{"title":"Teaching Religion Within an Object-Oriented Ontology","authors":"M. Mackay","doi":"10.1080/15507394.2021.2013699","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Religion is often taught as a topic within culture and scholars have increasingly argued alongside J. Z. Smith’s position that religion cannot be taught as a thing-in-itself. This essay not only challenges that assumption, but it also addresses how religion can be taught and understood as a nonhuman entity outside of thought and in-itself. Within the developing literature about material religion, this essay will use Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology to theorize about learning how one might teach religion as an agentic thing-in-itself. Harman’s unique speculative philosophy enables teaching to embrace material religion and things as agents, while creating a framework of assemblages and a social ontology to express the modern academic nature of “religion.” This is an argument for teaching religion as religion, while emphasizing diversity, pluralism, and the nonhuman world of religion.","PeriodicalId":43359,"journal":{"name":"Religion & Education","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.4000,"publicationDate":"2021-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"2","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Religion & Education","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/15507394.2021.2013699","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"RELIGION","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 2
Abstract
Abstract Religion is often taught as a topic within culture and scholars have increasingly argued alongside J. Z. Smith’s position that religion cannot be taught as a thing-in-itself. This essay not only challenges that assumption, but it also addresses how religion can be taught and understood as a nonhuman entity outside of thought and in-itself. Within the developing literature about material religion, this essay will use Graham Harman’s object-oriented ontology to theorize about learning how one might teach religion as an agentic thing-in-itself. Harman’s unique speculative philosophy enables teaching to embrace material religion and things as agents, while creating a framework of assemblages and a social ontology to express the modern academic nature of “religion.” This is an argument for teaching religion as religion, while emphasizing diversity, pluralism, and the nonhuman world of religion.