Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 For such a time as this: the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, 1969–2009
- Part I Inventing and reinventing the field of religious studies
- 2 Why a Council on the Study of Religion?
- 3 Ironies
- 4 Religious studies: the next vocation
- 5 Impressions from Wingspread: religious studies—the state of the art
- 6 History of religions
- 7 The future of religious studies: moving beyond the mandate of the 1960s
- 8 Naming the game: a question of the field
- Part II Method and theory in religious studies
- Part III Teaching religion
- Part IV Women and the bible in religious studies
- Part V Religion and religious studies in civic life
- Part VI Religious studies and identity politics
- Part VII Islam and 9/11
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index
6 - History of religions
from Part I - Inventing and reinventing the field of religious studies
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 For such a time as this: the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, 1969–2009
- Part I Inventing and reinventing the field of religious studies
- 2 Why a Council on the Study of Religion?
- 3 Ironies
- 4 Religious studies: the next vocation
- 5 Impressions from Wingspread: religious studies—the state of the art
- 6 History of religions
- 7 The future of religious studies: moving beyond the mandate of the 1960s
- 8 Naming the game: a question of the field
- Part II Method and theory in religious studies
- Part III Teaching religion
- Part IV Women and the bible in religious studies
- Part V Religion and religious studies in civic life
- Part VI Religious studies and identity politics
- Part VII Islam and 9/11
- Bibliography
- Acknowledgments
- Index
Summary
Some had remarked that there are merits in team operations, where scholars get together in a team, or students in a field get together in a team. I recently had the very good fortune to be involved in such an effort. Actually it wasn't quite scholarship. I was asked to be the principal advisor of a thirteen-part television series called The Long Search. I'm happy to say that the series, on world religions, was very well received by the critics. But it was very strongly a team effort, and in documentary style. I thought at the outset that there would be some difficulty in persuading people who were working on the ground in BBC television to take what I regarded as the right sort of approach to religion. On the contrary, I found that to be extremely easy, much easier, I thought, than persuading some academics. And I think the reason was that by taking a documentary approach the people at BBC weren't in a way too much bound by previous images of what it was to look at religion, and they were not too much bound by the kind of history that we are all bound up with ourselves.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reinventing Religious StudiesKey Writings in the History of a Discipline, pp. 46 - 50Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013