Материал: The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion by John Hinnells

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religious reaffiliation and conversion (explained by combining network theory with religious capital theory) and the positive effects of a free religious ‘market’ on religious practice. Other scholars, such as Ilkka Pyysiäinen in Finland and Joseph Bulbulia in New Zealand, are beginning to approach the economics of religion from somewhat different perspectives.

A second scientific approach to religion is beginning to receive widespread international attention: cognitive science, a burgeoning subject in many fields at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and a popular one as well. Some scholars have investigated the ways in which physiological processes in the brain lead either to mystical experiences or to notions of God. Among them are Michael Persinger (1987), who has explored the relationship between temporal lobe epilepsy and religious experience, James Austin (1998), who has analysed brain states among Zen practitioners, and Andrew Newberg (Newberg, d’Aquili, and Rause 2001), who has developed a theory of how intense meditation and prayer unusually arouse certain systems within the brain. Another approach works on the level of concepts, among other topics exploring the alleged competitive advantage that religious concepts have as ‘memes’. Leading representatives of this approach include Pascal Boyer (2001), Robert McCauley and Thomas Lawson (2002), Justin Barrett (2004), and Harvey Whitehouse (Whitehouse and Laidlaw 2007).

Some popular authors, such as Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, have employed a cognitive-scientific emphasis in explicit, high-profile attacks on religion. Nevertheless, both economic and cognitive-scientific analyses have been of great interest to some theologians as well as to scholars of religions. Indeed, some leading researchers in the field, such as Andrew Newberg and Justin Barrett, have explicit theological agendas.

At the time of writing, scholars of religions seem to be divided between two camps, one camp favouring critical cultural studies, the other favouring more scientific approaches. Although there have been some attempts to synthesize these two orientations, they are in their very beginning phases.

Final reflections

In her award-winning novel, The Inheritance of Loss, Kiran Desai (2006: 269) notes that we still inhabit a world ‘where one side travels to be a servant, and the other side travels to be treated like a king’. The words ‘servant’ and ‘king’ are rather harsh, but the disparities that they point to are very real. The current chapter divides into two parts. The first part, the contextual, discusses the internationalization of the study of religion. The second part, the theoretical, reads as if the study of religion were mostly something undertaken by people living in Europe and the countries of the European diaspora, most notably, the United States and Canada. In part this division reflects the inadequacies of the author, whose primary base is in the United States. That inadequacy may itself reflect, however, certain realities about the study of religions today.

Compared to their colleagues in the natural sciences, scholars of religions in Europe and the countries of the European diaspora are very poorly funded. Compared with their colleagues in other parts of the world, particularly Africa, they have a wealth of resources at their disposal. Scholars from the rest of the world frequently do advanced study in Europe and the United States; the reverse is not often the case, and when it is, those scholars often find it difficult to get their degrees recognized at home, unless they also come with other degrees in hand. The theories that scholars most cite tend to be European and North American. For example, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese scholars have been actively discussing the work

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of, for example, Mircea Eliade and Jonathan Z. Smith. By contrast, many scholars from Europe or European diaspora countries who are not China experts might find it difficult to name a single Chinese theoretician who has been important in their work. Similarly, throughout the world, publication in the United States or Europe is often taken as a mark of professional quality. Publication in journals or with presses located elsewhere is generally less highly valued, and often results in less visibility. Gifted scholars from other parts of the world often jump at the chance to teach in Europe or the United States. Among many possibilities are, from Africa, the Nigerians Jacob Olupona (Harvard) and Afe Adogame (University of Edinburgh), and from India, where there are few programmes in religious studies, many members of the subaltern studies group: Ranajit Guha (UK, Vienna), Partha Chatterjee (Columbia, but also Calcutta), Gyan Prakash (Princeton), Dipesh Chakrabarty (Chicago), Sudipta Kaviraj (Columbia), and Gayatri Spivak (Columbia). In other words, when scholars from other parts of the world are taken seriously in the so-called West, they often move there.

Inasmuch as these disparities reflect disparities in wealth, access to resources, and political and social power, it may be difficult to change them through direct action within religious studies alone. They may change only as other parts of the world assume prominence on the global stage, as China appears to be doing. One also suspects that changes in theoretical hegemony within the study of religions are not leading but lagging changes. That is, they will occur only as a result of, and therefore after, shifts in social, political, and economic power. At the same time, the study of religions continues to globalize. At the 2005 Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions in Tokyo, Japan, new societies from Greece, Romania, South and Southeast Asia, and Turkey affiliated with the international body.

There are several tensions within the study of religion today. One has already been briefly noted, the tension between those who favour critical cultural studies and those who favour natural science. Another concerns the tired but apparently unavoidable division between theology and religious studies. As the preceding survey indicates, not all who count as scholars of religions have refrained from religious reflection in their work. As new scholars enter discussions within the study of religions, whether from other parts of the world or from other parts of the academy, such as the neurosciences, the question of the place of religious commitment and conviction within academic work continues to resurface. Indeed, some scholars have adopted that ultimate harbinger of contemporaneousness, the prefix ‘post-’, and begun to speak of a ‘post-secular’ age. The issue of religious commitment becomes especially important when religiously committed people with access to significant amounts of private money attempt to direct research in directions that they find attractive. This has happened in the case of the social and cognitive scientific study of religion (Templeton Foundation) and the study of Hinduism (Infinity Foundation).

Another location of tension is in the relationship between scholars of religions and the broader public. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, it is often easy to forget just how contentious work in the study of religions once was in Europe. The historical-critical study of the Bible is a good example. In 1839 David Friedrich Strauss received a chair at the University of Zurich, but his Life of Jesus was so controversial that he could never assume it. In recent years, committed religious practitioners from other traditions have begun to pay attention to what scholars of religions are saying about them, and they are not always happy. The most notorious case may be the criticism by traditional Hindus, led by Rajiv Malhotra, of scholars who use Freudianism to examine Hinduism, notably Wendy Doniger, Paul Courtright, and Jeffrey Kripal (Ramaswamy, de Nicolas, and Banerjee 2007). There

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have, however, been other instances of tension between tradition-minded, politically active Hindus and scholars of Hinduism, as well as between scholars and practitioners of other religions, such as Sikhs and Native Americans. Unfortunately, these debates have not always been conducted according to the norms of academic, or for that matter non-academic, civility. They have at times led not only to threats of violence but also to physical assault and caused scholars either to switch specializations, as Sam Gill has done, or to abandon academia altogether.

There is yet another reason why relationships between scholars of religions and the broader public would seem to be crucial at the beginning of the twenty-first century. With the shift from elite to mass universities came a shift away from cultural education rooted in the humanities towards advanced technical training rooted in the natural and social sciences. University students from privileged backgrounds once had the luxury of studying art, poetry, and religion. Now students all over the world enter higher education looking to improve their job prospects. The place of the humanities in this setting is precarious, and the study of religions perhaps more precarious than other fields. At the same time, events at the end of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first centuries would seem to indicate that even for persons with limited interest in higher education as an end in itself, an understanding of religions is useful. Such persons may, however, find that usefulness in political and commercial purposes to which academics themselves object.

In any case, scholars of religions have begun to take serious steps to address audiences outside the academy. They have served as expert witnesses in courts of law. They have consulted for news agencies and the communications media. They have begun to give significant attention to the ways in which religion is studied in primary and secondary education. They have even begun to wonder why governments do not consult them more often. It is too early to tell what the eventual outcome of these various activities will be.

Notes

1Liberal theologians had already abandoned such exclusive claims, while others were still able vigorously to assert traditional religious loyalties, as they began to do in the 1970s.

2For specific information in this section, readers might consult the various chapters of Gregory D. Alles, ed., Religious Studies: A Global View (London: Routledge, 2008).

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Suggested reading

Alles, G. D. (ed.), Religious Studies: A Global View, London, Routledge, 2008. An attempt to map the study of religions worldwide.

Antes, P., A. W. Geertz, and R. R. Warne (eds), New Approaches to the Study of Religion, Berlin, Walter de Gruyter, 2004.

Recent chapters on the study of religions, with several on the history of the study of religions in different parts of the world.

Doležalová, I., L. H. Martin, and D. Papoušek (eds), The Academic Study of Religion during the Cold War. New York, P. Lang, 2001.

Especially important for its detailed accounts of the study of religions in parts of Europe under Soviet influence.

Strenski, I. Thinking about Religion, Malden, MA, Blackwell, 2006.

A good historical, contextual account of the study of religions, although mostly devoted to the period before the Second World War.