Current Approaches to the Study of Religion: Aims, Methods, and Theories of Research

Though in existence in Europe since the late 19th century, the study of religion began in earnest in North American only in the early to mid-1960s. A divergent field–evidence of long standing theoretical controversies that continue to this day–what was once known as Comparative Religion today goes by a wide variety of names, from Religious Studies and the Science of Religion to what some now name Critical Religion Studies. Trying to manage this diversity and present the impression of a coherent field, Jacques Waardenburg published an authoritative anthology a generation ago, which tracked the field’s key theoretical and methodological debates, from F. Max Muller to the 1950s. But a generation or more has passed since that volume and it is time for a follow-up that begins where Waardenburg left off. This anthology collects together works by the key scholars who have contributed to the study of religion over the past sixty years–representing a wide variety of theoretical and methodological innovations, from feminist and material religion studies to discourse theory and the cognitive science of religion.