The Science of Prayer: Genealogies and Biopolitics
June 22, 2020
In this week’s episode, John Lardas Modern discusses the genealogy and biopolitics of the scientific study of prayer from E.B. Tylor to DEVO.
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academic study of religion through podcasts.
The Religious Studies Project is a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organization (SCIO) devoted to producing engaging and accessible resources for the contemporary study of religion.
Since 2012, our weekly podcast and written response essays have featured hundreds of scholars sharing their research and expertise in religious studies.
Regular listeners to the Religious Studies Project will be familiar with the critique of the category of ‘religion’. Our podcasts with, for example, Naomi Goldenberg, James Cox, and Tim Fitzgerald, demonstrate that ‘religion’ is a distorting anachronism with roots in European colonial exploitation that has been utilized to justify the cultural superiority of Christian Europe, and is at base ‘a citation of Christianity as idealized prototype’ (Goldenberg 2018: 80). But what might it mean to decolonize the study of religion? How can we take this well-rehearsed critique and put it into practice?
In this podcast, Chris is joined by Malory Nye to discuss the decolonizing project. Why is it necessary? Should we speak of decolonizing rather than decolonization? How can the field address its whiteness, and its colonial origins and legacy? What are the theoretical, methodological, historical and pedagogical challenges that this might entail? How can ‘we’ ensure that this is a thorough decolonizing project and not merely a nod to neoliberal higher education agendas? And what can those of us who have limited time and resources at our disposal do to address this urgent and thoroughly pervasive problem with the study of religion? These questions and more animate this broad-ranging discussion with the author of Religion: The Basics, and two key journal articles – “Race and religion: postcolonial formations of power and whiteness” and “Decolonizing the Study of Religion”.
In this week’s episode, John Lardas Modern discusses the genealogy and biopolitics of the scientific study of prayer from E.B. Tylor to DEVO.
Amid mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism ongoing in the United States, RSP contributor Ben Marcus speaks with Andre Willis and Carleigh Beriont about race and religion in this month’s Discourse episode.
In this interview, @Bre_Fallon talks to Dr Avril Alba on the tension between the secular and the sacred in Holocaust Museums.
Writing about universalism in NDEs, Natasha Tassell-Matuma explains that “Languages reflect the cosmologies, ontologies, and epistemologies underlying cultures and are mutually constitutive in a culture’s practices, beliefs, ideologies, and norms. As such, when people speak, they are essentially drawing on a collective legacy that speaks to the socially-sanctioned worldview of the culture they affiliate with.”
In this response, Gregory Shushan writes, “The notion expressed by both Prof. Cotter and Dr. Schlieter in their recent interview that near-death experiences (NDEs) have been discussed in academic contexts primarily from medical/materialist and “paranormal” approaches is somewhat overstated – particularly in the study of religions and related fields such as anthropology. Those who have undertaken and published research adopting a “critical religious studies approach, looking at these narratives in their social and historical contexts” will be surprised at the claim that such works are “largely absent”
Adam Park’s response to episode 330 highlights boxing as a site for identity creation and the legacy of muscular Christianity as two important takeaways of our interview with Arlene Sanchez-Walsh.
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The views expressed in podcasts, features and responses are the views of the individual contributors, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Religious Studies Project or our sponsors. The Religious Studies Project is produced by the Religious Studies Project Association (SCIO), a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (charity number SC047750).
