The End of Religious Studies (as we knew it)
Fitzgerald’s The Ideology of Religious Studies was published the year before I started my Master’s degree at the University of Edinburgh and was brought to my attention by James Cox, my supervisor. It led me to question everything I had learned as a Religious Studies undergraduate and sparked my fir...
Main Author: | |
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Format: | Electronic Article |
Language: | English |
Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
Journals Online & Print: | |
Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
Published: |
Equinox
[2020]
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In: |
Implicit religion
Year: 2020, Volume: 22, Issue: 3/4, Pages: 319-330 |
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Fitzgerald, Timothy 1947-, The ideology of religious studies
/ Science of Religion
/ Critique of religion
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IxTheo Classification: | AA Study of religion |
Further subjects: | B
Phenomenology
B Religious Studies B critical religion B Realism |
Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
Summary: | Fitzgerald’s The Ideology of Religious Studies was published the year before I started my Master’s degree at the University of Edinburgh and was brought to my attention by James Cox, my supervisor. It led me to question everything I had learned as a Religious Studies undergraduate and sparked my first essay (in 2001), titled “Religious Studies: What is it?” In it, I had seen the problem of “what is it?” as a methodological issue as well as a definitional one and predicted an expansion of Religious Studies along phenomenological lines. Today, while still recognising colleagues’ fears that Fitzgerald’s book undermines the study of religion, I rather see his critique as making the study of religion more important than ever, though not in the way I had described in my 2001 essay. My paper will revisit those early responses to the book (mine and others’), asking if we are indeed seeing the end of Religious Studies (as we knew it), and show how Fitzgerald’s critique has instead opened up and transformed the study of religion, at least in my own research and teaching. |
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ISSN: | 1743-1697 |
Contains: | Enthalten in: Implicit religion
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Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1558/imre.41526 |