Religious Studies: A Global View

368 Pages·2008·2.48 MB·English

by  Gregory D. Alles

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Religious Studies: A Global View is the first book of its kind to survey the
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field of Religious Studies from a global perspective. In ten chapters focusing
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on specific geographic regions, a team of international contributors explore
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the work that is being done in religious studies around the world. They
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particularly focus on the work done in the last fifty years, and invite readers
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to rethink their conceptions of what that study involves: its history, structures,
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leading figures and key issues. Regions discussed include: Western Europe,
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Eastern Europe, North Africa and West Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, South and
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Southeast Asia, Continental East Asia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the
5 Pacfic Islands, North America, and Latin America.
6 Key topics and themes discussed include the emergence of a global
7 community of Religion scholars, the influence of technology, the history and
8 institutionalization of the discipline, objects, methods and theories in the study
9 of religion, and the demarcation of the field.
30111 Religious Studies: A Global View challenges the assumption that serious
1 thinking about religion is solely a Western undertaking and aims to foster global
2 cooperation in the study of religions. It is the ideal resource for students,
3 researchers, lecturers and teachers interested in how the field of Religious
4 Studies is developing in contemporary academia.
35 Contributors: Gregory D. Alles, Gustavo Benavides, Patrice Brodeur,
6 Lee Chang-yick, Chung Chin-hong, Ezra Chitando, Eugen Ciurtin, Steven
7 Engler, Majella Franzmann, Satoko Fujiwara, He Guanghu, Sylvia Marcos,
8 Anatilde Idoyaga Molina, Paulo Barrera Rivera, Rowena Robinson, Vineeta
9 Sinha, Michael Stausberg, Renée de la Torre.
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42222 Gregory D. Alles is Professor of Religious Studies at McDaniel College,
3 Westminster, MD, USA. He is co-editor of Continuum Advances in Religious
411 Studies.

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eligious Studies
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Edited by
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First published 2008
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 100016
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library,2007.
“To purchaseyourown copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.”
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2008 Editorial material and selection Gregory D. Alles
© 2008 Contributors for their contributions
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Religious studies: a global view/edited by Gregory D. Alles.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Religions. I. Alles, Gregory D.
BL41.R433 2007
200.71 – dc22 2007010341
ISBN 0-203-93931-X Mastere-bookISBN
ISBN10: 0–415–39743–X (hbk)
ISBN10: 0–203–93931–X (ebk)
ISBN13: 978–0–415–39743–8 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978–0–203–93931–4 (ebk)
C
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List of contributors vii
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List of abbreviations xi
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Introduction 1
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Gregory D. Alles
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1 Western Europe 14
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Michael Stausberg
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6 2 Eastern Europe 50
7 Eugen Ciurtin
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9 3 North Africa and West Asia 75
30111 Patrice Brodeur
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2 4 Sub-Saharan Africa 102
3 Ezra Chitando
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35 5 South and Southeast Asia 126
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Rowena Robinson and Vineeta Sinha
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6 Continental East Asia 159
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He Guanghu, Chung Chin-hong, and Lee Chang-yick
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7 Japan 191
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Satoko Fujiwara
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vi CONTENTS
8 Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands 218
Majella Franzmann
9 North America 242
Gustavo Benavides
10 Latin America 269
Steven Engler, Anatilde Idoyaga Molina, Renée de la Torre,
Paulo Barrera Rivera, and Sylvia Marcos
Afterword: toward a global vision of religious studies 301
Gregory D. Alles
Index 323
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Gregory D. ALLES teaches in the Department of Philosophy and Religious
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Studies at McDaniel College, Westminster, Maryland. His research interests
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include the history of the study of religions, including the life and works of
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Rudolf Otto.
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20111 Gustavo BENAVIDES teaches in the Department of Theology and Religious
Studies at Villanova University, with a specialization in Asian religions. The
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author of numerous articles on the theory and historiography of religion,
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he co-edits Numen, the journal of the International Association for the
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4 History of Religions.
5 Patrice BRODEUR holds the Canada Research Chair on Islam, Pluralism, and
6 Globalization in the Faculty of Theology and the Sciences of Religion at the
7 University of Montreal. His research interests center on contemporary Islam
8 (politics and gender dynamics, the development of religious studies within
9 the Arab world), as well as on interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding.
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Ezra CHITANDO is Associate Professor of History and Phenomenology of
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Religion at the University of Zimbabwe. He has published on history and
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method in the study of religion, African Traditional Religions, Christianity
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in Africa, and religion and HIV & AIDS in Africa, including Singing Culture:
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A Study of Gospel Music in Zimbabwe (2002).
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6 CHUNG Chin-hong is an Ilsong Distinguished Professor of Hallym Academy
7 of Sciences at Hallym University in Korea, a member of the National
8 Academy of Sciences, Republic of Korea, and Chief Director of the Korea
9 Institute for Religion and Culture. He specializes in the phenomenology of
40111 religion and is the author of numerous publications, including the recent
42222 Opening and Closing: Reading Religious Culture through the Humanistic
3 Imagination (2006).
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viii CONTRIBUTORS
Eugen CIURTINis currently a postdoctoral fellow of the Institute for Advanced
Studies, New Europe College, Bucharest, and of Maison des Sciences de
l’Homme, Paris, as well as secretary of the Romanian Association for the
History of Religions and RAHR representative to the European Association
for the Study of Religions. A scholar with wide-ranging interests and
publications, he also edits Archaeus: Studies in the History of Religionsand
Studia Asiatica: International Journal for Asian Studies.
Steven ENGLER is a Religious Studies Instructor in the Humanities Depart-
ment at Mount Royal College, Calgary, Canada, and a visiting professor
(2005–2006) in the Graduate Program in Ciências da Religião at the
Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, funded by a research
fellowship from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
(FAPESP). His recent publications include Historicizing ‘Tradition’ in the
Study of Religion (2005), which he edited with Gregory P. Grieve. He is
also editor of the book series, ‘Key Thinkers’, from Equinox and co-editor
of the Numen book series.
Majella FRANZMANN is Professor of Studies in Religion at the University of
New England, a small regional university in New South Wales, Australia,
and a fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Her research
interests focus on Gnostic traditions, including Manichaeism and Mandaeism,
as well as Syriac texts and women’s religious experience. Among her many
publications is Jesus in the Manichaean Writings (2003).
Satoko FUJIWARA is Professor of Comparative Culture and Religious Studies
at Taisho University in Tokyo, Japan. Her research interests have focused
on the methodology of comparison and, more recently, religion and public
education. Her many publications include Sei gainen to kindai (The sacred
and modernity; 2005).
HE Guanghu is Professor of Religious Studies at Renmin University of China
in Beijing. Among other volumes, he is the author of Yue Ying Wan Chuan
(The Moon in Streams: Religion, Society and Life [2003]) and Bai Chuan
Gui Hai (All Rivers Return to the Ocean: Towards a Global Religious
Philosophy, forthcoming). His edited volumes include Duihua: Ru Shi Dao
yu Jidujiao (Dialog: Confucianism, Buddhism, Taoism and Christianity
[1997]) and Zongjiao yu Dangdai Zhongguo Shehui(Religions and Society
in Contemporary China [2006]), and he has translated works of Christian
theology and philosophy of religion into Chinese, including John
Macquarrie’s Principles of Christian Theologyand Paul Tillich’s Systematic
Theology.
LEEChang-yickis a Researcher in the Korea Institute for Religion and Culture.
The author of Religion and Sport: Body Techniques and Sacrifice (2004),
CONTRIBUTORS ix
1111 he is currently working on a book that will compare Mircea Eliade and
2 Jonathan Z. Smith.
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Sylvia MARCOSis a research associate in Religion and Society with the Escuela
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Nacional de Antropología e Historia (ENAH) in México and Visiting
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Professor of Mesoamerican Religions and Gender in the School of Religion
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at Claremont Graduate University. She is the author, most recently, of Taken
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from the Lips: Gender and Eros in Mesoamerican Religions (2006).
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9 Anatilde IDOYAGA MOLINA is Chair of the Centro Argentino de Etnología
1011 Americana (CAEA), a research unit of the Consejo Nacional de Inves-
1 tigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET) and a Principal Investigator
2 of CONICET’s Carrera del Investigador Científico. She is Full Professor at
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the Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte and the Universidad de Buenos
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Aires and director of IUNA and CAEA’s Maestría y Doctorado en Cultura
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y Sociedad Program. Her publications include Shamanismo, brujería y poder
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en América Latina (2000).
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8 Paulo Barrera RIVERA is Professor of Social Sciences and Religion in the
9 Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências da Religião at the Universidade Metodista
20111 de São Paulo. He is the author of Tradição, transmissão e emoção religiosa:
1 sociologia do protestantismo contemporâneo na América Latina (2001).
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Rowena ROBINSON is Professor of Sociology at IIT (Indian Institute of Tech-
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nology) Bombay. She is author of Christians of India (Sage, 2003) and
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Tremors of Violence (Sage, 2005), and editor, with Sathianathan Clarke,
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of Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations and Meanings
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(Oxford University Press, 2003) and Sociology of Religion in India (Sage,
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2004).
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9 Vineeta SINHA is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at
30111 the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include the
1 critique of concepts and categories in the social sciences, the history of the
2 social sciences, teaching of sociological theory, sociology and anthropology
3 of religion, the Hindu Diaspora and the political economy of health care in
4 medically plural societies. Her recent publications include A New God in
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the Diaspora? Muneeswaran Worship in Contemporary Singapore (2005).
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7 Michael STAUSBERG is Professor of the Study of Religion at the University of
8 Bergen. His publications include Faszination Zarathushtra (2 vols, 1998)
9 and Die Religion Zarathushtras (3 vols, 2002–2004). He is the editor of
40111 Zoroastrian Rituals in Context (2004) and co-editor of Theorizing Rituals
42222 (2 vols, 2006–2007). He is presently preparing a study of the contemporary
3 Zoroastrian priesthood. Other research areas include theories of religion
411 and the relevance of tourism for the contemporary religious landscape.