Method Today - Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion - Brad Stoddard
7. Forget about Defining "It" : Reflections on Thinking Differently in Religious Studies
Method Today - Redescribing Approaches to the Study of Religion - Brad Stoddard
Naomi Goldenberg [+]
University of Ottowa
Naomi R. Goldenberg PhD (1976), Yale University, is Professor of Religious Studies in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies and former Director of Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa in Canada. Her publications include: Resurrecting the Body: Feminism, Religion and Psychoanalysis (Crossroad, 1993) and Changing of the Gods: Feminism and the End of Traditional Religions (Beacon, 1979). She has co-edited Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty (Brill, 2015) with Trevor Stack and Timothy Fitzgerald and is completing The End of Religion: Feminist Reappraisals of the State (Taylor and Frances) with Kathleen McPhillips. Her book, The Religious is Political: An Argument for Understanding Religions as Vestigial States is in progress.
Description
Contemporary analysis known as "critical religion" points theory and method in productive, provocative directions. Nevertheless, outdated habits linger in discourses about religion. This essay supports recent deconstructive approaches by employing examples from both popular culture and scholarship to argue that more accurate, specific language ought be used whenever "religion" is cited.