Method Today - Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion - Brad Stoddard
4. On Z-factors and Empires
Method Today - Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion - Brad Stoddard
Andrew Durdin [+]
Florida State University
Andrew Durdin is assistant teaching professor in the Department of Religion at Florida State
University. His work focuses on critical approaches to the study of religion with an emphasis on the Roman imperial period, the modern historiography of ancient religions, and magic and
religion in the ancient and modern world.
Description
This chapter examines the often suppressed conceptual frameworks that normalize “religions” as privileged units of comparison in the study of religion. Starting from Aaron Hughes’s essay, this chapter highlights how the category of “empire” operates as such a framework, and argues that problematizing this framework (and other such frameworks) raises interesting questions about the historical conditions and specific motives that transform fluid social practices into discrete comparative units.