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Understanding Theories of Religion
An Introduction
Finding (or twisting) a red thread, linking pre-modern, modern, and, with this revised second edition, also post-modern thinking and theories of religion, is no easy task. Especially, if you also aim at a more nuanced understanding, by way of historicizing and contextualizing thinkers and theories. It takes comprehensive knowledge as well as a personal ‘vision’ of the discipline and field. Strenski has both. This book, therefore, is an excellent choice for scholars looking for a textbook for courses on the history and theories of the academic study of religions. Students are in need of both a red thread and a personal take when it comes to the introduction into the history and theories of the scientific study of religions.
Tim Jensen, University of Southern Denmark
Ivan Strenski (Author)
9781444330847, Wiley
Paperback / softback, published 20 March 2015
280 pages
24.6 x 17 x 1.4 cm, 0.426 kg
Featuring comprehensive updates and additions, the second edition of Understanding Theories of Religion explores the development of major theories of religion through the works of classic and contemporary figures. • A new edition of this introductory text exploring the core methods and theorists in religion, spanning the sixteenth-century through to the latest theoretical trends
• Features an entirely new section covering religion and postmodernism; race, sex, and gender; and religion and postcolonialism
• Examines the development of religious theories through the work of classic and contemporary figures from the history of anthropology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, and theology
• Reveals how the study of religion evolved in response to great cultural conflicts and major historical events
• Student-friendly features include chapter introductions and summaries, biographical vignettes, a timeline, a glossary, and many other learning aids
Preface to the Second Edition: Understanding, Instead of Just Thinking vii 1 Introduction: Understanding Theories of Religion is Better than Just Being Critical 1 Part I The Prehistory of the Study of Religion: Responses to an Expanding World 7 2 Jean Bodin and Herbert of Cherbury: True Religion, Essential Religion, and Natural Religion 9 3 Understanding Religion Also Began with Trying to Understand the Bible 19 Part II Classic Nineteenth-Century Theorists of the Study of Religion: The Quest for the Origins of Religion in History 31 4 Max Müller, the Comparative Study of Religion, and the Search for Other Bibles in India 33 5 The Shock of the “Savage”: Edward Burnett Tylor, Evolution, and Spirits 45 6 The Religion of the Bible Evolves: William Robertson Smith 55 7 Setting the Eternal Templates of Salvation: James Frazer 65 Part III Classic Twentieth-Century Theorists of the Study of Religion: Defending the Inner Sanctum of Religious Experience or Storming It 75 8 Understanding How to Understand Religion: “Phenomenology of Religion” 77 9 How Religious Experience Created Capitalism: Max Weber 93 10 Tales from the Underground: Freud and the Psychoanalytic Origins of Religion 106 11 Bronislaw Malinowski and the “Sublime Folly” of Religion 118 12 Seeing God with the Social Eye: Durkheim’s Religious Sociology 129 13 Mircea Eliade: Turning Back the “Worm of Doubt” 142 Part IV Liberation and Post-Modernism: Race, Gender, Post-Colonialism, the Discourse on Power 155 14 From Modernism to Post-Modernism: Mostly Michel Foucault 157 15 Theorizing Religion with Race in Mind: Prophecy or Curiosity? 171 16 Sex/Gender and Women: Feminists Theorizing Religion 189 17 Another “Otherness”: Post-Colonial Theories of Religion 216 18 Conclusion: Being “Smart” about Bringing “Religion” Back In 241 Index 254
Subject Areas: Religion & beliefs [HR]
