Building Blocks of Religion; Critical Applications and Future Prospects; Göran Larsson, Andreas Nordin & Jonas Svensson

Edited by

Göran Larsson [+–]

University of Gothenburg

Göran Larsson is a Professor in the Study of Religions at the University of Gothenburg. His main research focus is Islam and Muslims in Europe both past and present, but he also has a general interest in theoretical and methodological questions concerning the study of humans, especially with regard to religion. Besides these topics, Larsson has also conducted research on global conflicts and how they impact on Swedish society. He has published several books, chapters and articles with international publishing houses, for example, Brill, Routledge, Springer and Ashgate.

Jonas Svensson [+–]

Linnaeus University

Jonas Svensson is a Professor in the Study of Religions at Linnaeus University. His current research focusses on integrating the cognitive science of religion into the academic study of Islam.

Andreas Nordin [+–]

University of Gothenburg

Andreas Nordin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Senior Lecturer of Cultural Sciences and PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg.

The contributions in this book all concern the Building Block Approach to the study of religions as proposed and explored by Professor Ann Taves (University of California, Santa Barbara) during the last 30 years. This approach suggests that analysis of and explanations for complex cultural phenomena such as religion should entail dividing these phenomena into “the constituent parts that interact to produce them”, in terms of basic cognitive, psychological and biological processes. In this way, the approach opens up a path to achieving consilience between the humanistic, behavioural and natural sciences.

The book provides a short and user-friendly introduction to the Building Block Approach suitable for use in the undergraduate classroom as well as by graduate and more advanced scholars. The book opens with a lengthy introduction by Ann Taves and Egil Asprem (Stockholm University, Sweden) outlining the Building Block Approach and its relevance for the study of religions. The introduction is followed by seven responses, comments and critiques that identify pros and cons of the approach from different perspectives and areas of study within the larger field of the study of religions. In the concluding chapter, Taves and Asprem provide their responses to the comments and critiques raised.

Preface

Preface [+–] vii-viii

Göran Larsson,Andreas Nordin,Jonas Svensson FREE

University of Gothenburg

Andreas Nordin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Senior Lecturer of Cultural Sciences and PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg.

Linnaeus University

Jonas Svensson is a Professor in the Study of Religions at Linnaeus University. His current research focusses on integrating the cognitive science of religion into the academic study of Islam.

This book introduces and summarises the Building Block Approach to Religious Studies that has been developed and proposed by professor Ann Taves (University of Santa Barbara) and associate professor Egil Asprem (Stockholm University). The book opens with a lengthy introduction by Taves and Asprem that describes the Building Block Approach, explains how and why they developed it, and what it can be used for in the study of religions. The introduction by Taves and Asprem is followed by seven responses, comments and critiques that identify pros and cons of the approach suggested by Taves and Asprem. The book ends with a response by Taves and Asprem. The overall aim of the book is to provide a short and user-friendly introduction and critical discussion of the building block approach to religious studies that can be used by undergraduate, graduate and more advanced scholars in the field of religious studies. The aim is to provide a critical primer that addresses how and why scholars of religions should pay attention to the building block approach to religious studies.

Introduction

By Way of Introduction [+–] 1-4

Göran Larsson,Andreas Nordin,Jonas Svensson FREE

University of Gothenburg

Andreas Nordin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Senior Lecturer of Cultural Sciences and PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg.

Linnaeus University

Jonas Svensson is a Professor in the Study of Religions at Linnaeus University. His current research focusses on integrating the cognitive science of religion into the academic study of Islam.

Chapter 1

The Building Block Approach: An Overview [+–] 5-25

Ann Taves,Egil Asprem £17.50

University of California at Santa Barbara

View Website

Ann Taves is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her most recent book is Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths (Princeton, 2016).

Stockholm University

Assistant Professor, History of Religions Department of Ethnology, History of Religions, and Gender Studies Stockholm University

The chapter provides a basic overview of the building block approach to “religion” and other complex cultural concepts. It introduces the basic vocabulary of the approach, provides definitions, and a few examples of how the approach has been applied to address specific problems in the field. The chapter also reflects on how the authors came to develop the approach, and discusses the most important philosophical and scientific influences that helped shape it.

Chapter 2

Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Analysing the Reception of and Debate Over the Building Block Approach [+–] 26-38

Göran Larsson £17.50

University of Gothenburg

Chapter 3

Fantastic Stories, Emotions and Ancient Religions: Open Questions and Ideas in Conversation with the Building Block and Worldviews Approach [+–] 39-54

Laura Feldt £17.50

University of Southern Denmark

View Website

Laura Feldt is Associate Professor of the Study of Religions with the Department of History, University of Southern Denmark, head of the research programme ‘Authority, Materiality and Media’, and editor of Numen – International Review of the History of Religions with Gregory D. Alles. She is the author of The Fantastic in Religious Narrative from Exodus to Elisha (2012), editor of Wilderness in Mythology and Religion – Approaching Religious Spatialities, Cosmologies, and Ideas of Wild Nature (2012) and Reframing Authority – The Role of Media and Materiality (2018) with Christian Høgel. Her primary research areas are religion in ancient Mesopotamia, the Hebrew Bible, and ancient Christianity.

This chapter discusses the Building Block Approach from the perspective of the historical and philological study of religion, and in dialogue with perspectives from theories of media, materiality, emotions, and the fantastic. It uses texts from the Hebrew Bible, ancient Mesopotamia, and contemporary popular culture as exemplary material. The article suggests that the BBA underestimates the power of material media, narrativity and fantasy in religion, and how these aspects stimulate, train, and form experience and create emergent meanings. Moreover, it indicates that with regard to several types of materials and social contexts, e.g., premodern religions or with regard to contemporary popular culture, the concept of “religion” is more useful and versatile than the concept of worldview for the general study of religion.

Chapter 4

Counterintuitive Supernaturalism as a Building Block of Religious Dream Imagery [+–] 55-70

Andreas Nordin £17.50

University of Gothenburg

Andreas Nordin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Senior Lecturer of Cultural Sciences and PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg.

Chapter 5

Invisible Hands and Sacred Unicorns: Occulture as a Schema for Supernatural Ascriptions in the Millennial Generation [+–] 71-81

Ingela Visuri £17.50

Dalarna University

Ingela Visuri is a senior lecturer in the Study of Religions at Dalarna University (Sweden), where she is responsible for training future teachers in religion education. Her research centres the role of mentalization in religion, autism, and imagination, and her publications concern topics such as supernatural experience, embodiment, enactment, learning, and secularity. Visuri currently serves as post docfellow at the Interacting Minds Center at Aarhus University (Denmark) where she is pursuing a research project on social learning in autistic individuals involved in live action roleplay. She is moreover co-chair and initiator of the Nordic Network for the Cognitive Science of Religion, and steering committee member of the Religion and Public Schools, International Perspectives Unit in the American Academy of Religion.

This chapter presents an empirical and methodological example of an interdisciplinary study on religious cognition, in which the approach is aligned with the building blocks approach suggested by Ann Taves and Egil Asprem. While autism is the focal point of the research project, the study also highlights a generational shift in the ascription of non-ordinary powers as these millennials appear to embrace occult phenomena in Western popular culture (‘occulture’). Besides illustrating how emic ascriptions of things set apart from the ordinary may vary between different generations, the chapter also provides a multilevel model of how unusual embodied experiences – which appear to be especially prevalent on the autism spectrum – are understood in terms of occult schemas derived from popular culture.

Chapter 6

Qur’ans through the Lens of Moral Foundations: An Explorative Study of Qur’an Translations in a Building Block Framework [+–] 82-100

Jonas Svensson £17.50

Linnaeus University

Jonas Svensson is a Professor in the Study of Religions at Linnaeus University. His current research focusses on integrating the cognitive science of religion into the academic study of Islam.

Chapter 7

Computing Consilience: How Modeling and Simulation can Contribute to Worldview Studies [+–] 101-112

Fount LeRon Shults £17.50

University of Agder

Fount LeRon Shults is professor at the Institute for Religion, Philosophy, and History at the University of Agder and director of the NORCE Center for Modeling Social Systems in Kristiansand, Norway. He has published 17 books and nearly 100 scientific articles and book chapters on topics related to the study of religion.

This chapter explores some of the ways in which computer modeling and simulation (CMS) can help build epistemological bridges across the sciences and the humanities, one of the main tasks for which the BBA was constructed. It focuses in particular on the role that reverse engineering and predictive processing are meant to play in achieving consilience and demonstrates the usefulness of some of the conceptual practices and technological tools within the field of CMS for clarifying and facilitating that task.

Chapter 8

Comments and Reflections [+–] 113-125

Ann Taves,Egil Asprem £17.50

University of California at Santa Barbara

View Website

Stockholm University

Assistant Professor, History of Religions Department of Ethnology, History of Religions, and Gender Studies Stockholm University

In this final chapter, Ann Taves and Egil Asprem engage with the positions, critiques, and applications of the building block approach introduced by the other chapters. It addresses the most important challenges that have been raised, and makes further connections to works in anthropology and the cognitive science of religion. It ends with reflections on future directions in light of the responses from the other authors of the book.

End Matter

Index [+–] 126-127

Göran Larsson,Andreas Nordin,Jonas Svensson FREE

University of Gothenburg

Andreas Nordin is Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Senior Lecturer of Cultural Sciences and PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Gothenburg.

Linnaeus University

Jonas Svensson is a Professor in the Study of Religions at Linnaeus University. His current research focusses on integrating the cognitive science of religion into the academic study of Islam.

This book introduces and summarises the Building Block Approach to Religious Studies that has been developed and proposed by professor Ann Taves (University of California, Santa Barbara) and associate professor Egil Asprem (Stockholm University). The book opens with a lengthy introduction by Taves and Asprem that describes the Building Block Approach, explains how and why they developed it, and what it can be used for in the study of religions. The introduction by Taves and Asprem is followed by seven responses, comments and critiques that identify pros and cons of the approach suggested by Taves and Asprem. The book ends with a response by Taves and Asprem. The overall aim of the book is to provide a short and user-friendly introduction and critical discussion of the building block approach to religious studies that can be used by undergraduate, graduate and more advanced scholars in the field of religious studies. The aim is to provide a critical primer that addresses how and why scholars of religions should pay attention to the building block approach to religious studies.

Reviews

Provides a handy introduction to an approach that can show what the academic study of religion can look like when one takes both humanistic and scientific approaches seriously.
Studies in Religion / Sciences Religieuses

In essence, the book provides an approach, the theoretical frame-work it is based on, critiques of it, and case studies using it. The book would thus be a wonderful teaching tool for students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels who are exploring ways methods are developed and used. In addition, the utmost value of this book lies not only in that it presents another way to interpret religious phenomena and experience, but that it also represents the next step in melding fields (the natural, behavioral, and humanistic sciences) in an attempt to expand interdisciplinary studies, an enterprise valued by so many in the scholarly community.
Religious Studies Review

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Books and Journals in Humanities, Social Science and Performing Arts

Building Blocks of Religion

Critical Applications and Future Prospects

Göran Larsson [+–]

University of Gothenburg

Jonas Svensson [+–]

Linnaeus University

Andreas Nordin [+–]

University of Gothenburg

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