Constructing Data in Religious Studies - Examining the Architecture of the Academy - Leslie Dorrough Smith

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 [+-]
Fullerton College
Martha Smith is Professor of Religious Studies at Fullerton College in Southern California. Her current research and teaching interests include North American religious diversity and pluralism, race and ethnicity studies, diversity and social justice. Her courses focus on the diversity of the American religious landscape, especially the ways in which race, gender, and ethnicity are connected to religious identities and the significance of material culture and lived religious experience in American life.

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.

Notify A Colleague

Citation

Smith-Roberts, Martha. 13. Serial Killers and Scholars of Religion. Constructing Data in Religious Studies - Examining the Architecture of the Academy. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 183-191 Oct 2019. ISBN 9781781796764. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=34178. Date accessed: 15 Mar 2025 doi: 10.1558/equinox.34178. Oct 2019

Dublin Core Metadata