In recent years there has been an intensifying debate within the religious studies community about the validity of religion as an analytical category. In this book Fitzgerald sides with those who argue that the concept of religion itself should be abandoned. On the basis of his own research in India and Japan, and through a detailed analysis of the use of religion in a wide range of scholarly texts, the author maintains that the comparative study of religion is really a form of liberal ecumenical theology. By pretending to be a science, religion significantly distorts socio-cultural analysis. He suggest, however, that religious studies can be re-represented in a way which opens up new and productive theoretical connections with anthropology and cultural and literary studies.
Author(s): Timothy Fitzgerald
Year: 1999
Language: English
Pages: 296
Contents......Page 14
Part I: Religious Studies as an Ideology......Page 16
1 Religion, Religions, and World Religions: Religious Studies—A Critique......Page 18
2 Comparative Religion: The Founding Fathers and the Theological Legacy......Page 48
3 Ninian Smart and the Phenomenology of Religion......Page 69
4 Religion, Family Resemblances, and the Use Context......Page 87
5 Religions, Quasi Religions, and Secular Ideologies......Page 113
Part II: Religion and India......Page 134
6 Buddhism in India: Ritual, Politics, and Soteriology......Page 136
7 Hinduism......Page 149
Part III: Religion and Japan......Page 172
8 Problems of the Category 'Religion' in Japan......Page 174
9 Consrtucting a Collective Identity......Page 196
10 Bowing to the Taxman......Page 214
Part IV: Problems With the Category 'Culture'......Page 234
11 Religious Studies, Cultural Studies, and Cultural Anthropology......Page 236
12 The Critique of 'Culture' in Cultural Anthropology......Page 250
Notes......Page 268
General Bibliography......Page 276
B......Page 283
C......Page 284
F......Page 285
I......Page 286
K......Page 287
O......Page 288
R......Page 289
S......Page 290
Z......Page 291
