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Studying Religion
Widely used as a primer, a class text, or just a provocation to critical thinking, Studying Religion clearly explains the methods and theories employed in the academic study of religion by tackling the problem of how scholars define and then study religion. Written for all newcomers to the field, its brief chapters explore the three main ways in which religion is defined and, along the way, also consider a range of related topics, from the history and functions of religion to its public discourse, religion in the courts, and the classification of diverse groups into world religions. The works of classic and contemporary scholars—from Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud to Bruce Lincoln and Naomi G...
Studying Religion
Widely used as a primer, a text and a provocation to critical thinking, 'Studying Religion' aims to develop students' skills. The book clearly explains the methods and theories employed in the study of religion. Essays are offered on a range of topics: from the history and functions of religion to public discourse on religion and the classification of religions. The works of key scholars - from Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Otto to Mircea Eliade, James G. Frazer, and Sigmund Freud - are analysed and explored. 'Studying Religion' represents a shift away from the traditional focus of describing the exotic or curious religious 'Other' to an examination of how religious behaviours and institutions are studied. The book will be invaluable to students of religious studies.
Manufacturing Religion
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. ...
Critics Not Caretakers
The essays collected together in Critics Not Caretakers argue that the study of religion must be rethought as an ordinary aspect of social, historical existence, a stance that makes the scholar of religion a critic of cultural and historical practices rather than a caretaker of religious tradition or a font of timeless wisdom and deep meaning. The book begins with several essays that outline the basis of an alternative, sociorhetorical approach to studying religion, before moving on to a series of discrete dispatches from the ongoing theory wars, each of which uses the work of such writers as Karen Armstrong, Walter Burkert, Benson Saler, and Jacob Neusner as a point of entry into wider theo...
Our Primary Expertise
Our Primary Expertise argues counter to the longstanding trend in the field by seeing religion as mundane and not unique, which means that the field's research and teaching can have relevance all across human culture, and well beyond academia. Russell McCutcheon offers a timely argument by taking seriously threats to the humanities now happening all across higher education.
Fabricating Religion
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.
Teaching in the Study of Religion and Beyond
Drawing on their wide experience in the undergraduate classroom, the contributors address basic but current issues in university teaching. This book provides practical commentary and invites instructors to consider how to address the learning needs of their students, while taking into account the wider structural requirements of administrations, governments, or credentialing agencies. Consisting of about forty, readable, short entries – on topics ranging from curriculum, grading, group work, digital humanities and large lectures, to learning management systems, office hours, online/remote courses, recruiting and seminars – this book provides a wealth of practical help and reassurance to teachers working with undergraduate students. This book is a valuable tool for early instructors in universities and colleges, showing them how to impact a class's success. It provides a critical background on the issues involved whilst also offering suggestions on how to navigate the competing demands on teachers.
The Discipline of Religion
This volume is a critical journey through religious studies in the 21st century, looking at its growth as an academic discipline, and its contemporary political and social meaning.
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