{"id":999,"date":"2014-01-02T08:28:00","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T08:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/death-by-area-studies.html"},"modified":"2014-01-02T08:28:00","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T08:28:00","slug":"death-by-area-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/01\/death-by-area-studies.html","title":{"rendered":"Death by Area Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
A worrying trend is gaining momentum in the academic study of religion. \u00a0There appears to us to be an increasing tendency toward filling professorial vacancies with individuals with PhDs in area studies (e.g., Jewish Studies, Islamic Studies, East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies).\u00a0 We say \u201cworrying\u201d due to the changes in academic climate and intellectual agenda this development potentially carries with it.\u00a0 Specifically, we are concerned that the focus on textual and largely premodern forms of \u201creligious tradition\u201d that characterizes area studies means that individuals within departments, and increasingly departments writ large, will boundary their data in such a way that the \u201cmeta-questions\u201d and critical discourses that characterize much of current intellectual discussion, intentionally or not, will be discouraged or overshadowed, much as Christian studies (theology) overshadowed the field in years past.<\/span><\/div>\n
The result, we fear, will be the gradual diminution and eventual death of the field of Religious Studies. Please be assured that we do not advocate a return to the heyday of phenomenology with its concomitant claims of the \u201cirreducibility of the sacred.\u201d\u00a0 We are deeply concerned, however, with the history and problematics underlying the creation of \u201cReligious Studies\u201d itself.\u00a0 Rather than defer to the false inclusivity of area studies, we would like to encourage a collective rethinking of what the discipline of Religious Studies is and, by extension, what its future should be.<\/span><\/div>\n
To examine some of these issues, let us begin with a couple of anecdotes that we believe are illustrative of the problem.<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A worrying trend is gaining momentum in the academic study of religion. \u00a0There appears to us to be an increasing tendency toward filling professorial vacancies with individuals with PhDs in area studies (e.g., Jewish Studies, Islamic Studies, East Asian Studies, South Asian Studies).\u00a0 We say \u201cworrying\u201d due to the changes in academic climate and intellectual […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nDeath by Area Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A worrying trend is gaining momentum in the academic study of religion.  There appears to us to be an increasing tendency toward filling professorial\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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