Ivanov Igor_Manual of History of World Religions (2011)

"Alternative Modernities is Europe". Casa Cartii de Stiinta, Cluj-Napoce, 2013

The academic study of religion\s is a discipline at the border between religion and secularity. It proves to have so many names that one could ask if there are not more than it needs. First, this paper will shortly present some of these names used by scholars of religion\s in the past, and by associations for the academic study of religion\s nowadays. Then, it will do a research on "religion" study programs in one hundred and fifty universities across the world, twentyfive of each region: Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Oceania and North America, in order to find out which are the names of this discipline today. It certainly will be of interest to find out why the academic study of religion has so many names, but for that more debates, and articles would be needed, so the purpose of this study will limit itself to offering an illustration on the (many) names the academic study of religion has now; in order to get the best image of this situation all data will be presented statistically and graphically.

Skhid

Philosophy of religion is one of the most popular philosophical disciplines at Western and American universities. The concept "philosophy of religion" is also presented in Ukrainian educational system. Nevertheless the essence of the concept in Ukrainian and Western scientific environment is not identical. The exploration of the differences constitutes the relevance of the issue. The main research method is comparative analysis: the work is based on textbooks' analysis from philosophy of religion written in the West in comparison to the national works of religious studies. The main pioneering result reached in the issue is to highlight the conceptual differences of "philosophy of religion" in Ukrainian and Western scientific traditions. In Ukraine philosophy of religion is a philosophic discipline that studies a phenomenon of religion, as in Western and American scientific environment the subject of philosophy of religion is God. The presented difference in approaches depends on the difference of ideological bases. Soviet science of religious studies which dominated in Ukraine for the decades and has still remained impact on the most part of scientific environment was built on Marxist atheism and considered religion not according to human interrelationships with the Highest Being, but as a result of social relationships. In other words religion is a social phenomenon for Marxist religious studies, namely social generated reality. In the West, where philosophy of religion has never been in service to totalitarian ideology, God has remained a subject of the discipline. Western philosophy of religion is close to theology owing to the subject of study which is also explores God. The difference between them is in the research method: philosophy of religion explores God via intelligence, and theology via revelation. Western challenges of philosophy of religion are to explore God via human intelligence. The European tradition endeavors to separate knowledge about God that can be explored by human mind from the knowledge which is presented to human via revelation.

This survey course begins with an introduction to the field of Religious Studies, which as an academic endeavor, continues to encourage and invites analysis, questions and exploration from multiple perspectives, commitments and cultural locations. From the distribution of a wide range of beliefs, practices, customs, rituals to politics, science, economics, the arts, our bodies, language and popular culture-just about all aspects of our lives-are inflected by what may be called the religious. On the one hand, religious traditions and their actors who have competed against scientific, political and other spheres of authority and influence; then, on the other hand, religious traditions have cooperated and developed alongside other institutions of power and influence. Following an introduction to the nature of religion and its academic study, we will survey five of the major world religions in the following order: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Each section of this course begins with an overview of the historical, geographical and cultural background in which the respective religious tradition first emerged, then each unit transitions to an overview of the sacred writings, teachings, rituals and practices within, throughout and across the aforementioned religious traditions. In this introductory course in Religious Studies, we will evaluate how religious traditions have established (and continue to establish) ways of belonging, believing and becoming related to what may be known as the sacred and the profane, the divine and the humane, the transcendent and the immanent. We will conclude this survey course with an introduction to New Religious Movements with special attention afforded to The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints and The Nation of Islam. Recognizing that religious traditions continue to diversify when proliferated and transmitted, we shall seek to evaluate how these religious traditions are colored and textured within historical contexts. The underlying goal of this course is to encourage greater curiosity, appreciation, and cultivation of the interrelated disciplines of listening, reading, reflecting and writing to demonstrate an informed, nuanced and empathetic understanding of world religions. "Normally persons talk about other people's religions as they are, and about their own as it ought to be."

Religion and Society: Advances in Research, 2012

Religion, 1987

This two-volume reference work is presented as a `sequel' to J. Waardenburg's Classical Approaches to the Study of Religion published as volumes I and II in this same Mouton series (Reason and Religion). The work is meant to complement thè story' of the academic study of religion in its development up to 1945 implicit in the selections of representative scholars in the field gathered together by Waardenburg. The substance of these volumes does not, however, comprise select passages from key authors in `religious studies', that being virtually impossible given the extensive development of the field since 1945. Nor do these volumes present a unified historical narrative of that `further development' of religious studies. Rather, they contain the reflections of a `team' of scholars, each summarizing the character of the study of religion within the framework of various sub-disciplines, so to speak, that constitute that study. It is the aim of the editor (and most of the authors, it appears) not only to indicate the variety of legitimate research interests in religious studies, but also to show how that variety of approaches interrelate, or, at least, can be integrated so as to constitute a kind of unified theory of the nature of the study of religion. It soon becomes evident to the reader, however-and reluctantly admitted by the editorthat even with this two-volume assault on the problem there is no single paradigm for the study of religion even within sight let alone within our grasp. What unity does appear to exist derives more from the hopes expressed by the editor than from the substance of the essays. Volume I is focussed on `the humanities', i .e. on approaches to the study of religion that, as Whaling puts it in the introductions to the two volumes, transcend the positivism of the scientific approach to religious phenomena by means of the intuitive insight `that the study of religion has to do with man' (I : 25, 26 ; II : 12). In the introduction to the first volume, Whaling attempts to highlight, the contrasts between the classical and contemporary periods in the study of religion and enunciates some general methodological claims that seem to constitute a set of assumptions for all the authors. Five essays follow which cover the historical and phenomenological approaches to the study of religion (U. King), the comparative study of religion (F. Whaling), the study of religious texts and myth (K. Bolle), the scientific study of religion in its plurality (N. Smart), and the global context of the contemporary study of religions (F. Whaling). U. King's essay is more than merely descriptive. It is a polemical essay that argues for a historical and phenomenological study of religions that is more than a narrow, empirical approach to the phenomenon. Such an `empirical positivism', as she calls it, jeopardizes the autonomy of `religious studies' and is, moreover, inadequate to its subject matter. Her review of the methodological debates amongst historians and phenomenologists over the last 40 years, however, is thorough and stimulating .

Rather than portray Religious Studies by J. Z. Smith's metaphor of mapping territories, here the metaphor is extended to cover Kant's description of the human condition as consisting of three regions of experience: fields (Felde), territories (Böden), and domains (Gebiete). All three regions involve clarity of conceptualization. Fields constitute regions of experience where there is conceptualization without rules (e.g., dreams, fantasies, hallucinations), territories regions where rules are possible but not universal (e.g., civic laws), and domains regions where rules are necessary and universal (e.g., nature and creative freedom). Concerned with all three, RS is grounded in the necessary conditions of possibility for experience where there is self-legislation (because imperceptible) of rules for its understanding and action. This paper contrasts this grounding in domains with eleven territories of RS. Neither a mere perspective on life nor limited to a single region of experience, RS focuses on pure religion at the core of all historical religion.

This essay discusses main features and developments of the study of religion(s) in Western Europe. It attempts a historical, geographical, and thematic synthesis. Part I sketches the general academic framework of the academic study of religion(s) in Western Europe and addresses the question of the (historical and conceptual) roots of this field of study. It then discusses some key dimensions of the academic institutionalization of the study of religion(s) from the 1870s to Fascism and National Socialism, addressing such issues as chairs, congresses, periodicals, textbooks and reviewing previous research. Parts II and III are to follow.