e-rhizome 2020, 2(2):81-91 | DOI: 10.5507/rh.2020.006

Religious Literacy and Our Pre-Critical Past

Russell T. McCutcheon
University of Alabama
211 Presidents Hall, (205) 348-8512, United States
russell.mccutcheon@ua.edu

Using the recent emphasis on teaching religious literacy as an example, the paper argues that, despite seeming advances over the past few generations, the academic study of religion continues to employ problematic methods and terminology, indicative of unresolved theoretical issues that remain at the heart of this scholarly exercise.

Keywords: Critical religion; Interreligious dialogue; North American Association for the Study of Religion; Phenomenology of religion; Religious literacy; World religions paradigm

Published: December 30, 2020  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
McCutcheon, R.T. (2020). Religious Literacy and Our Pre-Critical Past. e-rhizome, 2(2), 81-91. doi: 10.5507/rh.2020.006
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Alles, Gregory D. "Private Money and the Study of Religions: Problems, Perils, and Possibilities." Unpublished paper presented to the annual meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Religion, San Diego, CA, 2019.
    2. Baldwin, Matthew C. "Objects and Objections: Methodological Reflections on the Data for Religious Studies." In Construction "Data" in Religious Studies: Examining the Architecture of the Academy, edited by Leslie Dorrough Smith, 73-100. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishers, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1558/equinox.34171 Go to original source...
    3. Cotter, Christopher R., and David G. Robertson (eds.). After World Religions Reconstructing Religious Studies. New York and London: Routledge, 2016. https://doi.org/10.1163/15685276-12341522 Go to original source...
    4. Crews, Emily. "Perhaps Action Enough." In Method Today: Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Brad Stoddard, 114-118. Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2018.
    5. Cuthbertson, Ian Alexander. "Preaching to the Choir? Religious Studies and Religionization." In Method Today: Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Brad Stoddard, 96-105. Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2018.
    6. Dubuisson, Daniel. The Invention of Religion. Translated by Martha Cunningham. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishers, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1558/equinox.36510 Go to original source...
    7. Fitzgerald, Timothy. "Hinduism and the 'World Religion' Fallacy." Religion 20 (1990): 101-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/0048-721X(90)90099-R Go to original source...
    8. Goldenberg, Naomi R. "The Category of Religion in the Technology of Governance: An Argument for Understanding Religions as Vestigial States." In Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty, edited by Trevor Stack, Naomi Goldenberg and Timothy Fitzgerald, 280-292. Leiden: Brill, 2015. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004290594_013 Go to original source...
    9. Goldenberg, Naomi R. "Forget About Defining 'It': Reflections on Thinking Differently in Religious Studies." In Method Today: Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion, edited by Brad Stoddard, 79-95. Sheffield, UK: Equinox, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1558/equinox.34425 Go to original source...
    10. Martin, Craig. "'The Thing Itself Always Steals Away': Scholars and the Constitution of Their Objects of Study." In Constructing "Data" in Religious Studies: Examining the Architecture of the Academy, edited by Leslie Dorrough Smith, 151-174. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishers, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1558/equinox.34176 Go to original source...
    11. Martin, Luther H. and Donald Wiebe. "Religious Studies as a Scientific Discipline: The Persistence of a Delusion." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80, no. 3 (2012): 587-597. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfs030 Go to original source...
    12. Masuzawa, Tomoko. The Invention of World Religions Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226922621.001.0001 Go to original source...
    13. McCutcheon, Russell T. Critics Not Caretakers: Redescribing the Public Study of Religion. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2001. https://doi.org/10.1177/000842980103000346 Go to original source...
    14. McCutcheon, Russell T. The Discipline of Religion: Structure, Meaning, Rhetoric. New York and London: Routledge, 2003. https://doi.org/10.1093/jaarel/lfj069 Go to original source...
    15. McCutcheon, Russell T. Fabricating Religion: Fanfare for the Common e.g. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110560831 Go to original source...
    16. McCutcheon, Russell T. For Example: On Making a Shift in the Study of Religion. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021. Go to original source...
    17. McDannel, Collen. Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1996.98.4.02a00560 Go to original source...
    18. Owen, Suzanne. "The World Religions Paradigm: Time for a Change." Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 10, no. 3 (2011): 253-268. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474022211408038 Go to original source...
    19. Prothero, Stephen. Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know-And Doesn't. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.2007.00591.x Go to original source...
    20. Proudfoot, Wayne. Religious Experience. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
    21. Rosenhagen, Ulrich. "The Value of Teaching Religious Literacy." In The Chronicle of Higher Education (December 2015): https://www.chronicle.com/article/The-Value-of-Teaching/234393 (accessed 16 September 2019).
    22. Smith, Leslie Dorrough. "On the Grammar of Teaching Religious Studies." Unpublished paper presented to the annual meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Religion, San Diego, CA, 2019.
    23. Tong, M. Adryael. "Categorization and its Discontents." In Constructing "Data" in Religious Studies: Examining the Architecture of the Academy, edited by Leslie Dorrough Smith, 38-47. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishers, 2019.
    24. Touna, Vaia. "Scholars and the Framing of Objects." In Constructing "Data" in Religious Studies: Examining the Architecture of the Academy, edited by Leslie Dorrough Smith, 175-182. Sheffield, UK: Equinox Publishers, 2019.

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content