Manufacturing Religion
The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia
- Publisher's listprice GBP 45.49
-
20 538 Ft (19 560 Ft + 5% VAT)
The price is estimated because at the time of ordering we do not know what conversion rates will apply to HUF / product currency when the book arrives. In case HUF is weaker, the price increases slightly, in case HUF is stronger, the price goes lower slightly.
- Discount 10% (cc. 2 054 Ft off)
- Discounted price 18 484 Ft (17 604 Ft + 5% VAT)
Subcribe now and take benefit of a favourable price.
Subscribe
20 538 Ft
Availability
printed on demand
Why don't you give exact delivery time?
Delivery time is estimated on our previous experiences. We give estimations only, because we order from outside Hungary, and the delivery time mainly depends on how quickly the publisher supplies the book. Faster or slower deliveries both happen, but we do our best to supply as quickly as possible.
Product details:
- Publisher OUP Oxford
- Date of Publication 22 May 2003
- ISBN 9780195166637
- Binding Paperback
- No. of pages272 pages
- Size 153x239x15 mm
- Weight 381 g
- Language English
- Illustrations 1 halftone 0
Categories
Short description:
0his provocative book offers a powerful critique of traditional religion scholarship, and particularly the oft-repeated bromide that "religion" is a sui generis phenomenon. McCutcheon skillfully analyses the ideological basis for and service of this claim, demonstrating that it has been used to render the field's object of study ahistorical, apolitical, fetishised, and sacrosanct. He considers a range of sites in the modern study of religion and uncovers at each point sui generis religion serving as a protective strategy that ultimately authorises socio-political program. On a larger scale, he contends, the study of religion as a historical category participates in a larger system of political domination and economic and cultural imperialism.
MoreLong description:
In this new book, author Russell McCutcheon offers a powerful critique of traditional scholarship on religion, focusing on multiple interrelated targets. Most prominent among these are the History of Religions as a discipline; Mircea Eliade, one of the founders of the modern discipline; recent scholarship on Eliade's life and politics; contemporary textbooks on world religions; and the oft-repeated bromide that "religion" is a sui generis phenomenon. McCutcheon skillfully analyzes the ideological basis for and service of the sui generis argument, demonstrating that it has been used to constitute the field's object of study in a form that is ahistoric, apolitical, fetishized, and sacrosanct. As such, he charges, it has helped to create departments, jobs, and publication outlets for those who are comfortable with such a suspect construction, while establishing a disciplinary ethos of astounding theoretical naivete and a body of scholarship to match. Surveying the textbooks available for introductory courses in comparative religion, the author finds that they uniformly adopt the sui generis line and all that comes with it. As a result, he argues, they are not just uncritical (which helps keep them popular among the audiences for which they are intended, but badly disserve), but actively inhibit the emergence of critical perspectives and capacities. And on the geo-political scale, he contends, the study of religion as an ahistorical category participates in a larger system of political domination and economic and cultural imperialism.
It is heartening to witness, at least, a monograph-length publication on a lately much-talked-about yet in reality still vastly understudied subject, namely, academic discourse on religion and the role it has played in the construction of the object that is now taken for granted and-this too goes without saying-now as a reality: religion.
