Reflections on an Academic Pursuit of Religion

Abstract

The study of religion is a contested field of investigation that has for thepast two decades challenged my thinking on the subject. 'An unofficialphilosopher of religion who received his academic training from a historian'sums up my story as an accidental scholar of religion. On the whole,I see my work as a series of successive leaps, unbound by any one particularproject. As a mid-career academic, I am in the process of yet anotherleap, as it were. The one thing that anchors what I do is the simultaneoushistorical and philosophical pursuit of what religion is.