Defining ReligionA Reader
Edited by: Tim Murphy
Series: Critical Categories in the Study of Religion Hardback Price £70.00/$110.00 Paperback Price £16.99/$27.95 |    |
Description
In the field of Religious Studies, the definition of the foundational category of “religion” has been, and continues to be, the object of much controversy. This controversy extends from the introductory course in Religious Studies, which invariably covers the many conflicting definitions of religion, to the highest levels of academic research and analysis—not merely in the field of Religious Studies, but in all fields of the humans sciences which deal with religion, Anthropology and Sociology in particular.
In addition to a faithful rendering of the traditional positions and historical sources for the definition of religion, this volume will offer a critical perspective which questions the existence and persistence of “religion” as a taken-for-granted taxon. The focus of the essays in the proposed volume, therefore, would not be limited to the specific question of how religion might be best defined, but would also focus on such issues as: (i) whether such definition is possible or even intellectually desirable; (ii) what the political, economic, and/or ideological preconditions might entailed in historical efforts to identify such a thing as “religion”; (iii) how such a category is constituted by specific historical discourses, both within the academy (such as the disciplines of the human sciences), and without (specifically, in situations of colonial contact).
Besides seeking to do the traditional work of a reader in covering its field of inquiry, this volume includes critical perspectives on the very constitution of that field. As such, it is has both historical breadth and contemporary relevance.
In the field of Religious Studies, the definition of the foundational category of “religion” has been, and continues to be, the object of much controversy. This controversy extends from the introductory course in Religious Studies, which invariably covers the many conflicting definitions of religion, to the highest levels of academic research and analysis—not merely in the field of Religious Studies, but in all fields of the humans sciences which deal with religion, Anthropology and Sociology in particular.
In addition to a faithful rendering of the traditional positions and historical sources for the definition of religion, this volume will offer a critical perspective which questions the existence and persistence of “religion” as a taken-for-granted taxon. The focus of the essays in the proposed volume, therefore, would not be limited to the specific question of how religion might be best defined, but would also focus on such issues as: (i) whether such definition is possible or even intellectually desirable; (ii) what the political, economic, and/or ideological preconditions might entailed in historical efforts to identify such a thing as “religion”; (iii) how such a category is constituted by specific historical discourses, both within the academy (such as the disciplines of the human sciences), and without (specifically, in situations of colonial contact).
Besides seeking to do the traditional work of a reader in covering its field of inquiry, this volume includes critical perspectives on the very constitution of that field. As such, it is has both historical breadth and contemporary relevance.
Contents
Selected contents:
Part I Historical Sources of the Category “Religion”
Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance Sources
Cicero on “religio”
Eusebius on “pietas”
Aquinas on “religio”
The Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment
“Religion” in Encyclopaedia Britannica, first edition, 1771.
Edward Hebert of Cherbury. 1705. The Ancient Religion of the Gentiles and Causes of Their Errors Considered.
Benedict de Spinoza. 1951. A Theologico-Political Treatise.
David Hume. Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.
Immanuel Kant. Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone.
Romanticism, Idealism, and Liberal Theology
Giambattista Vico. 1976. The New Science.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing. 1994. “New Hypothesis concerning the Evangelists Regarded as Merely Human Historians,” and “On the Origin of Revealed Religion.”
Friedrich Scheliermacher. 1958. On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers.
Ludwig Feuerbach. 1957. “The Essence of Religion Considered Generally.”
Georg W.F. Hegel. 1988. Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion.
Ernst Troeltsch. 1977. “Religion and the Science of Religion.”
English and American Positivism and Pragmatism
E.B. Tylor. The Origins of Culture.
James Frazer. 1981. The Golden Bough.
William James. 1985. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature.
Phenomenology
Rudolf Otto. 1958. The Idea of the Holy.
W.B. Kristensen. 1960. The Meaning of Religion.
Mircea Eliade. 1959. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion.
Part II Definitions of Religion from the Human Sciences
Psychology
Freud, Sigmund. 1907. “Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices.”
Carl Jung. 1971. “The Difference Between Eastern and Western Thinking.”
Anthropology
Geertz, Clifford. 1966. “Religion as a Cultural System.”
Spiro, Melford E. 1966. “Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation.”
LaBarre, Weston. 1970 [1990]. “Anthropology and Psychology of Religion.”
Bataille, Georges. 1991. “The Meaning of General Economy” and “Laws of General Economy.” The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume I Consumption.
Bataille, Georges, 1992. “Sacrifice, the Festival, and the Principles of the Sacred World.”
Sociology
Durkheim, Emil. 1965. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
Berger, Peter. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion.
Structuralism and Semiotics
Claude Levi-Strauss. 1967. “The Structural Study of Myth.”
Penner, Hans. 1989. Impasse and Resolution: A Critique of the Study of Religion.
History
Langmuir, Gavin. 1990. “A Definition of Religion”
Jameson, Fredric. 1971. “Visions of a Marxist Hermeneutic: Walter Benjamin; Or, Nostalgia.”
Feminism
Ruether, Rosemary R. 1975. New Woman, New Earth.
Specifications
| ISBN-10 (Hardback) | 1845530292 |
| ISBN-13 (Hardback) | 9781845530297 |
| Price (Hardback) | £70.00/$110.00 |
| ISBN-10 (Paperback) | 1845530306 |
| ISBN-13 (Paperback) | 9781845530303 |
| Price (Paperback) | £16.99/$27.95 |
| Publication Date | December 2011 |
| Pages | 416 |
| Size | 246 x 174mm |
| Readership | undergraduates |
| Book Status | Not yet published |
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