The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (Controversies in the Study of Religion)

What scholars of religion have come to know as the insider/outsider problem is perhaps the most crucial theoretical and methodological issue that today confronts the student of human behaviour and culture. An insider approach is one that examines a particular religion by a practitioner or advocate - an insider - of that religion. An outsider approach is one undertaken by a "neutral" observer. The former values greater insight, and the latter greater objectivity. This anthology collects and introduces twenty-eight classics and contemporary readings - from such writers as Karen McCarthy Brown, Wendy Doniger-O'Flaherty, Mircea Eliade, Immanuel Kant, Rudolf Otto and Ninian Smart - that investigate the ways in which scholars of religion have grappled with the relations between studying, practising and advocating. Moving from influential readings in linguistics and anthropology, the volume's thematically arranged chapters introduce readers to the strengths and weaknesses of several popular options in addressing the insider/outsider problem. General Introduction Part I: Theoretical Background: Insides, Outsides, and the Scholar of Religion Introduction 1 Horace Miner: Body Ritual Among the Nacirema 2 Kenneth L. Pike: Etic and Emic Standpoints for the Description of Behavior 3 Alasdair MacIntyre: Is Understanding Religion Compatible With Believing? 4 Clifford Geertz: “From the Native’s Point of View”: On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding Part II: The Autonomy of Religious Experience Introduction 5 Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy, Chapters I-III. 6 Joachim Wach: The Meaning and Task of the History of Religions {Religionswissenschaft) 7 Mircea Eliade: A New Humanism 8 Rosalind Shaw: Feminist Anthropology and the Gendering of Religious Studies 9 Raymond Firth: An Anthropological Approach to the Study of Religion Part III: Reductionism and the Study of Religion Introduction 10 Immanuel Kant: What is Enlightenment? 11 Robert A. Segal: In Defense of Reductionism 12 Terry F. Godlove, Jr.: Religious Discourse and First Person Authority 13 Daniel Pals: Reductionism and Belief: An Appraisal of Recent Attacks on the Doctrine of Irreducible Religion 14 Tony Edwards: Religion, Explanation, and the Askesis of Inquiry Part IV: Neutrality and Methodological Agnosticism Introduction 15 Ninian Smart: Within and Without Religion 16 Peter Donovan: Neutrality in Religious Studies 17 Peter Byrne: The Study of Religion: Neutral, Scientific, or Neither? 18 Donald Wiebe: Does Understanding Religion Require Religious Understanding? 19 Martin S. Jaffee: Fessing Up in Theory: On Professing and Confessing in the Religious Studies Classroom Part V: Reflexivity and the Role of the Researcher Introduction 20 David J. Hufford: The Scholarly Voice and the Personal Voice: Reflexivity in Belief Studies 21 Michael Jackson: The Witch as a Category and as a Person 22 Wendy Doniger O’Flaherty: The Uses and Misuses of Other People’s Myths 23 Karen McCarthy Brown: Writing About “the Other” 24 Margery Wolf: Writing Ethnography: The Poetics and Politics of Culture Part VI: Conclusion Introduction 25 Jonathan Z. Smith: The Devil in Mr. Jones 26 Mark W. Muesse: Religious Studies and “Heaven’s Gate”: Making the Strange Familiar and the Familiar Strange 27 Bruce Lincoln: Theses on Method This anthology collects and introduces 30 classic and contemporary readings that investigate the ways in which scholars of religion have grappled with the relations between studying, practicing, and advocating. Writers range from Kant, Hume, Schleiermacher, and Otto to Ninian Smart, Mircea, Eliade, Karen McCarthy-Brown, and Wendy Doniger-O'Flaherty. Thirty classic and contemporary readings - from such writers as Kant, Hume, Schleiermacher, and Otto, to Ninian Smart, Mircea Eliade, Karen McCarthy-Brown, and Wendy Doniger.