Abstracts of panel sessions

1) Is theory and methodology of academic study of religions in crisis?

Theory and methodology of the academic study of religions has long been in the centre of the discussions about the identity of this academic discipline, which for the purposes of its research of religion and religious facts has to use methods of other fields of science (sociology, history, psychology, cultural anthropology etc.) and it has not yet developed an autonomous theory of religious studies and a related set of methods. Rather than resulting in the development of interdisciplinarity in the study of religions, this fact challenges the status of the academic study of religions as an independent scientific discipline. Since it fails to formulate generally valid and verifiable rules for its research, define its subject on the provable theoretical basis, determine its own methods and verify their effectiveness on the subject of its study in the form of scientific results, it becomes a mere narration dependent on momentarily used methods.

The aim of the session is to prompt an exchange of views concerning questions such as – what kind of science does the academic study of religions represent? Which kind of rationality can it legitimately refer to? What rules can apply as general, necessary and binding for the construction of its inner scientific structure, for its own forms of research and for the construction of its own language (i.e. for the scientific behaviour of the academic study of religions as a whole)? In such a way, the theory of the study of religions generates conceptual knowledge of the field of the “academic study of religions”, i.e. it becomes primarily a theory for the construction and use of its own terminology (concepts) which should show, what terms, such as explanation, comprehension, reasoning, evidence, statement, fact, observation, explication and conditions of adequation of knowledge, mean within the academic study of religions.

We invite contributions that deal, on a general level, with the issues of theoretical and methodological competencies of the academic study of religions and with questions concerning its cultural location, the external influences that may determine the development of the discipline, the risks of ideological biases of the academic study of religions, the extent to which coincidence of its purposes and outer social, political and cultural determinants is possible, and the principles on which the study of religions can base its fundamental theory and methodology.

2) Crossroads in the history of academic study of religions (events, reversions, persons)

The aim of this panel session is to discuss the contribution and influence of various approaches, methods or works that were, or still are, applied to the scientific study of religions.

Panel proposals or individual papers can touch upon the following questions, methods or personalities (the list is not, however, meant to be exhaustive; your initiative is welcomed):

  • What are the consequences of the past and present clash between culturalist and naturalist approaches in the study of religions? Is cognitive science of religion an important methodological advancement of the academic study of religions, or rather an inappropriate and misguided attempt, which will only lead to another impasse? Can the progress in neurosciences or evolutionary psychology contribute to a better understanding of human religiousness? Can these approaches help us to better understand the historical origin of religions and their transformations, caused by the changes in the social environment?
  • What is the role of comparativism in the contemporary academic study of religions? Is a transition from “big theories” (e.g. Dumézil’s Indoeuropean comparative mythology or Eliade’s concept of hierophanies) to contextually embedded comparisons a substantial improvement? What is the role of the academic context which influences every comparison?
  • What was the contribution of the approaches coming from cultural anthropology, especially symbolism of Clifford Geertz or structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss (whose centenary will be celebrated in 2008), to the methodology of the academic study of religion? Were possibilities they offer, or their criticism (in case of symbolism especially from Dan Sperber, Talal Asad or Russell McCutcheon) sufficiently discussed?
  • What is the past, present and future of the hermeneutic approaches (Mircea Eliade, Jacques Waardenburg)? Can they be modified and re-applied to the academic study of religions? What challenge (or support for) to hermeneutic approaches can be provided by literary theory (semantic, grammatology, translation studies etc.)?
  • Can some conferences (e.g. in Marburg, Mexico City etc.) be considered crossroads in the academic study of religion? What is the influence of these conferences? How long did it last and in which countries or scholarly traditions are they considered a real turning point? Can the foundation of new scientific journals (e.g. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Culture and Religion or Journal of Cognition and Culture) be also seen as important crossroads in the academic study of religions?

3) Academic study of religions in Central and Eastern European countries and its place in European research

The history of academic research and study of religions in Central and Eastern European countries differ in many aspects from the history of research in Western Europe. These countries underwent a complex historical and political development, which resulted in some specific features such as loss of contact with the western academic tradition and favouring ideologically focused research in the area of religions (scientific atheism). It was scientific atheism that represented one of the strategies of scientific, cultural and political engagement in whose services the study of religions was involved.

The period after World War II was the subject of a special IAHR conference held in Brno, The Academic Study of Religions During the Cold War: Ideological and Theological Constraints, East and West, 9-13 August 1999; the proceedings were published as The Academic Study of Religion during the Cold War: East and West (New York – Bern: Peter Lang, 2001, eds. Iva Doležalová, Luther H. Martin and Dalibor Papoušek). The current session’s focus is wider, both chronologically and thematically.

Although Central and Eastern European countries were part of one political area for a long time, the development of research was not homogenous in the individual countries. Defining the differences will be one of the fundamental aims of this session. The session will focus on describing, analysing and comparing of the academic study of religions in different Central and Eastern European countries. Special attention should be paid to the relationship between research in the above countries and in Western Europe, particularly the issue of whether and how influential theories were discussed and what image of Central and Eastern European study of religions was and is created in other countries.

Contributions could refer to some of the following issues:

  • Periodization of research on religion in Central and Eastern Europe.
  • Comparison of development in respective countries.
  • Specific features of development after World War II.
  • “Scientific atheism”.

4) Academic study of religions and multiculturalism: principles of coexistence of religions in one political and legal area

This session shall concentrate on one of the important challenges of contemporary study of religions – the issue of scientific reflection of contemporary religious plurality. The aim is to deal in depth with issues of its origination, transformation and, particularly, impacts of this plurality on the present social, cultural and political life. The session will focus on these key questions:

  • What is the difference of religious plurality in today’s society from other historical periods?
  • Is multiculturalism a scientific concept or a political declaration?
  • Is contemporary European society witness to growing religious conflicts?
  • Can religious identity be understood as an expression of protest in certain cases?
  • What is the role of the academic study of religions in the process of inter-religious dialogue?
  • What is the role of religions in the formation of European identity?
  • What is the position of religious and secular values in today’s Europe?

5) Contemporary religious situation in Europe and its reflection from the point of view of the academic study of religions

This session shall attempt to summarize the theoretical and methodological concepts, with whose aid the present religious situation in Europe can be examined (secularization, desecularization, spiritualization, individualization, etc.), and to analyse the situation in particular European countries and regions. Contributions that bring new, not yet published knowledge, information and case studies, which either confirm or disprove the validity of theoretical and methodological concepts will be particularly welcomed. They can concern, for example, these key problems:

  • Is desecularization of contemporary society a scientifically provable fact or one of the myths of postmodernism?
  • Transformation of new religious movements.
  • Religion and media.
  • The conflict of traditional and new religious groups and its political, economic and social impact.
  • Methods of research of contemporary religious life and their critical reflection.

6) Value neutrality and objectivity in the academic study of religions

Fulfilling the principle of scientific objectivity and value neutrality in the scientific study of religions has been the discipline’s Achilles’ heel since its beginnings. Up to now, no agreement on particular criteria for verifiability of its statements has been solidified. From a different point of view, value neutrality and objectivity in the study of religions is challenged by its grounding in certain historical, social and cultural conditions. A great deal of values, biases, unquestioned expectations and colonialism-based power positions is built deeply into its terminology, even in its understanding of the concept of religion itself. Furthermore, objectivity and neutrality in the academic study of religions is undermined by social and political engagements, deliberate or not, regarding the issues such as multiculturalism, religious violence and dialogue, or the activities of new religious movements. These engagements are often reinforced by the expectations of societies in which the study of religions is practiced and financially supported.

In this session we invite speakers to present subtle analyses of these inbuilt factors challenging the achievement of value neutral and objective study in different fields and approaches. The concern of this conference, however, is not just with the deconstruction of past research and clarification of present threats. The constructive outlooks for the future and development of strategies and approaches dealing with issues related to the mentioned challenges are welcome. The discussion could revolve around these questions: How should the study of religions handle the burden of its past? How should it deal with its hardly escapable position among various power struggles and interests? What kind of questions should it ask? What objectives should it deal with and how? What kinds of standards should it follow to become truly anthropological academic discipline with clear identity and methodology?

7) Experience and reflection: religious experience and experience in the academic study of religions

Religious experience is traditionally a highly problematic subject in the academic study of religions. The same is true for the issue of personal religious experience as a precondition for proper understanding of a particular religion or religion in general. Therefore, in this panel session we invite participants to discuss two methodological issues:

1) How to approach and interpret a religious experience: How to define it in order to study it academically? How to operationalize it? Why (or why not) study it?

2) What role do personal religious experiences of researchers play in the academic study of religions? Can the position that personal religious experience is a precondition for understanding religions be held after a long discussion concerning ethnocentrism and other interpretation biases? Should not a different kind of experience, a personal experience of a different cultural environment and the ever-present readiness for misunderstanding it, be conceived as a more appropriate precondition for understanding religions and formulating theories concerning religious phenomena? Or to put it another way, can the contemporary study of religions still prefer “religious ideas” abstracted from particular texts and subjected to often loose interpretations to data about what people actually do?

8) Religion in the public sphere

This session is concerned with interactions of religions with their economic, political, legal, business and social contexts. “Religion in the public sphere” became a complex issue connected to discussions about the forms of contemporary western religiosity and processes of individualization and de-traditionalization on the one hand, and undisguised presentation of many non-traditional religions in modern Europe on the other.

The aim of this session is to raise questions about theoretical as well as empirical research in this field. The session could concentrate on some of the following issues:

  • How can we define “public sphere” in the context of the study of religions?
  • What are the places assigned to religion in the public sphere and what are the consequences of particular conceptualization of this issue?
  • Reflection and analysis of existing theories about religion in the public sphere.
  • Empirical analyses of the role of particular religion(s) in selected “public sphere”.
  • Engagement and exclusion of religions in/from the public sphere.
  • Public presence and significance of religion in the public sphere, the clarity of religion’s role in the public sphere, its influence over society.
  • Religions and their own public spheres.

9) Religions in contact: encounter, communication and mission

Religions in contact – a phrase which provokes various associations ranging from “inter-religious dialogue” to “bloody conflicts”. This range of issues often turns into a minefield of particularly sensitive problems bearing the biases of ethnocentrism, colonialism and orientalism, which should be quickly surpassed with no harm – especially to the scholar.

However, this field of issues spreads beyond our horizon and not only ahead of us but also behind us.

The aim of this session is to define and discuss methods and approaches which might help to grasp various forms of encounters of religions and discuss their place within the academic study of religions. We would like to discuss topics directly connected with particular interreligious contacts, and the contexts in which these took place. We invite contributions on some of following topics:

  • Theory and methodology of the study of interreligious contacts.
  • Coexistence and interaction of several religions within one culture.
  • Encounters and changes of religions in the context of exploration of new territories and colonialism.
  • Missionary enterprises and their consequences.
  • Accommodation and acculturation of religions in new cultural environments.
  • Religions from the perspective of “the Other”.

10) Reading between the lines: textual sources and the study of religions

Much of the work of a student of religion could be described as reading between the lines. A substantial part of the history of particular religions is documented mainly in texts, and source criticism continues to play a fundamental role as one of the methods of the study of religions. A scholar must understand the text, which means to have in mind not only the content, but also the conditions of its production, its background and its context.

Yet, the claim of understanding a text is always a claim of interpretative authority. Scholarly understanding of texts is thus inseparable from scientific, political, economic and cultural engagement of the discipline. Scholarly writing has rhetoric and contexts of its own. It follows particular scientific strategies, like handling differences in sources or discrepancies between sources and theories. It is also engaged in political, economic and cultural strategies, like handling cultural differences and conflicts (colonial ethnography being the most obvious example).

Texts have the power to control reality. They are the main sources for most topics of the discipline and, at the same time, writing is an almost exclusive mode of creating the truth in the study of religions. Thus, texts are a theoretical issue where self-scrutiny is imperative. In this panel session, we invite scholars to discuss particular theoretical and methodological problems with interpretation of primary textual sources, but to focus also on the scholarly writing itself and on scientific and ideological strategies beyond its rhetoric.

The individual papers could deal, for example, with one of the following questions:

  • Does the bare fact of literacy really separate cultures into two levels? If yes, what differences are to be seen between literary and oral cultures? What is the role of texts in their interaction? Doesn’t the concept of oral culture itself make sense only in contrast to literary culture, being thus a legacy of “textualism”?
  • What is the nature and extent of changes that the textual codification or canonization of religious knowledge causes in a particular culture or tradition?
  • How does one define more precisely the power of texts to promote new forms of communication and coercion?
  • Is “textualism” just a misleading methodology, or is it a cultural strategy with particular engagements?

11) Approaches of academic study of religions in the study of archaic religions

The aim of this session is to present and discuss methods applied to the study of archaic religions that would place information coming from various sources into new perspectives and sound scientific framework.

In order to overstep the limits of traditional philological and historical scholarship, two main complementary approaches, social-scientific and cognitive, have been developed. This development might be considered in the following frames:

  • How to compensate methodologically for the lack of textual sources?
  • How to see through “official” levels of ancient religions (domestic religious life, private religious activities etc.)?
  • To what degree can cognitive approaches provide a theoretical basis for the study of archaic religions in their complexity?
  • How can methods used in the study of archaic religions be influenced by recent engagements of scholarship?

No periods or regions are favoured. Above all, papers considering theoretical aspects of the study of archaic religions or case studies with methodological implications are invited.

12) Reconsidering identities: religion, nation and politics

“I don’t understand you at all. You have said before, you are not religious. But now you are recounting a story about how you as a Jew wanted to confess in a Catholic church on Good Friday.” This snippet from a chat conversation at a Transylvanian internet forum points to some crucial aspects of identity constructions at the everyday intersection of the personal and the public and opens up many relevant questions about scholarly understanding of these processes. On the one hand, the quoted example seems to support the idea of the incoherent and fluid character of “post-modern” identities as a consequence of the fragmentation of everyday life; on the other hand, it also questions the familiarity with such a hybrid identity formation and thus represents, if not evidence, than, at least, a normative expectation of coherent “core” identities.

At the session, we will focus on similar methodological and theoretical dilemmas related to processes of religious, national and political identity formation. Questions can be posed about the relationship of religious, national and political identities, i.e. about their alleged overlapping, mutual exclusion or reinforcement in conditions of daily experiences. Nevertheless, these dilemmas are also relevant for the critical reflection on the ways the relationship between religious, national and political identities is articulated in the field of academic knowledge. Both the scholarly affirmation of coherent “core” identities and the scholarly celebration of fluid and hybrid identities can be questioned as ideological representations whose conceptual presuppositions prevent the recognition of contemporary complexity of identity formation processes.