Religious studies: what's the point?: Lancaster University, 15–16 December 2003
- Publisher
- Elsevier Science
- Year
- 2003
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 23 KB
- Volume
- 33
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0048-721X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
A two-day conference jointly organised by the Department of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, and the Philosophy and Religious Studies Subject Centre of the Learning and Teaching Support Network (PRS-LTSN)
Starting from a consideration of the impact of Ninian Smart on Religious Studies, this conference focuses on issues crucial to the field at the beginning of the 21st century. Starting from the premise that studying religion in comparative contexts is a worthwhile exercise that can widen horizons and deepen understandings of the world around us, it continues into contemporary arguments over whether 'religion' is a viable topic of analysis and whether 'Religious Studies' should exist at all as a field of study. Between these perspectives lies a host of questions relating to the ways we study and teach religion, from 'universalist' and 'comparativist', to 'particularist' positions. Linked to these broader areas of discussion are other basic questions: the language and the terms we use (or seek to avoid) in the research and teaching of Religious Studies; and especially, how we deal with terms and words that have particularist orientations or value-laden meanings (e.g., fundamentalism, cult, millenarian) specific to certain cultural discourses but that have come to be applied to other cultures and areas.