Constructing Data in Religious Studies - Examining the Architecture of the Academy - Leslie Dorrough Smith
13. Serial Killers and Scholars of Religion
Constructing Data in Religious Studies - Examining the Architecture of the Academy - Leslie Dorrough Smith
Martha Smith Roberts [+]
Fullerton College
Description
This chapter responds to Craig Martin’s discussion of the realist/anti-realist debate and its importance to the academic study of religion. Building on Martin’s call to take anti-realism seriously, this response begins to imagine how an anti-realist theoretical framework could become a part of the field's self-definition. Could anti-realism provide a foundation for the academic study of religion to construct itself as a field that acknowledges the strength of second-order critical thought as its central form and content? As a framework that renders visible the creation of both religion and scholars of religion, the author suggests that anti-realism can be generative of the field’s value.