Religion and the Secular
Historical and Colonial Formations
1st Edition
Published on 1. October 2007
Book
Hardback
288 pages
978-1-84553-266-6 (ISBN)
Description
The essays in this volume critically explore various aspects of the modern development of the religion-secular dichotomy and its ideological function in the assertion of colonial power since the sixteenth century. The authors hope to illuminate the role and formation of the modern category of religion, and of the academic study of religion, as colonial instruments in the more general subjection of indigenous concepts of order to the classificatory needs of Euro-America. The methodology tends to overflow traditional disciplinary boundaries and offers analyses that are historiographical, literary and ethnographical. However, rather than seeking comprehensiveness in such a vast field, the authors here concentrate on specific aspects of the colonial relationship either from the point of view of a particular colonized culture, for example in Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, India, Japan, South Africa and Canada, or from the point of view of the colonizing powers, in this case England, Germany and the United States. The authors hope to encourage further studies by specialists in different cultures and languages in the problems of imposition, translation and reception of the separation of "religion" from other domains such as 'politics', 'economics' and the 'non-religious' civil domain.
Reviews / Votes
"A highly original and critically important work that provides much food for thought for those working in the field of religious studies. It builds upon a growing strand of scholarship that seeks to explore the implications of the socially constructed and culturally specific nature of the category of religion." - Richard King, Vanderbilt UniversityMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Sheffield
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Dimensions
Height: 260 mm
Width: 183 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
741 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84553-266-6 (9781845532666)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
12/2014
1st Edition
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download
E-Book
12/2014
1st Edition
Routledge
€55.49
Available for download
Book
10/2007
1st Edition
Equinox Publishing Ltd
€64.00
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Person
Timothy Fitzgerald is Reader in Religion at the University of Stirling.
Content
Introduction Timothy Fitzgerald 1. Dialectics of Conversion: Las Casas and Maya Colonial and Post-colonial Congregacion Anna Blume, (SUNY College of Visual Arts) 2. The Higher Ground: The Secular Knowledge of Objects of Religious Devotion Trevor Stack (University of Aberdeen) 3. The Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act in the Context of the Colonisation of the Indigenous People of Alaska James Cox, (University of Edinburgh) 4. State Shinto, Westernisation, and the Concept of Religion in Japan Jun'ichi Isomae, (Japan Women's College) 5. Religious and Secular in the Vietnam War and the Emergence of Highland Ethno-nationalism Tom Pearson, (Wabash Center for Learning) 6. Colonialism all the way down? Religion and the secular in early modern writing on south India Will Sweetman, (University of Otaga) 7. Politics as Performance in Colonial and Postcolonial India John Zavos, (University of Manchester) 8. Imperial Inventions of Religion in Colonial Southern Africa David Chidester, (University of Cape Town) 9. Religion in Islamic Thought and Practice Abdulkader Ismail Tayob (University of Cape Town) 10. Rudolf Otto, German Cultural Colonialism, and the 'Discovery' of the Holy Gregory Alles, (McDaniel College) 11. Encompassing Religion and privatised religions and the invention of modern politics Timothy Fitzgerald 12. Colonialism and the Myth of Religious Violence William T. Cavanaugh, (University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN.)