Reviews

Dubuisson provides a smart overview of this important critique of the central concept in our field, and this slim book would be useful for the classroom.
Reading Religion


From the AAR awards jury:
Daniel Dubuisson’s The Invention of Religions is an exhaustive look at the evolution over time of the non-confessional study of religion, known both as the history of religions and religious studies. Dubuisson charts the major issues and assumptions … that have animated these fields. … What he offers is a snapshot in time of how these disciplines and their purported subject—“religion”—shift in line with a number of other social forces.

For interested readers who are unfamiliar with current theoretical debates in the academic study of religions, this book will provide an eye-opening introduction to theory, much of which Dubuisson has contributed to developing over the course of his career. For serious students and scholars of religion who may never have taken or taught courses on theory and method in the study of religions, this is the type of book they should want to read. The chapters will prove to be short enough to assign in courses, without intimidating students, yet dense enough to be expanded with commentaries from more traditional lectures that provide ample room for intellectual engagement through meaningful classroom discussions.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion