Critics Not Caretakers, livre ebook

Critics Not Caretakers argues that the study of religion must be rethought as an ordinary aspect of social, historical existence, a stance that makes the scholar of religion a critic of cultural practices rather than a caretaker of religious tradition or a font of timeless wisdom. From a general introduction written for a wide audience and a theoretical essay that outlines the basis of an alternative, socio-rhetorical approach to studying religion, the book moves on to a series of dispatches from the theory wars, each of which uses the work of such writers as Karen Armstrong, Walter Burkert, and Benson Saler as a point of entry into wider theoretical issues of importance to the field's future. The author then examines the socio-political role of this brand of critical scholarship—a role that differs dramatically from the type of sympathetic caretaking generally associated with scholars of religion who feel compelled to "go public." Concluding the work is a consideration of how scholars as teachers can address issues of theory and critical thinking in the undergraduate classroom. Written with verve, Critics Not Caretakers provides a viable alternative for all those dissatisfied with the covertly political, liberal humanist approach that currently dominates the study of religion.
Preface

Acknowledgments

Copyright Permissions

PART I. Redescribing Religion as Something Ordinary

1. More Than a Shapeless Beast: Lumbering through the Academy with the Study of Religion

2. Redescribing 'Religion' as Social Formation: Toward a Social Theory of Religion

PART II. Dispatches from the Theory Wars

3. Writing a History of God: "Just the Same Game Wherever You Go"

4. Explaining the Sacred: Theorizing on Religion in the Late Twentieth Century

5. "We're All Stuck Somewhere": Taming Ethnocentrism and Transcultural Understandings

6. The Economics of Spiritual Luxury: The Glittering Lobby and the World's Parliament of Religions

7. "My Theory of the Brontosaurus...": Postmodernism and "Theory" of Religion

PART III. Culture Critics and Caretakers

8. A Default of Critical Intelligence? The Scholar of Religion as Public Intellectual

9. Talking Past Each Other: The Issue of Public Intellectuals Revisited

PART IV. Going Public: Teaching Theory

10. Our "Special Promise" as Teachers: Scholars of Religion and the Politics of Tolerance

11. Redescribing "Religion and..." Film: Teaching the Insider/Outsider Problem

12. Methods and Theories in the Classroom: Teaching the Study of Mythis and Rituals

13. Theorizing in the Introductory Course: A Survey of Resources

PART V. Afterword

Afterword

References

Index