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This monograph studies the professionalization of History of religions as an academic discipline in late 19th and early 20th century France and Europe. Its common thread is the work of the French Modernist priest and later Professor of History of religions at the Collège de France, Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), who participated in many of the most topical debates among French and international historians of religions. Unlike his well-studied Modernist theology, Loisy’s writings on comparative religion, and his rich interactions with famous scholars like F. Cumont, M. Mauss, or J.G. Frazer, remain largely unknown. This monograph is the first to paint a comprehensive picture of his career as a ...
This monograph studies the professionalization of History of religions as an academic discipline in late 19th and early 20th century France and Europe. Its common thread is the work of the French Modernist priest and later Professor of History of religions at the Collège de France, Alfred Loisy (1857-1940), who participated in many of the most topical debates among French and international historians of religions. Unlike his well-studied Modernist theology, Loisy’s writings on comparative religion, and his rich interactions with famous scholars like F. Cumont, M. Mauss, or J.G. Frazer, remain largely unknown. This monograph is the first to paint a comprehensive picture of his career as a ...
The Idea of Semitic Monotheism examines some major aspects of the scholarly study of religion in the long nineteenth century--from the Enlightenment to the First World War. It aims to understand the new status of Judaism and Islam in the formative period of the new discipline. Guy G. Stroumsa focuses on the concept of Semitic monotheism, a concept developed by Ernest Renan around the mid-nineteenth century on the basis of the postulated and highly problematic contradistinction between Aryan and Semitic families of peoples, cultures, and religions. This contradistinction grew from the Western discovery of Sanskrit and its relationship with European languages, at the time of the Enlightenment ...
This volume in political epistemology offers a comprehensive discussion of the multiple applicability of Gramscian concepts and categories to the historical, sociological, and cultural analysis of science. The authors argue that the perspective of hegemony and subalternity allows us critically to assess the political directedness of scientific practices as well as to reflect on the ideological status of disciplines that deal with science at a meta-level – historical, socio-historical, and epistemological. Contributors include: Massimiliano Badino, Javier Balsa, Lino Camprubí, Ana Carneiro, Luís Miguel Carolino, Riccardo Ciavolella, Roger Cooter, Alina-Sandra Cucu, Maria Paula Diogo, Isabel Jiménez Lucena, Annelies Lannoy, Jorge Molero Mesa, Agustí Nieto-Galan, Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Matteo Realdi, Jaume Sastre-Juan, Arne Schirrmacher, Ana Simões, Carlos Tabernero Holgado, and Carlos Ziller Camenietzki.
This book examines how nineteenth-century Dutch Protestant theologians and thinkers met the challenges of the modernizing world around them.
This monograph provides an alternative model for looking at the old question about Paul and the mysteries in a new light. Specifically, this study compares rituals—baptism in the Pauline communities and the initiation rituals of the mysteries—through the lens of cultural anthropology and the sociology of religion. Three research questions lead the project: What benefits does each initiation ritual promise its participants? What are the underlying messages or structures that guarantee the efficacy of those rituals? How and to what extent is the initiation ritual connected to the participants’ cognition and ethics beyond initiation itself? Taking those questions as the analytical framewo...
Back cover: What did biblical scholars, theologians, orientalists, philologists, and ancient historians of the 19th century consider "religion" and "history" to be? How did they understand these conceptual categories, and why did they study them in the manner they did? Analyzing the figures of Julius Wellhausen and Hermann Gunkel, Paul Michael Kurtz examines the historiography of ancient Israel in the German Empire through the prism of religion, as a structuring framework not only for writings on the past but also for the writers of that past themselves.
Since its emergence in the nineteenth century, the Theosophical Society has wielded enormous influence across diverse fields, none more so than the study of religion. This volume explores this legacy in North America, Europe, and India, demonstrating its impact on the conceptualization of “religion” and its influence on methods of comparison. Unveiling overlooked entanglements, the volume challenges standard narratives in the history of religious studies and interrogates the deliberate neglect of theosophy’s influence in the “secular” academy. In doing so, the work confronts lingering ghosts, urging a reappraisal that enriches the study of religion and offers prescriptions for its future.
A brilliant exposition of how the Bible and classical antiquity are central to the formation of Victorian self-understanding.