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

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. Documents the continued dominance of the phenomenological approach to the study of religion Describes practical innovations in a department at a public US R-1 University Offers practical examples for reviving religious studies Contents Preface Acknowledgments Sources Introduction Part I Current State 1 The Enduring Presence of Our Pre-Critical Past Part II Critical Shift 2 Classification Matters or, Why You Should Care About Scholarship on the Category Religion 3 Shifting From Experience to the Discourse on Experience 4 “There’s No Original in This Business” 5 What Happens After the Deconstruction? Part III Institutional Implications 6 Theses on Creating Successful Religion Programs in an Anti-Humanities Age 7 Growth, Identity, and Branding: An Interview with Religious Studies News 8 Reinventing the Study of Religion in Alabama: An Overview 9 Learning to Code: Digital Pebbles and Institutional Ripples 10 On Making a Shift in the Study of Religion Afterword: Five Examples Index Reflecting on how, despite our supposed advances, little has changed in the study of religion over the recent decades, this collection of essays offers practical advice for those interested in reviving their work, their teaching, and their Departmen