Religious Studies and the Goal of Interdisciplinarity

Religious Studies and the Goal of Interdisciplinarity PDF Author: Brent Smith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429671121
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 112

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Book Description
This book offers a survey of the development of interdisciplinarity in religious studies within academia and offers ways for it to continue to progress in contemporary universities. It examines the use of the term ‘interdisciplinary’ in the context of the academic study of religion and how it shapes the way scholarly work in this field has developed. The text uses two main elements to discuss religious studies as a field. Firstly, it looks at the history of the development of religious studies in academia, as seen through an interdisciplinary critique of the university as an epistemological project. It then uses the same interdisciplinary critique to develop a foundation for a 21st-century hermeneutic, one which uses the classical concepts reprised by that interdisciplinary critique and retools the field for the 21st century. Setting out both the objects of religious studies as a subject and the techniques used to employ the study of those objects, this book offers an invaluable perspective on the progress of the field. It will, therefore, be of great use to scholars of research methods within religious studies.

Religious Studies and the Goal of Interdisciplinarity

Religious Studies and the Goal of Interdisciplinarity PDF Author: Brent Smith
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429671121
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 112

Get Book

Book Description
This book offers a survey of the development of interdisciplinarity in religious studies within academia and offers ways for it to continue to progress in contemporary universities. It examines the use of the term ‘interdisciplinary’ in the context of the academic study of religion and how it shapes the way scholarly work in this field has developed. The text uses two main elements to discuss religious studies as a field. Firstly, it looks at the history of the development of religious studies in academia, as seen through an interdisciplinary critique of the university as an epistemological project. It then uses the same interdisciplinary critique to develop a foundation for a 21st-century hermeneutic, one which uses the classical concepts reprised by that interdisciplinary critique and retools the field for the 21st century. Setting out both the objects of religious studies as a subject and the techniques used to employ the study of those objects, this book offers an invaluable perspective on the progress of the field. It will, therefore, be of great use to scholars of research methods within religious studies.

Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry

Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry PDF Author: Robin W. Lovin
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 1467447048
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Can a neuroscientist help a theologian interpret a medieval mystical text? Can a historian of religion help an anthropologist understand the effects of social cooperation on human evolution? Can a legal scholar and a theologian help each other think about how fear of God relates to respect for the law? In this volume leading scholars in ethics, theology, and social science sum up three years of study and conversation regarding the value of interdisciplinary theological inquiry. This is an essential and challenging collection for all who set out to think, write, teach, and preach theologically in the contemporary world. CONTRIBUTORS: John P. Burgess Peter Danchin Celia Deane-Drummond Agustín Fuentes Andrea Hollingsworth Robin W. Lovin Joshua Mauldin Friederike Nüssel Mary Ellen O'Connell Douglas F. Ottati Stephen Pope Colleen Shantz Michael Spezio

The Shaping of Rationality

The Shaping of Rationality PDF Author: J. Wentzel van Huyssteen
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
ISBN: 9780802838681
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
This book arises out of a deep fascination with the relationship between human intelligence and rationality, and with how our fragile but uniquely human ability to be rational invariably affects our everyday lives as well as our involvement with faith, theology, and the spectacular scientific achievements of our time. After carefully analyzing the notion of rationality and examining how the skill of rationality is being challenged by postmodern culture, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen argues that it is precisely the problem of rationality that holds the key to understanding the complex forces shaping the radically different domains of religion and science today.

African American Religious Studies

African American Religious Studies PDF Author: Gayraud S. Wilmore
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 498

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Book Description
Gayraud S. Wilmore is Professor of Church History and Afro-American Religious Studies at The Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Georgia. He has published numerous articles and booksl including Black Witness to the Apostolic Faith, David Shannon, co-ed.; Black and Presbyterian: The Heritage and the Hope; and Last Things First. Professor Wilmore is the recpicient of the Bruce Klunder Award of the Presbyterian Interracial Councils (1969), the Sward of the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Harlem (1971), and various honorary degrees.

Literature and Theology

Literature and Theology PDF Author: Dr Heather Walton
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1409481425
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
This book explores current trends in the interdisciplinary study of literature and theology - an area of academic activity that has developed dramatically in the past twenty years. The field of study originated from the impetus to embrace the richness of imaginative resources in theological reflection and was stimulated by the re-emergence of the sacred in contemporary theory. Since the mid '90s critical theory has undergone a number of significant transformations, theology has become a subject of public concern and the boundaries between sacred and cultural texts have become increasingly unstable. This book brings together the work of leading scholars in the field with that of emerging voices. Offering an important resource for the growing number of postgraduate courses exploring the relation between religion and culture in the contemporary context, this book delineates current trends in interdisciplinary debate as well as tracing emerging configurations.

Understanding World Religions

Understanding World Religions PDF Author: Irving Hexham
Publisher: Zondervan Academic
ISBN: 0310314488
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 513

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Book Description
Globalization and high-speed communication put twenty-first century people in contact with adherents to a wide variety of world religions, but usually, valuable knowledge of these other traditions is limited at best. On the one hand, religious stereotypes abound, hampering a serious exploration of unfamiliar philosophies and practices. On the other hand, the popular idea that all religions lead to the same God or the same moral life fails to account for the distinctive origins and radically different teachings found across the world’s many religions. Understanding World Religions presents religion as a complex and intriguing matrix of history, philosophy, culture, beliefs, and practices. Hexham believes that a certain degree of objectivity and critique is inherent in the study of religion, and he guides readers in responsible ways of carrying this out. Of particular importance is Hexham’s decision to explore African religions, which have frequently been absent from major religion texts. He surveys these in addition to varieties of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

A Christian Approach to Interdisciplinary Studies

A Christian Approach to Interdisciplinary Studies PDF Author: William Dennison
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
ISBN: 1498276202
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 134

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Book Description
In an academic world that has rejected a Christian ontology, metaphysic, and epistemology, as well as the secular foundationalism of modernity, one is hard-pressed to find any secular academician in the field of interdisciplinary studies (IDS) advocating a definitive starting point and methodology for IDS. In A Christian Approach to Interdisciplinary Studies, William D. Dennison asks, is such a study truly integrative that does not have an ontological, integrative starting point and the constitutive component of method? To put the question another way, without the God of the Bible as the author of integration within creation, can there truly be IDS? Indeed, Dennison calls for the integration of approach and method, integration provided and modeled by the triune God of Scripture. Adapted from the Preface

Discourse Research and Religion

Discourse Research and Religion PDF Author: Jay Johnston
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110473437
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
The discursive study of religion is a growing field that attracts increasing numbers of students and researchers from a wide variety of disciplinary backgrounds. This volume is the first systematic presentation of the research into religion and discourse. Written by experts from various disciplines, each chapter offers an integrative overview of theory, method, and contextual studies by focusing on a specific approach, interdisciplinary relationship, controversy, or theme in the field. Taking the discursive dimension in the production of knowledge seriously, the book also provides a critical analysis of academic practice and explores new forms of scholarly communication, including open peer-review. The collected volume will appeal to scholars and postgraduate students across a variety of disciplines, including religious studies, history of religion, sociology of religion, discourse studies, cultural studies, and area studies.

On Making a Shift in the Study of Religion and Other Essays

On Making a Shift in the Study of Religion and Other Essays PDF Author: Russell T. McCutcheon
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110721716
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
Although many would today argue that the onetime dominance of the phenomenology of religion has receded, and with it the traditional approach to studying religion as a unique and deeply-felt experience that defies explanation, the essays collected here take quite the opposite stand: that this approach has merely been re-branded and continues to characterize much work being done in the field today. Offering a different way forward—one that is based on experiences gained by the members of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, a program that has successfully reinvented itself over the past 20 years—the book includes a variety of practical suggestions for how members of Religious Studies departments can revise their approach to studying and teaching about religion. Seeing religion instead as mundane but always exemplary of basic social elements found all across cultures, the volume argues that the way forward for this field lies not in the specialness of its object of study but, instead, the fact that thinking and acting as if something is special is itself an ordinary aspect of history and culture. Making just this shift helps the scholar of religion to contribute to wide, interdisciplinary conversations all across the Humanities and Social Sciences, demonstrating the practical relevance of their work.

Dialogue and Syncretism

Dialogue and Syncretism PDF Author: Jerald D. Gort
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9780802805010
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
A new series emerging from discussions within an interdisciplinary research group at the Free University of Amsterdam, CURRENTS OF ENCOUNTER will deal with specific concerns of theology of religion, philosophy of religion, and comparative religion. In addition, the series will explore the relation between the Christian faith and contemporary culture as well as the encounter between Asian, African, Latin American, and Western contextualizations of Christianity. The aim of CURRENTS OF ENCOUNTER is to stimulate discussion and reflection on its theme from various presuppositional and methodological points of view. The underlying assumption of this aim is that the interdisciplinary avenue—neither an exclusively positivist nor a purely normative theological approach—provides the best means of access to a better understanding of the problems and potentialities inherent in the encounter between Christianity and the world of which it is a part -- Book cover.