Entanglements attempts to argue against those who claim that scholarship on the category religion is only of secondary interest, in that it fails to do primary research on real religions. The volume collects eighteen responses, written across twenty years, that each exemplify the inevitably situated, give-and-take nature of all academic debate. These essays call into question the often used distinction between primary and secondary sources, between description and analysis. Published here in their original form, each contribution is accompanied by new, substantive introduction describing the...

The study of religion encompasses ordinary human social practice and is not limited to the extraordinary or divine. 'Introducing Religion' brings together leading international scholars in the field of religious studies to examine religion as integral to everyday social practice. The book establishes a theoretical framework for the study of religion to analyse prayer, ritual, science, morality and politics in relation to the world's major religions. It will be of interest to students of theory and method in religious studies seeking a clear introduction to the multifaceted nature of...

Religionswissenschaft. Einfuhrung und Grundlagen untersucht, welche analytischen Fahigkeiten fur das Studium der als Religion bezeichneten Verhaltensweisen und Institutionen notwendig sind. Der wissenschaftlich grundlegende Akt des Klassifizierens und seine zentrale Bedeutung fur die Forschung werden dabei in den Blick genommen. Damit nimmt diese Einfuhrung im Vergleich zu vielen anderen Lehrwerken einen Perspektivwechsel vor. Ihr geht es darum, dem Religionswissenschaftler bei der Arbeit uber die Schulter zu schauen und nicht um einen klassischen Uberblick uber die Fachgeschichte oder...

Fabricating Origins builds on a series of posts that originally appeared, in earlier forms, on the blog "Culture on the Edge." In these posts each member of the group focused on the problem of origins, examining how we repeatedly conjure up an authorized past that suits the needs of the continually changing present. Fabricating Origins presses these short studies further by inviting ten early career scholars to each work with "Culture on the Edge" by applying, extending, even critiquing the group, to further illustrate for readers how talk of origins in the present is so much more interesting...

Fabricating Origins builds on a series of posts that originally appeared, in earlier forms, on the blog "Culture on the Edge." In these posts each member of the group focused on the problem of origins, examining how we repeatedly conjure up an authorized past that suits the needs of the continually changing present. Fabricating Origins presses these short studies further by inviting ten early career scholars to each work with "Culture on the Edge" by applying, extending, even critiquing the group, to further illustrate for readers how talk of origins in the present is so much more interesting...

In 2002, the University of Alabama's Department of Religious Studies established the annual Aronov Lecture Series to showcase the works of nationally recognized scholars of religion capable of reflecting on issues of wide relevance to scholars from across the humanities and social sciences. Writing Religion: The Case for the Critical Study of Religionis an edited collection of essays that highlights critical contributions from the first ten Aronov lecturers.
Section one of the volume, Writing Discourses, features essays by Jonathan Z. Smith, Bruce Lincoln, and Ann...

A Modest Proposal on Method further documents methodological and institutional failings in the academic study of religion. This collection of essays--which includes three previously unpublished chapters--identifies the manner in which old problems (like the presumption that our object of study is a special, deeply meaningful case) yet remain in the field. But amidst the critique there are a variety of practical suggestions for how the science of religion can become methodologically even-handed and self-reflexive--the markings of a historically rigorous exercise. Each chapter is...