Introductory essay. Crisis and creativity: opportunities and threats in the global study of religion\s

Abstract

This article introduces the themes and articles of a special symposium on new directions in the organizational structures and pedagogical emphases of religious studies programs around the world. The thematic focus of this symposium is the range of ways that specific religious studies departments and programs have recently experienced dramatic changes, whether in response to financial, administrative, and other external pressures (‘crisis’) or as a proactive step, aiming at greater student success or manifesting an innovative vision of the nature and function of the discipline (‘creativity’). The authors begin by addressing the nature and status of the study of religion\s as an academic discipline. They then discuss some of challenges that it faces in light of economic and political pressures.

Keywords:

• religious studies
• post-secondary education
• religion and public education
• Humanities
• Social Sciences
• pedagogy
• universities

Notes

¹This symposium (except for the introduction and the article by Smith, the latter commissioned specifically for this issue) consists of revised versions of papers presented in two sessions (‘Crisis and creativity: the changing faces of religious studies programs’) at the Quinquennial World Congress of the International Association for the History of Religions (IAHR) in Toronto, 15–20 August 2010. The sessions and symposium were organized by Steven Engler in consultation with Michael Stausberg, Tim Jensen, and Rosalind Hackett. For a variety of reasons, one of the scholars who agreed to present in Toronto was unable to do so and three of the papers presented there do not appear here.

²We refer to the study of ‘religion\s’ (following Stausberg 2010) in part to recognize that departments and programs around the world vary in their choice to use the singular or the plural. More fundamentally, the idiosyncratic use of the backslash is meant to index a series of theoretical and meta-theoretical questions regarding the referents and framing of ‘religion’ and ‘religions.’

³At the same time, this symposium reflects a longstanding concern in the pages of this journal. Religion has published, over the last four decades, a respectable series of articles on the international faces of the study of religion (Boespflug 2010; Chidester 1996; Cox and Sutcliffe 2006; Dickson 1975; Edwards 1972; Flasche 1996; Gardaz 2011; Hackett 1988; Ling 1975; Moore 1975; Murray and Walls 1975; Parrinder 1975; Pye 1975; Ray 1975; Ricketts 2002; Secretariat of the Israel Society for the study of religions 1975; Sharpe 1975; Smart 1988; Stausberg 2007, 2008, 2009; Thrower 1983; Waardenburg 1975). This historical and institutional focus on regional and national manifestations of the academic study of religion differs from analyses of the nature and scope of the field in general, of approaches within certain sub-disciplines, or of the impact of specific thinkers or theories (though there is some overlap, e.g., Batunsky [1982]; Büttner [1980]; Prebish [1994]).

⁴German equivalents would be Religionsforschung (field) vs. Religionswissenschaft (discipline); French and Italian equivalents would be sciences des religions/scienze delle religioni (field) vs. histoire des religions/storia delle religioni (discipline).

⁵Most scholars who work on (inter- or transdisciplinary) fields do so on the basis of specific disciplinary training and employment.

⁶The only likely candidate is the so-called comparative method, but comparison as such is not a method in a strict sense (Stausberg 2006; forthcoming). Moreover, comparative studies are the exception rather than the rule in the study of religion\s.

⁷In Britain, an additional association has been formed in order to represent the interests of the discipline in relation to governments and funding agencies: the Association of University Departments of Theology and religious studies (Hinnells 2004: 124).

⁸Exceptions include the AAR ‘Teaching religious studies Series’ (http://is.gd/hPUIG); Juergensmeyer (1990) on teaching the introductory course; and the Wabash Center and its journal Teaching Theology & Religion. The latter – a few exceptions notwithstanding (Berkson 2005; Berkwitz 2004; Burns 2006; Burr 2005; Carp 2007; Engler and Berger 2001; Engler and Naested 2002; Fort 2006; Patton, Robbins and Newby 2009; Ramey 2006; Samman 2005) – appears to cater mainly to theologians and other religionists who focus on teaching religion rather than teaching about religion\s. Of course, much attention is being paid to the very different issue of religious education in public schools.

⁹Figures from the mid 1990s seem to indicate that the U.S. professorate is somewhat exceptional in this respect: ‘When asked if their interests were primarily in teaching or in research, 63 percent of American academics respond that their commitments primarily lean toward teaching. This compares with 44 percent in England, 28 percent in Japan, and 33 percent in Sweden’ (Altbach 1997: 328).

¹⁰‘RELIGION accepts papers on all religious studies topics, including the history, literature, thought, practice, material culture, and institutions of particular religious traditions and communities from a variety of perspectives such as social scientific, cultural, cognitive, ethnographic, economic, ecological, and geographic (but excluding theology or philosophy of religion).’

¹¹For a review symposium of Alles' book, see, in Religion: Alles 2009; T. Jensen 2009; Joy 2009; Sutcliffe 2009; Wiebe 2009; Wiegers 2009.

¹²See T. Jensen (2010) on the consistent and continued attempts by the leadership of the IAHR (since its early days) to turn this organization into an international and global one.

¹³On the influence of the Cold War see (McCutcheon 1997: 163, 187; Martin 2001; Neusner and Neusner 1995). Donald Wiebe (2001) critiques claims that there was a causal influence, and Russell McCutcheon replies that there was an influence on the growth of the field, if not on content (McCutcheon 2004). Whatever the status of this debate, it is clear that this factor is, at most, one of many and also that it is largely confined to the American higher-education system (Engler 2006; Stausberg 2008: 306).

¹⁴At the same time, it is facile and somewhat disturbing to state: ‘In a sense, our job as scholars of religion became a lot easier on September 11, 2001’ (American Academy of Religion n.d.: 3).

¹⁵This does not include the various Brazilian evangelical theological schools that have recently begun offering doctoral degrees in ciência(s) da religião in addition to their undergraduate offering in theology. Most departments in the country use the plural, ciências da religião, with three preferring the singular.

¹⁶Frank and Gabler have been criticized for not adequately assessing the competing hypothesis that economic and political pressures are the main driving force of these changes: their empirical evidence is used descriptively rather than as a test for their main interpretive claim; they do not take adequate account of feedback effects, as professionals trained under changing university systems take up academic and administrative roles; they analyze only the humanities, social and natural sciences, leaving out professional programs – e.g., law, medicine, engineering, agriculture, and business – which are precisely the areas where market effects are most prominent; and their exclusive reliance on highly aggregated data omits important areas where their case would stand or fall (e.g., cross-country comparative data, national specificities and institutional cases) (Bradley 2007; Harwood 2008).

¹⁷To give a concrete example, tourism is an increasingly important arena where knowledge about religion is traded, mediated, and popularized (Stausberg 2011b). The development of more substantial expertise on religion in tourism within the study of religion\s would have benefits not just by enriching the discipline per se but by potentially supporting those who study and work with tourism in a variety of contexts around the world.

¹⁸As is traditional, and arguably constitutive, of the study of religion\s, we omit here the instrumental goal of assisting on the path or in the search for salvation, where ‘salvation’ is defined in terms of some sort of transcendent or super-human referent. This is proper to theology. At the same time, some arguably crypto-theological elements emerge when normative evaluations of religious and cultural pluralism – of the sort that often infuse classrooms in programs for the study of religion\s – move past instrumental views (e.g., getting along better would increase average wellbeing) to substantive views (e.g., a pluralistic society is a perfect, and so utopian, model) (Engler 2006: 457–462).