{"title":"Covenants of Conscience: A Response to Keeley McMurray’s Constructing Conscience","authors":"J. Lorusso","doi":"10.1558/imre.41866","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41866","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43149918","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}
I have found it challenging and productive to revisit The Ideology of Religious Studies (IRS) twenty years after its publication. This article outlines the background to, and motivations for, writing IRS. IRS contains various arguments aimed against a complex target: liberal capitalism and agencies that serve to normalise its precepts and practices, particularly religious studies and the social sciences more widely. IRS was an early stage in a longer-term project – critical religion – that is still evolving. A core part of the argument was and is that the invention of generic religion and its binary opposite the non-religious secular operates rhetorically to make capitalism and liberal Individualism seem “natural,” with a mask of scientific objectivity, normality and respectability. However, I see retrospectively that there are two potentially antagonistic projects in IRS – limited critique and extended critique – which need to be analytically distinguished. This distinction may help to explain some differences in the responses of contributors.
{"title":"The Ideology of Religious Studies Then and Now: The Author’s View","authors":"T. Fitzgerald","doi":"10.1558/imre.41788","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41788","url":null,"abstract":"I have found it challenging and productive to revisit The Ideology of Religious Studies (IRS) twenty years after its publication. This article outlines the background to, and motivations for, writing IRS. IRS contains various arguments aimed against a complex target: liberal capitalism and agencies that serve to normalise its precepts and practices, particularly religious studies and the social sciences more widely. IRS was an early stage in a longer-term project – critical religion – that is still evolving. A core part of the argument was and is that the invention of generic religion and its binary opposite the non-religious secular operates rhetorically to make capitalism and liberal Individualism seem “natural,” with a mask of scientific objectivity, normality and respectability. However, I see retrospectively that there are two potentially antagonistic projects in IRS – limited critique and extended critique – which need to be analytically distinguished. This distinction may help to explain some differences in the responses of contributors.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49586260","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}
Why has Religious Studies failed to gain ground in Middle Eastern universities? This article aims to move beyond a lens of underdevelopment to think about the significance of Muslim opposition to the discipline. When we suppose that studying religion and religions is an obvious thing to do, we risk casting those who deliberately avoid it as somehow irrationally refusing to see what is in front of them. But what if their objections reveal something troubling about the received terms through which we talk about cultures around the world? By taking seriously a certain Islamic perspective on the terms of Western scholarship, this article highlights ways in which it supports Timothy Fitzgerald’s critique in The Ideology of Religious Studies (2000). It poses a challenge to the idea of value-free study of religion, religions and the religious as conducted through any discipline. This author’s hope is that a focus on Muslim voices may bring these concerns home in particular to the fields of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, where the terms of comparative Religious Studies have been embraced as an escape from Orientalism.
{"title":"Islam as a Challenge to The Ideology of Religious Studies: Failures of Religious Studies in the Middle East","authors":"Alexander Henley","doi":"10.1558/imre.41518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41518","url":null,"abstract":"Why has Religious Studies failed to gain ground in Middle Eastern universities? This article aims to move beyond a lens of underdevelopment to think about the significance of Muslim opposition to the discipline. When we suppose that studying religion and religions is an obvious thing to do, we risk casting those who deliberately avoid it as somehow irrationally refusing to see what is in front of them. But what if their objections reveal something troubling about the received terms through which we talk about cultures around the world? By taking seriously a certain Islamic perspective on the terms of Western scholarship, this article highlights ways in which it supports Timothy Fitzgerald’s critique in The Ideology of Religious Studies (2000). It poses a challenge to the idea of value-free study of religion, religions and the religious as conducted through any discipline. This author’s hope is that a focus on Muslim voices may bring these concerns home in particular to the fields of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, where the terms of comparative Religious Studies have been embraced as an escape from Orientalism.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47103988","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}
In my first contribution to this issue, I looked at my motives for writing The Ideology of Religious Studies (IRS). I tried to sort out some of the inherent problems and contradictions in IRS, as well as the parts that seem to me to be valid and worthwhile. I suggested that, when I wrote IRS, I was not fully conscious that there is an unresolved tension between two different projects. One is limited critique, which tries to isolate the critical deconstruction of religion and turns a half-opened eye to the similar and inherent problems in other categories strongly associated with “secular” universities, such as “politics,” “society,” “nation” or “culture.” The other is extended or unlimited critique, which follows the critical logic where it goes, and consistently subjects other categories to similar treatment. I was not fully conscious of this antagonism at the time of writing, and I think it may help to understand the different things that different people have derived from IRS.
{"title":"Response to Contributors","authors":"T. Fitzgerald","doi":"10.1558/imre.41791","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41791","url":null,"abstract":"In my first contribution to this issue, I looked at my motives for writing The Ideology of Religious Studies (IRS). I tried to sort out some of the inherent problems and contradictions in IRS, as well as the parts that seem to me to be valid and worthwhile. I suggested that, when I wrote IRS, I was not fully conscious that there is an unresolved tension between two different projects. One is limited critique, which tries to isolate the critical deconstruction of religion and turns a half-opened eye to the similar and inherent problems in other categories strongly associated with “secular” universities, such as “politics,” “society,” “nation” or “culture.” The other is extended or unlimited critique, which follows the critical logic where it goes, and consistently subjects other categories to similar treatment. I was not fully conscious of this antagonism at the time of writing, and I think it may help to understand the different things that different people have derived from IRS.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42225857","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}
{"title":"Twenty Years After The Ideology of Religious Studies","authors":"T. Taira, S. Owen","doi":"10.1558/imre.41762","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41762","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48619584","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}
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.
{"title":"The End of Religious Studies (as we knew it)","authors":"S. Owen","doi":"10.1558/imre.41526","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41526","url":null,"abstract":"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.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44581442","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}
During my doctoral research, I looked at a specific type of medium who lives in the north of Japan. Although many of these figures are categorised as religious, the activity and role they cover in their communities goes beyond the “religious” function. In light of this consideration, I became interested in the use of the term religion, as its application in this context limited the capacity to understand these mediums. As I began questioning the category of religion, I was introduced by my supervisor to The Ideology of Religious Studies by Fitzgerald. The book quickly became a relevant source to understand the development of the discourse on the study of religion and in my specific region of research: Asia, and more specifically, Japan. Since then, I have applied his critical approach to the study of religion to my methodology of research, coupling it with visual ethnographic methods, “giving a body” to Fitzgerald’s observations in his critique of religion in Asia. This paper will explore the use of the critical religion approach in the analysis of the use of the concept in Japan and, more specifically, in the study of the Itako mediums of Nord Tohoku. This work will also be related to the visual ethnographic work moulded on the critique of religion as conceived by Fitzgerald.
{"title":"The Relevance of Fitzgerald’s Critical Approach to the Study of Religions in Asia","authors":"I. Vecchi","doi":"10.1558/imre.41105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41105","url":null,"abstract":"During my doctoral research, I looked at a specific type of medium who lives in the north of Japan. Although many of these figures are categorised as religious, the activity and role they cover in their communities goes beyond the “religious” function. In light of this consideration, I became interested in the use of the term religion, as its application in this context limited the capacity to understand these mediums. As I began questioning the category of religion, I was introduced by my supervisor to The Ideology of Religious Studies by Fitzgerald. The book quickly became a relevant source to understand the development of the discourse on the study of religion and in my specific region of research: Asia, and more specifically, Japan. Since then, I have applied his critical approach to the study of religion to my methodology of research, coupling it with visual ethnographic methods, “giving a body” to Fitzgerald’s observations in his critique of religion in Asia. This paper will explore the use of the critical religion approach in the analysis of the use of the concept in Japan and, more specifically, in the study of the Itako mediums of Nord Tohoku. This work will also be related to the visual ethnographic work moulded on the critique of religion as conceived by Fitzgerald.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44876135","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}
Timothy Fitzgerald’s The Ideology of Religious Studies should not be read as something just about “religion,” but about the modern Euro- American “secularity,” which functions to mystify the colonial matrix of power of Euro-American modernity. Fitzgerald’s later work focuses on two mutually parasitic categories of “religion” and “politics.” As a case study of the Fitzgeraldian perspective, this article examines the construction of the religion-politics distinction in Japan since the late nineteenth century. In the latter half of the nineteenth century the aggression of Euro-American colonial power motivated Japan’s elites to institutionalize the nation based upon the Euro-American concepts of “politics” and “religion.” After Japan’s defeat in the Second World War in 1945, the US-led Allied Occupation redefined prewar Japanese state orthodoxy and institutions as “religion,” in order to eliminate them from the post-war Japanese statecraft.
蒂莫西·菲茨杰拉德(Timothy Fitzgerald)的《宗教研究意识形态》(The Ideology of Religious Studies)不应被解读为仅仅是关于“宗教”，而是关于现代欧美的“世俗主义”，它的作用是使欧美现代性的殖民权力矩阵变得神秘。菲茨杰拉德的后期作品主要关注“宗教”和“政治”这两个相互寄生的范畴。本文以菲茨杰拉德视角为个案，考察了19世纪末以来日本政教分离的建构。19世纪下半叶，欧美殖民主义列强的侵略促使日本精英以欧美的“政治”和“宗教”概念为基础，将国家制度化。1945年日本在第二次世界大战中战败后，以美国为首的盟军占领将战前的日本国家正统观念和制度重新定义为“宗教”，以便将它们从战后的日本治国方术中消除。
{"title":"“Religion” and “Politics”: A Japanese Case","authors":"M. Horii","doi":"10.1558/imre.41013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41013","url":null,"abstract":"Timothy Fitzgerald’s The Ideology of Religious Studies should not be read as something just about “religion,” but about the modern Euro- American “secularity,” which functions to mystify the colonial matrix of power of Euro-American modernity. Fitzgerald’s later work focuses on two mutually parasitic categories of “religion” and “politics.” As a case study of the Fitzgeraldian perspective, this article examines the construction of the religion-politics distinction in Japan since the late nineteenth century. In the latter half of the nineteenth century the aggression of Euro-American colonial power motivated Japan’s elites to institutionalize the nation based upon the Euro-American concepts of “politics” and “religion.” After Japan’s defeat in the Second World War in 1945, the US-led Allied Occupation redefined prewar Japanese state orthodoxy and institutions as “religion,” in order to eliminate them from the post-war Japanese statecraft.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43450090","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}
Using as the starting point experiences gained at the University of Alabama, this paper discusses the context and goals of developing and implementing what Tim Fitzgerald and others have called a critical study of religion program (both undergraduate and graduate) within a modern research university – an initiative that played a key role in our department’s successful reinvention, one that has been taking place over the past twenty years.
{"title":"Critical Thinking Begins at Home: On Making a Shift in the Study of Religion","authors":"R. Mccutcheon","doi":"10.1558/imre.41110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/imre.41110","url":null,"abstract":"Using as the starting point experiences gained at the University of Alabama, this paper discusses the context and goals of developing and implementing what Tim Fitzgerald and others have called a critical study of religion program (both undergraduate and graduate) within a modern research university – an initiative that played a key role in our department’s successful reinvention, one that has been taking place over the past twenty years.","PeriodicalId":53963,"journal":{"name":"Implicit Religion","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44112989","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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