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Reappraising Durkheim for the Study and Teaching of Religion Today is an occasion to critically analyze and reassess the work of this intellectual pioneer. It is also an effort to signal the continuing importance of Durkheim for today’s graduate and advanced undergraduate classrooms. Reappraising Durkheim brings together ten new critical essays in which noted sociologists, psychologists, phenomenologists, philosophers, and historians of religion grapple with the questions Durkheim raised and the solutions he proposed. Taken together, the volume is a careful historical and multi-disciplinary study of Durkheim that will lead students to a better understanding of how to study religion. Reappraising Durkheim will be an excellent text for courses focusing on theory and method in the academic study of religion at both the graduate and advanced undergraduate level. It would therefore be appropriate for use in departments of religious studies, philosophy, sociology, and anthropology.
`Philip Mellor′s ambition is to save sociology from itself...or to save society from the sociologists. He has written a brilliant polemic and theoretically rich argument against the many fashionable contemporary social theories that provide acquiescent ′post-societal′ endorsements of the economic and technological forces that are ′hollowing out′ the religious, moral and human dimensions of societies. I am tremendously impressed′ - Kenneth Thompson, Professor of Sociology at the Open University Religion, Realism and Social Theory challenges those contemporary sociologists who argue that the notion of ′society′ is an outmoded basis for sociological analysis and instead revitalizes the idea that sociology is truly ′the study of society′. Through a bold and original argument, Philip Mellor returns the human and religious aspects of social life to the centre of social theory, drawing on a vast range of contemporary social theoretical literature in the process. The book: " comprehensively reassesses what societies are " offers a detailed critique of current failings in social theory " draws out the religious underpinnings of social life " throws fresh light on the religious, cultural and social conflicts that appear to herald a new period of global disorder Religion, Realism and Social Theory will stimulate debate amongst academics and students of sociology and social theory, cultural studies and the sociology of religion.
This monograph studies the professionalization of History of religions as an academic discipline in late 19th and early 20th century France and Europe. Its common thread is the work of the French Modernist priest and later Professor of History of religions at the Collège de France, Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), who participated in many of the most topical debates among French and international historians of religions. Unlike his well-studied Modernist theology, Loisy’s writings on comparative religion, and his rich interactions with famous scholars like F. Cumont, M. Mauss, or J.G. Frazer, remain largely unknown. This monograph is the first to paint a comprehensive picture of his career as a historian of religions before and after his excommunication in 1908. Through a contextual analysis of publications by Loisy and contemporaries, and a large corpus of private correspondence, it illuminates the scientification of the discipline between 1890-1920, and its deep entanglement with religion, politics, and society. Particular attention is also given to the role of national and transnational scholarly networks, and the way they controlled the theoretical and institutional frameworks for studying the history of religions.
In the midst of the increasing antagonism between religion and secularity, the sacred and the profane, faith and reason – currently described in terms of “the clash of civilizations” – is religion any longer relevant or meaningful in the globalizing development of modern subjectivity, inter-subjectivity, family, society, state and history? If so, how and to what end? In the socio-historical context of the highly secular, neo-liberal/neo-conservative globalization movement, the question of the social meaning and relevancy of religion has entered directly into the contemporary discourse on the future of humanity. This book gives expression to the research of international scholars as they wrestled with these issues during the Future of Religion courses held at the Inter-university Center in Dubrovnik, Croatia from 2001-2005. Contributors include: Aleksandra Baša, Reimon Bachika, Aleš Črnič, Anja Finger, Helmut Fritzsche, Denis Janz, Hans-Herbert Kögler, Werner Krieglstein, Mislav Kukoč, Gottfried Küenzlen, Aurelia Margaretić, Michael R. Ott, Dunja Potočnik, A. James Reimer, Kjartan Selnes, Rudolf J. Siebert, Hans K. Weitensteiner, Brian Wilson, Katarzyna Zielinska.
This book explores the emergence of the science of religion in the Netherlands in the second half of the nineteenth century. The emphasis is on processes of institutionalization, professionalization, and internationalization on the one hand, and on contemporary discussions about method and conceptualization on the other.
Disenchantment is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly does this concept mean? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? In The Power of the Sacred, Hans Joas develops the fundamentals of a new sociological theory of religion by first reconstructing existing theories, from the eighteenth century to the present. Through a critical reading and reassessment of key texts in the three empirical disciplines of history, psychology, and sociology of religion, including the works of David Hume, J.G. Herder, Friedrich Schleiermacher, William James, Emile Durkheim, and Ernst Troeltsch, Joas presents an understanding of religion that lays the groundwork for a thorough study of Max Weber's views on disenchantment. After deconstructing Weber's highly ambiguous use of the concept, Joas proposes an alternative to the narratives of disenchantment and secularization which have dominated debates on the topic. He constructs a novel interpretation that takes into account the dynamics of ever new sacralizations, their normative evaluation in the light of a universalist morality as it first emerged in the "Axial Age," and the dangers of the misuse of religion in connection with the formation of power. Built upon the human experience of self-transcendence, rather than human cognition or cultural discourses, The Power of the Sacred challenges both believers and non-believers alike to rethink the defining characteristics of Western modernity.
This book is a comparative study of basic themes in Christian and Islamic fundamentalist discourses, analyzing and comparing texts from a wide variety of fundamentalist leaders and movements, looking for "family resemblances" and significant differences in order to better understand the contemporary phenomenon of religious resurgence. After placing fundamentalisms in a theoretical framework, the study looks at selected themes important to fundamentalists, noting resemblances and differences. These themes include their anti-secularist stance, their theocentric worldviews, their reliance on inerrant sacred scriptures, and their attitudes to politics, government, state and democracy. The study also looks at the fundamentalist view of the world as a perennial battlefield between the forces of good and those of evil, in the realm of ideologies as well as politics and the legitimation of violence.
Prepared in honor of E. Thomas Lawson, the essays in Religion as a Human Capacity represent diverse points of view in the study of religion today. Part I, “Theoretical Studies,” offers a broad range of cognitivist theoretical explorations, while Part II, “Studies in Religious Behavior,” presents cutting-edge applications of cognitive and other contemporary theories to religious data. This volume celebrates Lawson’s critical contributions to cognitive studies of religion and the degree to which his ultimate goal of scholarship as a search for truth is matched by those who have been his colleagues and been influenced by him. Religion as a Human Capacity will be of interest to all those concerned with theory and method in the academic study of religion
Rediscovering E. R. Dodds offers the first comprehensive assessment of a remarkable classical scholar, who was also a poet with extensive links to twentieth-century English and Irish literary culture, the friend of Auden and MacNeice. Dodds was born in Northern Ireland, but made his name as Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford from 1936 to 1960, succeeding Gilbert Murray. Before this he taught at Reading and Birmingham, was active in the Association of University Teachers, or AUT (of which he became president), and brought an outsider's perspective to the comfortable and introspective world of Oxford. His famous book The Greeks and the Irrational (1951) remains one of the most distinguished and visionary works of scholarship of its time, though much less well-known is his long and influential involvement with psychic research and his work for the reconstruction of German education after the Second World War. The contributions to this volume seek to shed light on these less explored areas of Dodds' life and his significance as perhaps the last classicist to play a significant role in British literary culture, as well as examining his work across different areas of scholarship, notably Greek tragedy. A group of memoirs - one by his pupil and former literary executor, Donald Russell, and three by younger friends who knew, visited, and looked after Dodds in his last years - complement this portrait of the influential scholar and poet, offering a glimpse of the man behind the legacy.
"Japanese Americans developed complex silences in response to social and religious marginalization. Utilizing case studies and histories of Japanese American arts--gardening, origami, jazz, and monuments. Enfolding Silence employs interdisciplinary analysis to uncover 'non-binary silences' that are mixtures of silences from religion, art, and oppression"--Provided by publisher.