May 2014
Beginner
376 pages
13h 21m
English
And you thought you’d give me some more material? Alas, I’ve got too much already … I don’t need any more data. What I need is a theory to explain it all.
– Morris Zapp (Lodge 1984, 28)
The academic study of religion, as the rubric itself suggests, should conform in principle to the same protocol as does the academic study of anything. Earlier views of “religion” as sui generis, together with consequent arguments for some special method that is itself “religious” or that “brackets” what is considered to be “religious” from academic inquiry, deny this fundamental premise. The academic study of religion should, in other words, be in no way privileged—unless, of course, the counterintuitive ...
Read now
Unlock full access