Pub Date : 2023-03-26DOI: 10.1177/20503032231166394
W. Goldstein
Critical Research on Religion held its fi rst conference from June 10-13 at Queen ’ s University in Belfast (QUB), Northern Ireland. 1 It was co-sponsored by The School of Social Sciences, Education
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Pub Date : 2023-01-27DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148463
Suzanne Owen
{"title":"Etic/Emic Considerations in Horii’s ‘Religion’ and ‘Secular’ Categories in Sociology","authors":"Suzanne Owen","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148463","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148463","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45634672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-23DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148473
Benjamin Fisher
{"title":"Book Review: Professor of Apocalypse: The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes","authors":"Benjamin Fisher","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148473","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148473","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48662410","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-12DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148470
N. Goldenberg
An anecdote that Mitsutoshi Horii sets out in his earlier book, The Category of ‘ Religion ’ in Contemporary Japan: Shukyo & Temple Buddhism (2018), illustrates that deconstructing discourse and narrative about matters pertaining to religion is a project that is never far from his mind. He tells his readers that a while ago, on a long fl ight from Tokyo to London, he reached for an in- fl ight magazine to help pass the time. What should have been a sopori fi c, anodyne piece of touristy prose quickly turned into something that provoked him. The following bland sentence stimulated his scholarly brain like caffeine: “ the days when a temple visit was a strictly solemn affair appear to be over, as Japan ’ s ubiquitous places of Buddhist worship open their gates to market traders and even yoga enthusiasts ” (1). Horii sees pervasive in fl uence of distorted narratives about history, au-thenticity, and propriety embedded in this well-intentioned statement. In his fi rst book, with careful and detailed critical scholarship, he counters the fantasies that underlie such prevalent assumptions about what constitutes religion in Japan. He examines the “ classi fi catory practices ” that pertain to Temple Buddhism and explains how the allied occupation imposed and utilized “ religion ” to construct an acceptable post-war Japanese state. “ Religion, ” he argues, operates in contemporary Japan as a constitutional and socio-economic category that, along with the construction of “ non-religion, ” serves particular “ purposes and interests. ” He writes that the term “ religion ” … “ is a rhetorical weapon, which is utilized in relation to speci fi c objectives. It is in this kind of struggle where different meanings of “ religion ” are constructed and
{"title":"Why ‘Religion’ and ‘Secular’ Categories in Sociology: Decolonizing the Modern Myth by Mitsutoshi Horii is a major contribution to critical religion","authors":"N. Goldenberg","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148470","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148470","url":null,"abstract":"An anecdote that Mitsutoshi Horii sets out in his earlier book, The Category of ‘ Religion ’ in Contemporary Japan: Shukyo & Temple Buddhism (2018), illustrates that deconstructing discourse and narrative about matters pertaining to religion is a project that is never far from his mind. He tells his readers that a while ago, on a long fl ight from Tokyo to London, he reached for an in- fl ight magazine to help pass the time. What should have been a sopori fi c, anodyne piece of touristy prose quickly turned into something that provoked him. The following bland sentence stimulated his scholarly brain like caffeine: “ the days when a temple visit was a strictly solemn affair appear to be over, as Japan ’ s ubiquitous places of Buddhist worship open their gates to market traders and even yoga enthusiasts ” (1). Horii sees pervasive in fl uence of distorted narratives about history, au-thenticity, and propriety embedded in this well-intentioned statement. In his fi rst book, with careful and detailed critical scholarship, he counters the fantasies that underlie such prevalent assumptions about what constitutes religion in Japan. He examines the “ classi fi catory practices ” that pertain to Temple Buddhism and explains how the allied occupation imposed and utilized “ religion ” to construct an acceptable post-war Japanese state. “ Religion, ” he argues, operates in contemporary Japan as a constitutional and socio-economic category that, along with the construction of “ non-religion, ” serves particular “ purposes and interests. ” He writes that the term “ religion ” … “ is a rhetorical weapon, which is utilized in relation to speci fi c objectives. It is in this kind of struggle where different meanings of “ religion ” are constructed and","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47915240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-29DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148475
A. Hale
The use of metaphors in religious rhetoric can be persuasive, inclusive, and edifying. They can also be belligerent, harmful, and divisive. This paper investigates the backlash against the use of a “muskets” metaphor in a recent speech by a prominent Mormon leader which targeted LGBTQ+ members, in the wider context of a traditionally fraught relationship between the Church and its LGBTQ+ membership. This paper argues that the speech represents an act of authoritarianism, reliant upon the institutionally-situated power of a Church leader. Critics have interpreted the speech’s use of violent metaphor as an unwarranted attack on some of the most vulnerable members of the Mormon community, paradoxically at a time when the Church was seen as moving towards a more inclusive position in doctrine and policy.
{"title":"“Muskets and Rainbows”: Why a Mormon Leader’s BYU Speech Failed, Metaphorically","authors":"A. Hale","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148475","url":null,"abstract":"The use of metaphors in religious rhetoric can be persuasive, inclusive, and edifying. They can also be belligerent, harmful, and divisive. This paper investigates the backlash against the use of a “muskets” metaphor in a recent speech by a prominent Mormon leader which targeted LGBTQ+ members, in the wider context of a traditionally fraught relationship between the Church and its LGBTQ+ membership. This paper argues that the speech represents an act of authoritarianism, reliant upon the institutionally-situated power of a Church leader. Critics have interpreted the speech’s use of violent metaphor as an unwarranted attack on some of the most vulnerable members of the Mormon community, paradoxically at a time when the Church was seen as moving towards a more inclusive position in doctrine and policy.","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44351160","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-26DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148472
Mubashar Hasan, S. Bose
This research paper examines how Bangladeshi youth perceive the role of Islam in their everyday lives and how this, in turn, informs broader political participation and radicalism. The emphasis is on unpacking the politics of meaning-making of Islam at the informal and individual levels eschewing a “high politics” approach that constitutes formal institutions and structures. Drawing on field-data collected in 2017 and 2018, this paper offers insights on the politics of faith in the everyday lives of ordinary Bangladeshi youths whose individual socio-political actions are inspired by their perception of what Islam is but not devoid from the influence of structures of high politics that constantly shapes and reshapes these individuals’ perception of Islam. The findings indicate that divisions exist among young Bangladeshis about what Islam constitutes and means. Specifically, it was observed that an emerging trend is to advance the idea of Islam as a majoritarian religion through signs, symbols, and the politics of space. Within this context, narratives of “good Muslim” and “bad Muslim” manifest and contribute into justifications for radicalisation and even terror activities.
{"title":"Politics of Constructing Islam in the Everyday Lives of Young Bangladeshis: Asserting Majoritarian Islam, and the “Good / Bad Muslim” Narrative","authors":"Mubashar Hasan, S. Bose","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148472","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148472","url":null,"abstract":"This research paper examines how Bangladeshi youth perceive the role of Islam in their everyday lives and how this, in turn, informs broader political participation and radicalism. The emphasis is on unpacking the politics of meaning-making of Islam at the informal and individual levels eschewing a “high politics” approach that constitutes formal institutions and structures. Drawing on field-data collected in 2017 and 2018, this paper offers insights on the politics of faith in the everyday lives of ordinary Bangladeshi youths whose individual socio-political actions are inspired by their perception of what Islam is but not devoid from the influence of structures of high politics that constantly shapes and reshapes these individuals’ perception of Islam. The findings indicate that divisions exist among young Bangladeshis about what Islam constitutes and means. Specifically, it was observed that an emerging trend is to advance the idea of Islam as a majoritarian religion through signs, symbols, and the politics of space. Within this context, narratives of “good Muslim” and “bad Muslim” manifest and contribute into justifications for radicalisation and even terror activities.","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48453432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-26DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148471
Anu K Antony, R. Robinson
The literature emphasizes institutional formation in the process of a young woman becoming a nun or sees her motivations as stemming from expectations of social and economic mobility. This article focuses on the nun’s call as event (Badiou 2001; Humphrey 2008), revealing its truth to the subject and reconstituting her by her fidelity to it. However, its validation and realization are only accomplished within the structured formation and discipline of congregational life. Through an ethnographic analysis of the lives of nuns in two indigenous Catholic convents in Kerala, South India, the article shows that they often have to struggle against their families to embrace their call. The congregation endorses the authenticity of a young woman’s call while requiring its constant reexamination through prayer and meditation. Thus, a nun’s call is encoded in formulaic structures through institutional formation, but its sensory and imaginary experiences are uniquely hers. Analytically distinguishing the calling event from the narrated event, the article integrates a Foucauldian understanding of disciplinary practices with Alain Badiou’s idea of the singular event for a grounded ethnographic grasp of the subject formation of a nun within her calling.
{"title":"Called to God: Event, Narration and Subject Formation in the Vocation of a Catholic Nun","authors":"Anu K Antony, R. Robinson","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148471","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148471","url":null,"abstract":"The literature emphasizes institutional formation in the process of a young woman becoming a nun or sees her motivations as stemming from expectations of social and economic mobility. This article focuses on the nun’s call as event (Badiou 2001; Humphrey 2008), revealing its truth to the subject and reconstituting her by her fidelity to it. However, its validation and realization are only accomplished within the structured formation and discipline of congregational life. Through an ethnographic analysis of the lives of nuns in two indigenous Catholic convents in Kerala, South India, the article shows that they often have to struggle against their families to embrace their call. The congregation endorses the authenticity of a young woman’s call while requiring its constant reexamination through prayer and meditation. Thus, a nun’s call is encoded in formulaic structures through institutional formation, but its sensory and imaginary experiences are uniquely hers. Analytically distinguishing the calling event from the narrated event, the article integrates a Foucauldian understanding of disciplinary practices with Alain Badiou’s idea of the singular event for a grounded ethnographic grasp of the subject formation of a nun within her calling.","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43092682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-26DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148467
Alexander Henley
For converts to critical religion like me, Mitsutoshi Horii’s latest book (2021) makes satisfying reading with its optimistic vision for serious engagement across disciplines, which has been sorely lacking. While critiques of the categories “religion” and “secular” have been shaking up religious studies since the 1990s, these started largely as auto-critique by religionists reflecting on the modern Western and colonial origins of their discipline. A growing number of scholars—including Horii— have been using those insights to open up new avenues for research in various fields of area studies. Today one can hardly write about “religion” in Japan or China or India or the African continent without at least acknowledging the colonial history of the category. Yet somehow the theoretical literature on critical religion remains stuck within a disciplinary silo, poorly understood and regarded by many as a niche sub-field of religious studies. Horii’s book represents an important move to bring it into the mainstream of sociology. Horii argues that critical religion must be integrated into the wider project to decolonize sociology and the social sciences at large. His book offers several valuable contributions to the work of making this happen: introducing the problem of religion-secular categories to those outside of religious studies (chapters 1-3); relating this problem to the mainstream corpus of sociology, from the founding fathers of the social sciences (chapter 4) to contemporary theorists and university textbooks (chapter 5); proposing decolonial correctives to recent trends in sociology that have attempted to rethink the category of the secular through “secularity” (chapter 6) and “multiple secularities” (chapter 7); and finally reflecting on how to move beyond the “secular” self-identity of a discipline like Sociology, and therefore escape its colonial positionality (chapter 8). Each chapter can stand alone as an accessible short reading for undergraduate courses. The way Horii presents it, the task of deconstructing the religion-secular binary should be an intuitive extension of the decolonial projects to denaturalize boundaries of nation, race, or gender. In fact he sees the critique of religion-secular categories as a sine qua non of decoloniality—not merely as adding value to or expanding the scope of current sociological literature. He was motivated to write this book by a frustration shared by many critical religionists: that the problems with the category religion are still routinely “acknowledged but then sidestepped” (Fitzgerald 2000, 136). In
{"title":"Why is it so difficult to get Critical Religion into the mainstream? Reflections on Horii’s ‘Religion’ and ‘Secular’ Categories in Sociology","authors":"Alexander Henley","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148467","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148467","url":null,"abstract":"For converts to critical religion like me, Mitsutoshi Horii’s latest book (2021) makes satisfying reading with its optimistic vision for serious engagement across disciplines, which has been sorely lacking. While critiques of the categories “religion” and “secular” have been shaking up religious studies since the 1990s, these started largely as auto-critique by religionists reflecting on the modern Western and colonial origins of their discipline. A growing number of scholars—including Horii— have been using those insights to open up new avenues for research in various fields of area studies. Today one can hardly write about “religion” in Japan or China or India or the African continent without at least acknowledging the colonial history of the category. Yet somehow the theoretical literature on critical religion remains stuck within a disciplinary silo, poorly understood and regarded by many as a niche sub-field of religious studies. Horii’s book represents an important move to bring it into the mainstream of sociology. Horii argues that critical religion must be integrated into the wider project to decolonize sociology and the social sciences at large. His book offers several valuable contributions to the work of making this happen: introducing the problem of religion-secular categories to those outside of religious studies (chapters 1-3); relating this problem to the mainstream corpus of sociology, from the founding fathers of the social sciences (chapter 4) to contemporary theorists and university textbooks (chapter 5); proposing decolonial correctives to recent trends in sociology that have attempted to rethink the category of the secular through “secularity” (chapter 6) and “multiple secularities” (chapter 7); and finally reflecting on how to move beyond the “secular” self-identity of a discipline like Sociology, and therefore escape its colonial positionality (chapter 8). Each chapter can stand alone as an accessible short reading for undergraduate courses. The way Horii presents it, the task of deconstructing the religion-secular binary should be an intuitive extension of the decolonial projects to denaturalize boundaries of nation, race, or gender. In fact he sees the critique of religion-secular categories as a sine qua non of decoloniality—not merely as adding value to or expanding the scope of current sociological literature. He was motivated to write this book by a frustration shared by many critical religionists: that the problems with the category religion are still routinely “acknowledged but then sidestepped” (Fitzgerald 2000, 136). In","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44324220","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-26DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148469
M. Rasekh
This research attempts to put forward an argument against the claim that the current legal/political system of Iran is undergoing a re-secularization process. It is argued, by focusing on concepts of the secular and the sacred/religious, that the system was never de-secularized by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The reason derives from the facts that the main allegedly religious content of the new system is per se a secular entity, and that the existing constitutional structure is overwhelmingly secular. The content overwhelmingly originates in fiqh which is argued to be a secular entity, i.e., an amoral one, as it accommodates immorality. It is then claimed that what occurred by the Revolution was indeed the triumph of a traditional secularism over an exogenous modern secular establishment. Therefore, since the early months of the new regime a process of re-modernization, an endogenous one, has gradually taken form.
{"title":"Traditional Secularism v. Modern Secularism A Word on the Nature of Fiqh and the Related Constitutional System","authors":"M. Rasekh","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148469","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148469","url":null,"abstract":"This research attempts to put forward an argument against the claim that the current legal/political system of Iran is undergoing a re-secularization process. It is argued, by focusing on concepts of the secular and the sacred/religious, that the system was never de-secularized by the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The reason derives from the facts that the main allegedly religious content of the new system is per se a secular entity, and that the existing constitutional structure is overwhelmingly secular. The content overwhelmingly originates in fiqh which is argued to be a secular entity, i.e., an amoral one, as it accommodates immorality. It is then claimed that what occurred by the Revolution was indeed the triumph of a traditional secularism over an exogenous modern secular establishment. Therefore, since the early months of the new regime a process of re-modernization, an endogenous one, has gradually taken form.","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41711743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-12-26DOI: 10.1177/20503032221148465
B. Worthington
{"title":"Book Review: The Immanence of Truths: Being and Event III","authors":"B. Worthington","doi":"10.1177/20503032221148465","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/20503032221148465","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":43214,"journal":{"name":"Critical Research on Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2022-12-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48087439","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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