Representing ReligionEssays in History, Theory and Crisis
Tim Murphy
Series: Religion in Culture:Studies in Social Contest & Construction Hardback Price £45.00/$85.00 Paperback Price £14.99/$28.95 |    |
Description
Since Saussure argued that there is an arbitrary, not a natural, relationship between a signifier and what it signifies, the human sciences have been in a “crisis of representation.” This volume consists of essays which explore the critical and constructive dimensions of that crisis. The critical dimension focuses on the history of Religious Studies, especially phenomenology, showing how it has been predicated on a transcendental, non-empirical concept of subjectivity (“Geist”). This led to a universalized concept of “consciousness” and a dehistoricized concept of “experience” as central to the understanding of religion. Nietzsche’s critique of precisely these concepts, as refined and extended by poststructuralist theorists, is applied to this segment of the history of the study of religion.
The constructive dimension of this work combines the methodological insights of Nietzsche, Saussure, Foucault, Barthes, and Bakhtin to form a “Nietzschean semiotics” which serves as the basis for a new theory of religion. This theory sees religion as the agonistic deployment of semiotic materials both to structure difference and to form trans-generational identities. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of religion who are looking for new ways of doing description and/or theory.
Since Saussure argued that there is an arbitrary, not a natural, relationship between a signifier and what it signifies, the human sciences have been in a “crisis of representation.” This volume consists of essays which explore the critical and constructive dimensions of that crisis. The critical dimension focuses on the history of Religious Studies, especially phenomenology, showing how it has been predicated on a transcendental, non-empirical concept of subjectivity (“Geist”). This led to a universalized concept of “consciousness” and a dehistoricized concept of “experience” as central to the understanding of religion. Nietzsche’s critique of precisely these concepts, as refined and extended by poststructuralist theorists, is applied to this segment of the history of the study of religion.
The constructive dimension of this work combines the methodological insights of Nietzsche, Saussure, Foucault, Barthes, and Bakhtin to form a “Nietzschean semiotics” which serves as the basis for a new theory of religion. This theory sees religion as the agonistic deployment of semiotic materials both to structure difference and to form trans-generational identities. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of religion who are looking for new ways of doing description and/or theory.
Contents
1. The ‘Crisis of Representation’ and the Academic Study of Religion
Part I
Phenomenology, Consciousness, Essence:
Critical Surveys of the History of the Study of Religion
2. ‘Individual Men in their Solitude’: A Critique of William James’ Individualistic Approach to Religion in The Varieties of Religious Experience
3. The Concept ‘Essence and Manifestation’ in the History of the Study of Religion
4. The Concept of ‘Development’ in Continental Geisteswissenschaft and Religionswissenshaft: Before and After Darwin
5. The ‘Transcendental Pretense’ and Eliade’s Humanist Hermaneutics
Part II
Towards a Nietzschean Semiotics of Religion
6. (Post)Structural (Dis)Placements: Genealogy, Religious Studies and the Problematics of Historical Identity
7. ‘Religion’ as the Structuring of Asymmetrical Relations: Towards a Definition
8. Towards a Semiotic Theory of Religion
Reviews
'Exciting, well-written and cogent. It is a pleasure to read and especially a pleasure to find a critique along poststructuralist lines that relinquishes an intoxication with a receding signifier. Murphy's thoughtful foray into this genre offers a kind of clarity to emulate. His book is smart and well written and will help to advance thinking in our field.'
Loriliai Biernacki, University of Colorado at Boulder, Religion 39 (2009)
Specifications
| ISBN-10 (Hardback) | 1845530918 |
| ISBN-13 (Hardback) | 9781845530914 |
| Price (Hardback) | £45.00/$85.00 |
| ISBN-10 (Paperback) | 1845530926 |
| ISBN-13 (Paperback) | 9781845530921 |
| Price (Paperback) | £14.99/$28.95 |
| Publication Date | June 2007 |
| Pages | 224 |
| Size | 216 x 138mm |
| Readership | Undergraduates and general readers |
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