Interdisciplinarity in Nondisciplines: Archive and Academe in the Study of Religion

Abstract

This article reveals, criticizes, and attempts to overcome the systemic divides between the ideals of an interdisciplinarily employed archive and the realities of a disciplinarily deployed academy. Following an initial section on “Parameters and Proposals” in which I frame the ambit and arguments to follow, in “Religious Studies as Nondiscipline” I argue against the view that religious studies constitutes a discrete discipline. In “Interdisciplinarity and Nondisciplines” I theorize interdisciplinarity and argue for a conceptual relationship between it and the study of religion. Subsequent sections on “Interdisciplinarity in the Practice” and “An Interdisciplinarity in Practice” relate the practical consequences of my account for university-based professional religious studies, and provide an exemplary case study of the alternative approach advanced. Finally, in “Archive and Academe” I draw on contemporary theorizations of the archive to propose the study of religion, as here conceived, to be preeminently located to enact long overdue structural change in academe.