the program structures that have been employed as well as their implications.

Constitutional Avoidance in the Executive Branch

106 Columbia Law Review (2006) When executive branch actors interpret statutes, should they use the same methods as the courts? This Article takes up the question by considering a rule frequently invoked by the courts-the canon of constitutional avoidance. In addition to being a cardinal principle of judicial statutory interpretation, the avoidance canon also appears regularly and prominently in the work of the executive branch. It has played a central role, for example, in some of the most hotly debated episodes of executive branch statutory interpretation in the "war on terror." Typically, executive invocations of avoidance are supported by citation to one or more Supreme Court cases. Yet those citations are rarely accompanied by any discussion of the values courts try to serve when they employ avoidance. Are those values specific to the federal judiciary, or do they reflect substantive commitments extending beyond the courts? Equally lacking is any sustained consideration of interpretive context. Does their particular institutional location and function enable executive actors to call upon sources of statutory meaning that are unavailable to courts, rendering rough tools like the avoidance canon unnecessary?This Article explores executive use of the avoidance canon along both these dimensions. As to theoretical justification, Professor Morrison shows that whether constitutional avoidance is appropriate in the executive branch turns on whether one accepts the conventional account of the canon, which sees it as serving values specific to the federal judiciary, or an alternative account, which views it as serving a set of broader norms not confined to the courts. As to interpretive context, Professor Morrison shows that because executive officials often have better access to and knowledge of statutory purpose than do the courts, some facially ambiguous texts may in fact be entirely unambiguous to the executive interpreter. In those circumstances, the avoidance canon has no role to play.

Introduction

This chapter demonstrates how the Webb Foundation exemplifies important trends in the study of contemporary American Muslim community formation, particularly efforts to transcend racial divisions, expand authority roles for women, and respond to the myriad political and religious pressures placed on American Muslims to prove their political loyalties. The chapter uses the term “third space” to describe Webb’s institutional location in Chicago’s far western suburbs, explain its appeal, and show how it serves as a site for emerging identities by offering its members a context through which to attempt to overcome the binary division between “America” and “Islam.” This chapter shows how the Webb Foundation is a generative site for communal belonging, religious devotion, and consumerist practices. Through ethnography of these spaces, scholars can more fully describe the diverse and fluid forms of American Muslim identity and practice.

The Procuracy as a Subject of Constitutional Debate: Controversial and Unresolved Issues

The people’s procuracy is a transplanted Soviet-style institution in Vietnam, which currently exercises the public prosecution function along with the supervision of judicial activities. Debates about the procuracy’s role and function started as early as when the 1992 Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (1992 Constitution) was drafted and they were facilitated by the judicial reform policies. In the process of revising the 1992 Constitution, heated debates on the procuracy continued. The subject of these debates included almost every fundamental aspect of the procuracy such as its institutional location, functions, duties, organization, and operation. This article reviews the constitutional debates concerning the procuracy between 2011 and 2013. It analyzes and compares the developments of the debates in this period with those that had occurred in the past, highlighting, in particular, key issues that remain unresolved. It argues that the controversy surrounding the procuracy reflects the legal and political complexities in Vietnam, especially the lack of agreement on institutional issues such as the rule of law, socialist legality, and control of powers.