Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists(Critiquing Religion: Discourse, Culture, Power)

This book introduces students to the so-called classics of the field from the 19th and 20th centuries, whilst challenging readers to apply a critical lens. Instead of representing scholars and their works as virtually timeless, each contributor provides sufficient background on the classic work in question so that readers not only understand its novelty and place in its own time, but are able to arrive at a critical understanding of whether its approach to studying religion continues to be useful to them today. Scholars discussed include Muller, Durkheim, Freud and Eliade. Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists therefore offers a novel way into writing both a history and ethnography of the discipline, helping readers to see how it has changed and inviting them to consider what-if anything-endures and thereby unites these diverse authors into a common field.

Table of Contents:
List of Contributors Preface: Taking Notes in the Field of Religious Studies: Critical Methods, Vaia Touna (The University of Alabama, USA) Introduction: Revisiting the Past…, Again, Aaron W. Hughes and Russell T. McCutcheon (The University of Alabama, USA) 1. Friedrich Max Muller, Brent Nongbri (MF Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, Norway) 2. William James, Emily Clark (Gonzaga University, USA) 3. Edward B. Tylor, Mitsutoshi Horii (Shumei University, Japan) 4. Joseph Kitagawa, Christopher M. Jones(Washburn University, USA) 5. James Frazer, Krista Dalton(Kenyon College in Gambier, USA) 6. Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Edith Szanto (The University of Alabama, USA) 7. Sigmund Freud, Robyn Walsh (University of Miami, USA) 8. Gerardus van der Leeuw, Tenzan Eaghll (Mahidol University, Thailand) 9. Rudolf Otto, Martha Smith Roberts (Fullerton College, USA) 10. Carl Jung, Lauren Griffin 11. Bronislaw Malinowski, Brett Esaki(University of Arizona, USA) 12. Mircea Eliade, Joseph Winters (Duke University, USA) 13. Max Weber, Andrew Tobolowsky (College of William and Mary, USA) Afterword: Revisiting Classics and Plotting Futures for the Field of Religious Studies, Richard Newton (The University of Alabama, USA) Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Richard Newton is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, USA. Vaia Touna is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, USA.

Review :
This book represents the field's historical richness and curiosities like no other. 13 modern scholars of religion are in conversation with a partner from the field's past; the engagements are sometimes contrary, often celebratory, and always insightful. The volume is a model of how to read the founders and ancestors of the critical study of religion. This is a much-needed book. Those of us who teach theory and method courses face an annual dilemma: should we teach the classics in the field, and, if so, how best to do so? This book steers us ably through the shoals by offering approaches to these earlier works that both acknowledge their contribution but also dismantle their problematic, often colonialist, assumptions and approaches. We stand not on the shoulders of giants, but of people who asked many of the same questions that we do today. Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion is a constructive reassessment of our scholarly forebears that shows us that even if their answers no longer satisfy, the issues they addressed are still topical. Fieldnotes is a book that can serve as a jumping off point or conversation starter for advanced undergraduate or graduate classrooms, as it is at its best when it provokes open-ended questions about the perennial issues in religious studies.