Religion Enters the Academy


Book Description

Religious studies—also known as comparative religion or history of religions—emerged as a field of study in colleges and universities on both sides of the Atlantic during the late nineteenth century. In Europe, as previous historians have demonstrated, the discipline grew from long-established traditions of university-based philological scholarship. But in the United States, James Turner argues, religious studies developed outside the academy. Until about 1820, Turner contends, even learned Americans showed little interest in non-European religions—a subject that had fascinated their counterparts in Europe since the end of the seventeenth century. Growing concerns about the status of Christianity generated American interest in comparing it to other great religions, and the resulting writings eventually produced the academic discipline of religious studies in U.S. universities. Fostered especially by learned Protestant ministers, this new discipline focused on canonical texts—the “bibles”—of other great world religions. This rather narrow approach provoked the philosopher and psychologist William James to challenge academic religious studies in 1902 with his celebrated and groundbreaking Varieties of Religious Experience.




Religion Enters the Academy


Book Description

Religious studies—also known as comparative religion or history of religions—emerged as a field of study in colleges and universities on both sides of the Atlantic during the late nineteenth century. In Europe, as previous historians have demonstrated, the discipline grew from long-established traditions of university-based philological scholarship. But in the United States, James Turner argues, religious studies developed outside the academy. Until about 1820, Turner contends, even learned Americans showed little interest in non-European religions—a subject that had fascinated their counterparts in Europe since the end of the seventeenth century. Growing concerns about the status of Christianity generated American interest in comparing it to other great religions, and the resulting writings eventually produced the academic discipline of religious studies in U.S. universities. Fostered especially by learned Protestant ministers, this new discipline focused on canonical texts—the “bibles”—of other great world religions. This rather narrow approach provoked the philosopher and psychologist William James to challenge academic religious studies in 1902 with his celebrated and groundbreaking Varieties of Religious Experience.




Courage to Grow


Book Description

Acton Academy: The one-room schoolhouse for the twenty-first century Seeking a 21st century education for their children, Laura and Jeff Sandefer jumped off the track of conventional school and created a new model for learning. They created Acton Academy as a better school where learning is made practical and meaningful and where students begin a lifelong Hero's Journey to discover their true potential. Using the Socratic method, elements of the Montessori approach and state-of-the-art online instruction, Acton guides students toward independence and self-motivation, helping them find the courage to grow into the person they were meant to be. Soon, other parents wanted to start their own Acton Academies, and less than a decade from the seven founding students' first Socratic discussion, Acton has spread around the world. ​Courage to Grow is the Sandefer family's personal quest for their own children's education and happiness. Their story also contains a path for other parents who want to give their children the freedom to take ownership of their own education and to start their own school. The treasure at the end is much larger than Laura ever expected--a quickly growing network of dedicated, curious young people and parents who are not afraid to set them free.




Empire of Religion


Book Description

How is knowledge about religion and religions produced, and how is that knowledge authenticated and circulated? David Chidester seeks to answer these questions in Empire of Religion, documenting and analyzing the emergence of a science of comparative religion in Great Britain during the second half of the nineteenth century and its complex relations to the colonial situation in southern Africa. In the process, Chidester provides a counterhistory of the academic study of religion, an alternative to standard accounts that have failed to link the field of comparative religion with either the power relations or the historical contingencies of the imperial project. In developing a material history of the study of religion, Chidester documents the importance of African religion, the persistence of the divide between savagery and civilization, and the salience of mediations—imperial, colonial, and indigenous—in which knowledge about religions was produced. He then identifies the recurrence of these mediations in a number of case studies, including Friedrich Max Müller’s dependence on colonial experts, H. Rider Haggard and John Buchan’s fictional accounts of African religion, and W. E. B. Du Bois’s studies of African religion. By reclaiming these theorists for this history, Chidester shows that race, rather than theology, was formative in the emerging study of religion in Europe and North America. Sure to be controversial, Empire of Religion is a major contribution to the field of comparative religious studies.




Southern Religion and Christian Diversity in the Twentieth Century


Book Description

12. Religion for the Blues: Evangelicalism, Poor Whites, and the Great Depression -- 13. Conflicted Interpretations of Christ, the Church, and the American Constitution -- 14. The South's Battle over God -- 15. God's Politics: Is Southern Religion Blue, Red, or Purple? -- Notes -- Wayne Flynt's Works about Southern Religion Published in Books, Journals, and Anthologies from 1963 to 2011 -- Index




The Routledge Companion to Literature and Religion


Book Description

This unique and comprehensive volume looks at the study of literature and religion from a contemporary critical perspective. Including discussion of global literature and world religions, this Companion looks at: Key moments in the story of religion and literary studies from Matthew Arnold through to the impact of 9/11 A variety of theoretical approaches to the study of religion and literature Different ways that religion and literature are connected from overtly religious writing, to subtle religious readings Analysis of key sacred texts and the way they have been studied, re-written, and questioned by literature Political implications of work on religion and literature Thoroughly introduced and contextualised, this volume is an engaging introduction to this huge and complex field.




The Study of Greek and Roman Religions


Book Description

How should ancient religious ideas be approached? Is "religion" an applicable term to antiquity? Should classicists, ancient historians, and religious studies scholars work more closely together? Nickolas P. Roubekas argues that there is a disciplinary gap between the study of Greek and Roman religions and the study of “religion” as a category-a gap that has often resulted in contradictory conclusions regarding Greek and Roman religion. This book addresses this lack of interdisciplinarity by providing an overview, criticism, and assessment of this chasm. It provides a theoretical approach to this historical period, raising the issue of the relationship between “theory of religion” and “history of religion,” and explores how history influences theory and vice versa. It also presents an in-depth critique of some crucial problems that have been central to the discussions of scholars who work on Graeco-Roman antiquity, encouraging us to re-examine how we approach the study of ancient religions.




Other Dreams of Freedom


Book Description

Yvonne C. Zimmerman offers a groundbreaking exploration of the relationship between freedom and sexual regulation in American approaches to human trafficking.




Consuming Religion


Book Description

Introduction: being consumed -- Practicing commodity. Binge religion: social life in extremity ; The spirit in the cubicle: a religious history of the American office -- Revising ritual. Ritualism revived: from scientia ritus to consumer rites ; Purifying America: rites of salvation in the soap campaign -- Imagining celebrity. Sacrificing Britney: celebrity and religion in America ; The celebrification of religion in the age of infotainment -- Valuing family. Religion and the authority in American parenting ; Kardashian nation: work in America's klan ; Rethinking corporate freedom -- Corporation as sect. On the origins of corporate culture ; Do not tamper with the clues: notes on Goldman Sachs -- Conclusion: family matters




Academy and Literature


Book Description