Storytracking the Academic Study of Religion

The shift toward a proper academic study of religion is tracked and articulated by the comparative consideration of the way two central scholars—Mircea Eliade and Jonathan Smith—approached the same culturally specific example. Eliade’s approach is heavy-handed, using the example to support his assumed academic theology. Smith, who critiqued Eliade’s approach, offered an alternative interpretation that foregrounded difference and incongruity, religion as ongoing processes of application and adjustments. Based on these comparative studies, the chapter turns to an extensive consideration of their sources to critically evaluate Eliade’s and Smith’s approaches. Developing an academic comparative method called storytracking, which is based on a multiperspectival approach, the chapter offers creative advancements to topics essential to a proper academic study of religion, including definition, comparison, interpretation, academic writing styles, and the importance of ensuring that the subject of study has an actual presence.