Description
Book SynopsisThis is the first reader to gather primary sources from influential theorists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in one place, presenting the wide-ranging and nuanced theoretical debates occurring in the field of religious studies. Each chapter focuses on a major theorist and contains: an introduction contextualizing their key ideas one or two selections representative of the theorist's innovative methodological approach(es) discussion questions to extend and deepen reader engagement Divided in three sections, the first part includes foundational comparative debates: Mary Douglas's articulation of purity and impurity Phyllis Trible's methods of reading sacred texts Wendy Doniger's comparative mythology Catherine Bell's reimagining of religious and secular ritualThe second part focuses on methodological particularity: Alice Walker''s use of narrative Charles Long's critique of Eurocentricism Caroli
Trade Review[An] important resource for any religious studies course that includes a theoretical dimension. * Nova Religio *
Serving as brief intellectual-biographical histories, these essays illumine the preoccupations and priorities that have motivated influential scholars’s work. While the text is not a required counterpart for the Reader, the editors note that its contributions profitably locate the span of its contents within personal and historiographical worlds, opening an aperture for students to further reflect on their own locations and the disciplinary contexts in which these texts are situated. It is also worth noting that these essays deserve careers of their own as documents of intellectual history and could be usefully assigned together or apart in graduate as well as undergraduate seminars. * Reading Religion *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Permissions Introduction
PART ONE: Comparative Approaches 1. The Bounds of Hierarchy: Mary Douglas
2. Feminist Textual Critique: Phyllis Trible
3. Myth and the Religious Imaginary: Wendy Doniger
4. Ritual and Belief: Catherine Bell
PART TWO: Examining Particularities 5. Womanist Religious Interpretation: Alice Walker
6. Signifying Religion in the Modern World: Charles H. Long
7. Gender and Materiality: Caroline Walker Bynum
PART THREE: Expanding Boundaries 8. Mestiza Language of Religion: Gloria Anzaldúa
9. Performative, Queer Theories for Religion: Judith Butler
10. Disrupting Secular Power and the Study of Religion: Index
