The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University
The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University

Author: Donald Wiebe

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-11-14

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 1350103454

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In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.

The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University
The Learned Practice of Religion in the Modern University

Author: Donald Wiebe

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-11-14

Total Pages: 251

ISBN-13: 1350103446

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In these essays, Donald Wiebe unveils a significant problem in the academic study of religion in colleges and universities in North America and Europe - that studies almost always exhibit a religious bias. To explore this issue, Wiebe looks at the religious and moral agendas behind the study of religion, showing that the boundaries between the objective study of religion and religious education as a tool for bettering society have become blurred. As a result, he argues, religious studies departments have fostered an environment where religion has become a learned or scholarly practice, rather than the object of academic scrutiny. This book provides a critical history of the failure of 20th- and 21st-century scholars to follow through on the 19th-century ideal of an objective scientific study of religious thought and behaviour. Although emancipated from direct ecclesiastical control and, to some extent, from sectarian theologizing, Wiebe argues that research and scholarship in the academic department of religious studies has failed to break free from religious constraints. He shows that an objective scientific study of religious thought and practice is not only possible, but the only appropriate approach to the study of religious phenomena.

Manufacturing Religion
Manufacturing Religion

Author: Russell T. McCutcheon

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1997-06-19

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 0195355687

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In this new book, author Russell McCutcheon offers a powerful critique of traditional scholarship on religion, focusing on multiple interrelated targets. Most prominent among these are the History of Religions as a discipline; Mircea Eliade, one of the founders of the modern discipline; recent scholarship on Eliade's life and politics; contemporary textbooks on world religions; and the oft-repeated bromide that "religion" is a sui generis phenomenon. McCutcheon skillfully analyzes the ideological basis for and service of the sui generis argument, demonstrating that it has been used to constitute the field's object of study in a form that is ahistoric, apolitical, fetishized, and sacrosanct. As such, he charges, it has helped to create departments, jobs, and publication outlets for those who are comfortable with such a suspect construction, while establishing a disciplinary ethos of astounding theoretical naivete and a body of scholarship to match. Surveying the textbooks available for introductory courses in comparative religion, the author finds that they uniformly adopt the sui generis line and all that comes with it. As a result, he argues, they are not just uncritical (which helps keep them popular among the audiences for which they are intended, but badly disserve), but actively inhibit the emergence of critical perspectives and capacities. And on the geo-political scale, he contends, the study of religion as an ahistorical category participates in a larger system of political domination and economic and cultural imperialism.

Religion: The Basics
Religion: The Basics

Author: Malory Nye

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2008-05-12

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1134059477

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The new edition has been fully revised and updated, and includes new discussions of: the study of religion and culture in the 21st century texts, films and rituals cognitive approaches to religion globalisation and multiculturalism spirituality in the West popular religion.

Introduction to the Study of Religion
Introduction to the Study of Religion

Author: Hillary P. Rodrigues

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-11-29

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 1000985652

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Why do people study religion? How have they studied it in the past? How do we study religion today? Is the academic study of religion the same as religious education? These and many other questions are addressed in this engaging introduction to the discipline of religious studies. Topics include Definitions of religion Perspectives in the study and teaching of religion How religion began to be studied: Traditional perspectives—philosophical and theological How people experience religion: Perspectives in the study of religious consciousness and perception—phenomenological and psychological Studying religion within communities: Social and cultural perspectives—anthropological, sociological, political, and economic Judging religion: Critical perspectives—feminist approaches, the interaction of popular literature and religion Contextual perspectives—historical and comparative Themes, theories, and current directions The thoroughly updated second edition encourages students to think critically about the theories and methods presented. Students will find arguments for the strengths and limitations of these approaches, understand connections among religious studies and other intellectual movements, and develop their own ideas of how they might want to go about the study of religion. Summary boxes, discussion questions, a glossary, a chronology of key figures and texts, and other pedagogic aids help students grasp key concepts.

Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion
Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion

Author: M. Cooper Minister

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2023-11-30

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 1350303127

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Examining the analytic tools of scholars in religious studies, as well as in related disciplines that have shaped the field, this updated textbook includes cultural approaches from anthropology, history, literature, and critical studies in race, sexuality, and gender. Each chapter is written by a leading scholar and includes: the biographical and historical context of each theorist their approaches and key writings analysis and evaluation of each theory a list of key terms suggested further reading Part One: Comparative Approaches considers how major features such as taboo, texts, myths, and ritual work across religious traditions. This section explores the work of Mary Douglas, Phyllis Trible, Wendy Doniger, Catherine Bell and, new to this edition, Tomoko Masuzawa, whose contributions reveal the colonialist assumptions of the comparative, world religions model. Part Two: Examining Particularities analyzes the comparative approach through the work of Alice Walker, Charles Long, and Caroline Walker Bynum, who all suggest that the specifics of race, body, place and time must be considered. Part Three: Expanding Boundaries examines Gloria Anzaldúa's language of religion, as well as the work of Judith Butler on performative, queer theories of religion, Saba Mahmood, whose work considers postcolonial religious encounters, secularism, and the relationship between “East” and “West”. New to this edition is Jasbir Puar's work on work on affect, gender, sexuality, and disability. Along with a list of key terms, each section now includes an introduction highlighting the contributions of each thinker and their relation to previous theories that dominated the field.

No Longer Invisible
No Longer Invisible

Author: Rhonda Hustedt Jacobsen

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-07-03

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 0199844747

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Winner of a 2013 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award Drawing on conversations with hundreds of professors, co-curricular educators, administrators, and students from institutions spanning the entire spectrum of American colleges and universities, the Jacobsens illustrate how religion is constructively intertwined with the work of higher education in the twenty-first century. No Longer Invisible documents how, after decades when religion was marginalized, colleges and universities are re-engaging matters of faith-an educational development that is both positive and necessary. Religion in contemporary American life is now incredibly complex, with religious pluralism on the rise and the categories of "religious" and "secular" often blending together in a dizzying array of lifestyles and beliefs. Using the categories of historic religion, public religion, and personal religion, No Longer Invisible offers a new framework for understanding this emerging religious terrain, a framework that can help colleges and universities-and the students who attend them-interact with religion more effectively. The stakes are high: Faced with escalating pressures to focus solely on job training, American higher education may find that paying more careful and nuanced attention to religion is a prerequisite for preserving American higher education's longstanding commitment to personal, social, and civic learning.

The Study of Greek and Roman Religions
The Study of Greek and Roman Religions

Author: Nickolas P. Roubekas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-07-14

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 1350102636

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How should ancient religious ideas be approached? Is "religion" an applicable term to antiquity? Should classicists, ancient historians, and religious studies scholars work more closely together? Nickolas P. Roubekas argues that there is a disciplinary gap between the study of Greek and Roman religions and the study of “religion” as a category-a gap that has often resulted in contradictory conclusions regarding Greek and Roman religion. This book addresses this lack of interdisciplinarity by providing an overview, criticism, and assessment of this chasm. It provides a theoretical approach to this historical period, raising the issue of the relationship between “theory of religion” and “history of religion,” and explores how history influences theory and vice versa. It also presents an in-depth critique of some crucial problems that have been central to the discussions of scholars who work on Graeco-Roman antiquity, encouraging us to re-examine how we approach the study of ancient religions.

Gnosticism and the History of Religions
Gnosticism and the History of Religions

Author: David G. Robertson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-08-12

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1350137715

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Building on critical work in biblical studies, which shows how a historically-bounded heretical tradition called Gnosticism was 'invented', this work focuses on the following stage in which it was “essentialised” into a sui generis, universal category of religion. At the same time, it shows how Gnosticism became a religious self-identifier, with a number of sizable contemporary groups identifying as Gnostics today, drawing on the same discourses. This book provides a history of this problematic category, and its relationship with scholarly and popular discourse on religion in the twentieth century. It uses a critical-historical method to show how and why Gnosis, Gnostic and Gnosticism were taken up by specific groups and individuals – practitioners and scholars – at different times. It shows how ideas about Gnosticism developed in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarship, drawing from continental phenomenology, Jungian psychology and post-Holocaust theology, to be constructed as a perennial religious current based on special knowledge of the divine in a corrupt world. David G. Robertson challenges how scholars interact with the category Gnosticism, and contributes to our understanding of the complex relationship between primary sources, academics and practitioners in category formation.

Studying Religion, Past and Present
Studying Religion, Past and Present

Author: Nickolas P. Roubekas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-09-05

Total Pages: 207

ISBN-13: 1350340014

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Celebrating the contributions of Panayotis Pachis to the field, this book discusses the past, present, and future of the study of religion in antiquity and modernity. Panayotis Pachis has dedicated his celebrated career at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki to the study of various aspects of ancient religions. The contents of this book reflect Pachis' conviction that the study of religious ideas and practices should be focused on three pillars: the study of history, the formulation and application of theoretical frameworks, and the utilization of traditional as well as innovative methodological tools. Chapters range from the scientific study of Roman-Graeco religions, cultural evolution, and neurocognitive theories in the history and study of religion, to a look at why we need an integrative approach to study religion, past and present.