Public universities?

[Lux Lex Pax]

What a city doll you are.

[MBIGrad]

The Queen has spoken.

[Joseph45]

Your eisegetical skills are impressive.

 

Just saw you voted for yourself there on the reputation points things. Once again, hilarious.

[Nrrrdgrrrl]

Hello people.  As someone who is in a RS program in a public university, and studying nothing to do with traditional religion (I work on secularism, non-religion, and alternative religion), might I suggest the reading of The Invention of World Religions, by Masazawa?

 

It is a good place to start in this conversation (though this conversation is already well underway...with some sass, apparently)

[marXian]

Hello people.  As someone who is in a RS program in a public university, and studying nothing to do with traditional religion (I work on secularism, non-religion, and alternative religion), might I suggest the reading of The Invention of World Religions, by Masazawa?

 

It is a good place to start in this conversation (though this conversation is already well underway...with some sass, apparently)

 

Grad Cafe probably isn't the best place to start a conversation about this, but I'm curious...   

 

I know Masuzawa's book is a big deal, but my sense is that the field in general is trying to move past the standard Asadian genealogy of the category. I read Jason Josephson's, The Invention of Religion in Japan in the fall, which significantly complicates the picture that both Asad and Masuzawa paint. It's still a genealogy, but one that is focused on indigenous discourses and asymmetries of power, rather than Christianity/Europe/the West. Not saying Masuzawa's book isn't important. I just wonder if in attempting to problematize the category of religion, her methodological stance, in certain cases, ends up retaining an oversimplified picture of the production of "religion" only from a different angle. Thoughts?

 

Full disclosure: I'm a theologian in an RS department (at a secular, though private school), so I'm the sort of person Masuzawa probably thinks contributes significantly to the fraught position "religion" finds itself in, which probably has something to do with my desire to move beyond her. 

[Joseph45]

Hello people.  As someone who is in a RS program in a public university, and studying nothing to do with traditional religion (I work on secularism, non-religion, and alternative religion), might I suggest the reading of The Invention of World Religions, by Masazawa?

 

It is a good place to start in this conversation (though this conversation is already well underway...with some sass, apparently)

That's one of the books i recommended to know-it-all. I'm interested in marXian's comments and suggested book, although I doubt I'll have the time to read it anytime soon.