Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion - Leslie Dorrough Smith

Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion - Leslie Dorrough Smith

18. Unintentionally Constructing ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Religions in Teaching Classical European Social Theories at a Japanese University

Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion - Leslie Dorrough Smith

Mitsutoshi Horii [+-]
Shumei University
Mitsutoshi Horii is Professor at Shumei University, Japan, working at Chaucer College, UK, as Shumei’s representative. His research focuses on the function of modern categories, such as “religion,” and examines the ways they authorize specific norms in a variety of contexts.

Description

This essay on teaching in the context of a Japanese university demonstrates that colloquial definitions of religion that are common in Japan make it very difficult for Japanese students to avoid categorizing religions as “good” and “bad,” particularly when they are learning about classical sociological theories of religion. The author argues that because such theories make Western presumptions about religion’s nature that are quite different from traditional Japanese conceptualizations of the concept, the use of the term “religion” is virtually meaningless in this setting.

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Citation

Horii, Mitsutoshi. 18. Unintentionally Constructing ‘Good’ and ‘Bad’ Religions in Teaching Classical European Social Theories at a Japanese University. Hijacked - A Critical Treatment of the Public Rhetoric of Good and Bad Religion. Equinox eBooks Publishing, United Kingdom. p. 194-204 Aug 2020. ISBN 9781781797273. https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/view-chapter/?id=35435. Date accessed: 12 Oct 2024 doi: 10.1558/equinox.35435. Aug 2020

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