Religion in Theory and Practice - Demystifying the Field for Burgeoning Scholars - Russell T. McCutcheon
1. Feast and Famine in the Study of Religion
Religion in Theory and Practice - Demystifying the Field for Burgeoning Scholars - Russell T. McCutcheon
Russell T. McCutcheon [+]
University of Alabama
Russell T. McCutcheon is University Research Professor and, for 18 years, was the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. He has written on problems in the academic labor market throughout his 30-year career and helped to design and run Alabama’s skills-based M.A. in religion in culture. Among his recent work is the edited resource for instructors, Teaching in Religious Studies and Beyond (Bloomsbury 2024).
Description
Written originally as the Afterword for a volume of papers from the 2015 annual meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), this chapter argues that, although it now seems to some that theoretical issues and critical acumen pervade the academic study of religion, what some call the post-theoretical field is still characterized by an idealist approach that presumes the word religion merely names a deeply personal, pre-social disposition that is simply expressed in varied situations.