Critics Not Caretakers

This collection of essays 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 and historical practices rather than a caretaker of religious tradition or a font of timeless wisdom and deep meaning.

The essays collected together in Critics Not Caretakers argue 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 and historical practices rather than a caretaker of religious tradition or a font of timeless wisdom and deep meaning.

The book begins with several essays that outline the basis of an alternative, sociorhetorical approach to studying religion, before moving on to a series of discrete dispatches from the ongoing theory wars, each of which uses the work of such writers as Karen Armstrong, Walter Burkert, Benson Saler, and Jacob Neusner 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, method, and critical thinking in a variety of undergraduate classrooms-the location where they have always been publicly accountable intellectuals.

The new edition of this still read and, for some, controversial book preserves the original essays but includes a new opening chapter and new introductory commentaries across all of the chapters to demonstrate how little the field has changed since the volume was first published in 2001. Accordingly, the book continues to provide a viable alternative for those wanting to take a more critical approach to the study of religion.

Autorentext

Russell T. McCutcheon is University Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, USA.

Klappentext

This collection of essays 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 and historical practices rather than a caretaker of religious tradition or a font of timeless wisdom and deep meaning.

Inhalt

Foreword to the Second Edition

Acknowledgments to the First Edition

Acknowledgments to the Second Edition

Copyright Permissions

Introduction to the Second Edition

Part I. Background

1. "Not Nearly Critical Enough": Studying Religion as Part of the Humanities

Part II. Redescribing Religion as Something Ordinary

Introduction to Chapter 2

2. More than a Shapeless Beast: Lumbering Through the Academy with the Study of Religion

Introduction to Chapter 3

3. Redescribing "Religion" as Social Formation: Toward a Social Theory of Religion

Part III. Dispatches from the Theory Wars

Introduction to Chapter 4

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

Introduction to Chapter 5

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

Introduction to Chapter 6

6. "We re All Stuck Somewhere": Taming Ethnocentrism and Trans-Cultural Understandings

Introduction to Chapter 7

7. The Economics of Spiritual Luxury: The Glittering Lobby and the Parliament of Religions

Introduction to Chapter 8

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

Part IV. Culture Critics and Caretakers

Introduction to Chapters 9 and 10

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

10. Talking Past Each Other: Public Intellectuals Revisited

Part V. Going Public: Teaching Theory

Introduction to Chapters 11 14

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

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

13. Methods and Theories in the Classroom: Teaching the Study of Myths and Rituals

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

Part VI. This Messy Mix of Historical Human Performance

Afterword to the Second Edition

Bibliography

Index