Understanding Religion: Theories and Methods for Studying Religiously Diverse Societies

by Paul Michael Hedges

Overview

A cutting-edge introduction to contemporary religious studies theory, connecting theory to data.

This innovative coursebook introduces students to interdisciplinary theoretical tools for understanding contemporary religiously diverse societies—both Western and non-Western. Using a case-study model, the text considers:

• A wide and diverse array of contemporary issues, questions, and critical approaches to the study of religion relevant to students and scholars
• A variety of theoretical approaches, including decolonial, feminist, hermeneutical, poststructuralist, and phenomenological analyses
• Current debates on whether the term "religion" is meaningful
• Many key issues about the study of religion, including the insider-outsider debate, material religion, and lived religion
• Plural and religiously diverse societies, including the theological ideas of traditions and the political and social questions that arise for those living alongside adherents of other religions

Understanding Religion is designed to provide a strong foundation for instructors to explore the ideas presented in each chapter in multiple ways, engage students in meaningful activities in the classroom, and integrate additional material into their lectures. Students will gain the tools to apply specific methods from a variety of disciplines to analyze the social, political, spiritual, and cultural aspects of religions. Its unique pedagogical design means it can be used from undergraduate- to postgraduate-level courses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520970861
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	02/23/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	584
Sales rank:	908,748
File size:	5 MB

About the Author

Paul Hedges is Associate Professor in the Studies in Interreligious Relations in Plural Societies Programme, RSIS, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He has authored or edited more than a dozen books and over seventy academic papers. His most recent book is Religious Hatred: Prejudice, Islamophobia, and Antisemitism in Global Context.
 

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations 
List of Boxes 
Acknowledgments and Dedications 

Introduction 

PART I. WHAT IS RELIGION AND HOW TO APPROACH IT?
1. Religion: Language, Law, and Legacies 
Case Study 1A: Falun Gong: Religion or Self-Cultivation Practice? 
Case Study 1B: Christians and Ancestor Veneration: Religion or Culture? 

2. Method: Insider-Outsider Debates, Phenomenology, and Reflexivity 
Case Study 2A: Living between Religious Worlds: Conversion and Reconversion
Case Study 2B: Hindu and Christian? Multiple Religious Identities

3. Life: Lived Religion, Syncretism, and Hybridity
Case Study 3A: Mexican American Catholicism and Our Lady of Guadalupe
Case Study 3B: Thai Buddhism as Lived Religion and Syncretic Practice

PART II. THEORIES, METHODOLOGIES, AND CRITICAL DEBATES
4. History: Historical Methodology and the Invention of Tradition
Case Study 4A: The Historical Jesus and the Christ of Faith 
Case Study 4B: Laozi, the Daodejing, and the Origins of Daoism

5. Power: Social Constructionism, Habitus, and Authority 
Case Study 5A: Mosques, Minarets, and Power 
Case Study 5B: Individual (New Age/Alternative) Spirituality as Modernity's Ideology 

6. Identity: Social Identity Theory, In-Groups, Out-Groups, and Conflict 
Case Study 6A: Shiv Sena, Hindu Nationalism, and Identity Politics 
Case Study 6B: Race, Religion, and the American White Evangelical 

7. Colonialism: Postcolonialism, Orientalism, and Decolonization 
Case Study 7A: Beyond "Inventing" Hinduism
Case Study 7B: Magic, Superstition, and Religion in Southeast Asia and Africa

8. Brains: The Cognitive Science of Religion and Beyond 
Case Study 8A: Religion, Non-Religion, and Atheism
Case Study 8B: Ancestors, Jesus, and Prosocial Behavior in Fiji

9. Bodies: Material Religion, Embodiment, and Materiality
Case Study 9A: Weeping Gods and Drinking Statues
Case Study 9B: Embodied Practice at a Christian Shrine 

10. Gender: Feminism, Sexuality, and Religion 
Case Study 10A: Priests, Paul, and Rewriting Texts
Case Study 10B: Buddhist Feminisms and Nuns 

11. Comparison: Comparative and Contrastive Methodologies
Case Study 11A: Comparing Hinduism and Judaism 
Case Study 11B: A Comparison of Zen Buddhist and Protestant Christian Sitting Practices

12. Ritual: Ritualization, Myth, and Performance 
Case Study 12A: The Zen Tea Ceremony and Protestant Eucharist as Performance and Ritual
Case Study 12B: Buddhist Ordination Rites 

PART III. RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY AND SOCIETY
13. Diversity: Religious Borders, Identities, and Discourses
Case Study 13A: The Memory of Al-Andalusia 
Case Study 13B: Dominus Iesus and Catholic Christianity in Asia

14. Dialogue: Interreligious Discourse and Critique 
Case Study 14A: Christian and Muslim Women Reading Scriptures 
Case Study 14B: Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: History and Discourse

15. Violence: Fundamentalism, Extremism, and Radicalization 
Case Study 15A: The Invention of Islamic Terrorism 
Case Study 15B: Buddhism and Violence 

16. Secularism: Secularization, Human Rights, and Religion 
Case Study 16A: Laïcité and the Burkini Ban 
Case Study 16B: Singapore's Common Space 

17. Geography: Place, the Lived Environment, and Environmentalism
Case Study 17A: Trees as Monks? 
Case Study 17B: Protestant Christian Understandings of the "Holy Land"

18. Politics: Governance, the Colonial Wound, and the Sacred 
Case Study 18A: Ethnicity and Religion: The Singaporean Malay-Muslim Identity 
Case Study 18B: Saluting the Flag: The Case of Jehovah's Witnesses in the United States 

Glossary 
Who's Who 
Notes 
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Explores themes one might expect in a textbook as well as ones welcomely added, emphasizing a 'deeply political' approach that continually draws the reader’s attention back to whose voice gets expressed in scholarship, and whose does not."

Religious Studies Review

"Understanding Religion is a lucid, creatively structured, and nearly jargon-free introduction to theories and methods for studying religious communities and traditions in diverse societies, bold in scope, and presented in a manner that is undergraduate-friendly, yet sophisticated enough for use in a graduate-level course."

Journal of Interreligious Studies