Theory in a Time of Excess - Beyond Reflection and Explanation in Religious Studies Scholarship - Aaron W. Hughes
7. The High Stakes of Identifying (with) One's Object of Study
Theory in a Time of Excess - Beyond Reflection and Explanation in Religious Studies Scholarship - Aaron W. Hughes
K. Merinda Simmons [+]
University of Alabama
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K. Merinda Simmons is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Graduate Director of the Religion in Culture MA Program at the University of Alabama. Her books include Changing the Subject: Writing Women across the African Diaspora (Ohio State UP, 2014), The Trouble with Post-Blackness (co-edited with Houston A. Baker, Jr., Columbia UP, 2015), and Race and New Modernisms (co-authored with James A. Crank, Bloomsbury, 2019). She is editor of the book series Concepts in the Study of Religion: Critical Primers (Equinox).
Description
Simmons reflects on her training in English to argue for the centrality of critical theory to interrogate power dynamics, specifically the ways in which race, gender, sexuality, capital are constructed. She then juxtaposes this with the study of identity formation in the academic study of religion. The latter, unlike the former, is predicated upon a rejection of post-structuralist critique so as to take stock of “lived experiences” of marginalized groups. What accounts for this inversion, she suggest, is the relationship between scholars and their object of study.