Religion and the Domestication of Dissent

Religion and the Domestication of Dissent PDF Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134948387
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

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Book Description
Since the events of 9/11 the representation of Islam has increasingly come adrift from its actuality. Scholars and pundits have effectively demonised a whole faith by wilfully apportioning blame and by ignoring the differences within the Islamic movement. 'Religion and the Domestication of Dissent' examines how the classifications we use to name and negotiate our social worlds - notably 'religion' - are implicitly political. The study ranges widely from contemporary film and art to the War on Terror and will be invaluable to readers interested in the politics behind the portrayal of dissenting religious groups.

Religion and the Domestication of Dissent

Religion and the Domestication of Dissent PDF Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134948387
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 160

Get Book Here

Book Description
Since the events of 9/11 the representation of Islam has increasingly come adrift from its actuality. Scholars and pundits have effectively demonised a whole faith by wilfully apportioning blame and by ignoring the differences within the Islamic movement. 'Religion and the Domestication of Dissent' examines how the classifications we use to name and negotiate our social worlds - notably 'religion' - are implicitly political. The study ranges widely from contemporary film and art to the War on Terror and will be invaluable to readers interested in the politics behind the portrayal of dissenting religious groups.

Irreverence and the Sacred

Irreverence and the Sacred PDF Author: Hugh B. Urban
Publisher: Paperbackshop UK Import
ISBN: 0190911964
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
Irreverence and the Sacred brings together some of the most cutting edge, interdisciplinary, and international scholars working today in order to debate key issues in the critical and comparative study of religion. The project is inspired in large part by the work of Bruce Lincoln, whose influential and wide-ranging scholarship has consistently posed challenging, provocative, and often-irreverent questions that have really pushed the boundaries of the field of religious studies in important, sometimes controversial ways. Retracing the history of the discipline of religious studies, Lincoln argues that the field has tended to champion a "validating, feel-good" approach to religion, rather than posing more critical questions about religious claims to authority and their role in history, politics, and social change. A critical approach to the history of religions, he suggests, would focus on the human, temporal, and material aspects of phenomena that are claimed to have a superhuman, eternal, or transcendent status. This volume takes up Lincoln's challenge to "do better," by engaging in critical analyses of four key themes in the study of religion: myth, ritual, gender, and politics. The book also interrogates the "politics of scholarship" itself, critically examining the relations of power and material interests at work in the study as well as the practice of religion. The scholars involved in this project include not only some of the most important figures in the American study of religion--such as Wendy Doniger, Russell McCutcheon, Ivan Strenski, and Lincoln himself--but also European scholars whose work is hugely influential overseas but not as well known in the U.S.--such as Stefan Arvidsson, Claude Calame, Nicolas Meylan, and others.

On Making a Shift in the Study of Religion and Other Essays

On Making a Shift in the Study of Religion and Other Essays PDF Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110721716
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 226

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Book Description
Although many would today argue that the onetime dominance of the phenomenology of religion has receded, and with it the traditional approach to studying religion as a unique and deeply-felt experience that defies explanation, the essays collected here take quite the opposite stand: that this approach has merely been re-branded and continues to characterize much work being done in the field today. Offering a different way forward—one that is based on experiences gained by the members of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, a program that has successfully reinvented itself over the past 20 years—the book includes a variety of practical suggestions for how members of Religious Studies departments can revise their approach to studying and teaching about religion. Seeing religion instead as mundane but always exemplary of basic social elements found all across cultures, the volume argues that the way forward for this field lies not in the specialness of its object of study but, instead, the fact that thinking and acting as if something is special is itself an ordinary aspect of history and culture. Making just this shift helps the scholar of religion to contribute to wide, interdisciplinary conversations all across the Humanities and Social Sciences, demonstrating the practical relevance of their work.

Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty

Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004290591
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Religious-secular distinctions have been crucial to the way in which modern governments have rationalised their governance and marked out their sovereignty – as crucial as the territorial boundaries that they have drawn around nations. The authors of this volume provide a multi-dimensional picture of how the category of religion has served the ends of modern government. They draw on perspectives from history, anthropology, moral philosophy, theology and religious studies, as well as empirical analysis of India, Japan, Mexico, the United States, Israel-Palestine, France and the United Kingdom. Contributors are: Maria Birnbaum, Brian Brock, Geraldine Finn, Timothy Fitzgerald, Naomi Goldenberg, Jeffrey Israel, David Liu, Arvind-Pal Mandair, Per-Erik Nilsson, Suzanne Owen, Trevor Stack, Teemu Taira, and Tisa Wenger.

Fabricating Religion

Fabricating Religion PDF Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110559501
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
The revised essays collected here, four of which are published for the first time, continue a longstanding argument made by McCutcheon and others: that the study of religion would benefit from self-conscious scrutiny of its tools, the interests that may drive them, and the effects that might follow their use. The chapters examine a variety of contemporary sites in the modern field where this thesis can be argued, whether involving the anachronistic use of of the category religion when studying the ancient world to current interest in so-called critical religion or critical realist approaches. Moreover – contrary to some past characterizations of such critiques – a constructive way forward for the field is once again recommended and, at several sites, exemplified in detail: redescribing not only religion as something ordinary but also our tendency to create the impression of exceptional and thus set-apart things, places, and people. Aimed at scholars and students alike, the book is an invitation to examine our own scholarly practices and thereby take a more active role in shaping the field in which we carry out our work as scholars of this thing we call religion.

An Ancient Theory of Religion

An Ancient Theory of Religion PDF Author: Nickolas Roubekas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317535294
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
An Ancient Theory of Religion examines a theory of religion put forward by Euhemerus of Messene (late 4th—early 3rd century BCE) in his lost work Sacred Inscription, and shows not only how and why euhemerism came about but also how it was— and still is—used. By studying the utilization of the theory in different periods—from the Graeco-Roman world to Late Antiquity, and from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century—this book explores the reception of the theory in diverse literary works. In so doing, it also unpacks the different adoptions and misrepresentations of Euhemerus’s work according to the diverse agendas of the authors and scholars who have employed his theory. In the process, certain questions are raised: What did Euhemerus actually claim? How has his theory of the origins of belief in gods been used? How can modern scholarship approach and interpret his take on religion? When referring to ‘euhemerism,’ whose version are we employing? An Ancient Theory of Religion assumes no prior knowledge of euhemerism and will be of interest to scholars working in classical reception, religious studies, and early Christian studies.

Japanese Mythology

Japanese Mythology PDF Author: Jun'ichi Isomae
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134949081
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Before the westernisation of Japan, mythological events were treated as national history. Two key documents have contributed to this history, both written over 1300 years ago: 'Kojiki', the Tale of Old Age, and 'Nihonshoki', the Chronicle of Japanese History. Both the Imperial Court and the general public searched for the origin of their identity in these documents, which took on the central and sacred role of scripture. Through the act of commentary and interpretation, the sacred books connected interpreters to their historical origins, authenticating where they came from, the emergence of the Japanese archipelago, and the uniqueness of the Japanese people. 'Japanese Mythology' explores the nation's attraction to this act of historical grounding and the varying identities that emerged during different historical periods. The study reveals that, rather than having any clear and unified substance, Japanese mythology has always been the result of a nostalgic desire to retrieve historical origins.

Theorizing Islam

Theorizing Islam PDF Author: Aaron W. Hughes
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131754594X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 155

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Book Description
The scholarly study of Islam has become ever more insular and apologetic. Academic Islamic Studies has tried to maintain a focus on truth, authenticity, experience and meaning and has effectively avoided discussion of larger social, cultural and ideological issues. Many scholars of Islam have presented themselves to their colleagues, the media and the public as the interpreters of Islam and have done so with an interpretation which tends, almost universally, to the liberal and egalitarian. The ignorance and hostility which the Islamic faith has faced since 9/11 has partly necessitated the taking of such a position. But, as Theorizing Islam argues, the issue remains that only one interpretation of Islam is generally being presented and, as with any interpretation, this has its own assumptions. The aim of Theorizing Islam is to explore the potential for a fuller, more honest and more sophisticated approach to both theory and methodology in the academic study of Islam.

Inherited Land

Inherited Land PDF Author: Whitney A. Bauman
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1630876240
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description
"Religion and ecology" has arrived. What was once a niche interest for a few academics concerned with environmental issues and a few environmentalists interested in religion has become an established academic field with classic texts, graduate programs, regular meetings at academic conferences, and growing interest from other academics and the mass media. Theologians, ethicists, sociologists, and other scholars are engaged in a broad dialogue about the ways religious studies can help understand and address environmental problems, including the sorts of methodological, terminological, and substantive debates that characterize any academic discourse. This book recognizes the field that has taken shape, reflects on the ways it is changing, and anticipates its development in the future. The essays offer analyses and reflections from emerging scholars of religion and ecology, each addressing her or his own specialty in light of two questions: (1) What have we inherited from the work that has come before us? and (2) What inquiries, concerns, and conversation partners should be central to the next generation of scholarship? The aim of this volume is not to lay out a single and clear path forward for the field. Rather, the authors critically reflect on the field from within, outline some of the major issues we face in the academy, and offer perspectives that will nurture continued dialogue.

Religious Experience

Religious Experience PDF Author: Craig Martin
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317545702
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Many regard religious experience as the essence of religion, arguing that narratives might be created and rituals invented but that these are always secondary to the original experience itself. However, the concept of "experience" has come under increasing fire from a range of critics and theorists. This Reader presents writings from both those who assume the existence and possible universality of religious experience and those who question the very rhetoric of "experience". Bringing together both classic and contemporary writings, the Reader showcases differing disciplinary approaches to the study of religious experience: philosophy, literary and cultural theory, history, psychology, anthropology; feminist theory; as well as writings from within religious studies. The essays are structured into pairs, with each essay separately introduced with information on its historical and intellectual context. The ultimate aim of the Reader is to enable students to explore religious experience as rhetoric created to authorize social identities. The book will be an invaluable introduction to the key ideas and approaches for students of Religion, as well as Sociology and Anthropology. CONTRIBUTORS: Robert Desjarlais, Diana Eck, William James, Craig Martin, Russell T. McCutcheon, Wayne Proudfoot, Robert Sharf, Ann Taves, Charles Taylor, Joachim Wach, Joan Wallach Scott, Raymond Williams