The study of religion has never been more important. Religion remains central to the individual and communal lives of the majority of people around the world and provides some of the clearest fracture lines in contemporary global and national politics. This volume scrutinises different ways in which Religious Studies has been imagined in recent decades. It brings together key modern and contemporary essays to present a broad yet penetrating examination of the study of religion as an intellectual enterprise. Grouped into six thematic sections, each essay outlines and defends a particular approach to Religious Studies as a field of enquiry. The introduction and conclusion locate the debate in its wider intellectual, cultural and political context. The essays raise numerous questions: What is Religious Studies?; Who is it for?; What does it do?; Where is it going? The aim of the volume is to clarify the nature and purpose of Religious Studies and to renew analytic rigour in the study of religion.

Table of Contents:
General Introduction SECTION 1: ORIENTATION: SCOPE AND REMIT Section Introduction 1. Study of Religion(s), T. Thomas 2. Methods and Issues in the Academic Study of Religion, G. Alles SECTION 2: CONSTITUTION: IDENTITY AND DEMARCATION Section Introduction 3. The Principles and Meaning of the Study of Religion, N. Smart 4. Historiography and Disciplinary Formation: the case of "Religious Studies", S. Sutcliffe 5. Interdisciplinarity in Religious and Women's Studies, D. Juschka 6. A Spatial Analysis of the Relationship between Theology and Religious Studies: Knowledge-power Strategies and Metaphors of Containment and Separation, K. Knott SECTION 3: INTERPRETATION: COMMUNICATION AND UNDERSTANDING Section Introduction 7. "Religion" and "Religious Studies": No Difference At All, J.Z. Smith 8. Principles of Studying Religions, R. Gothoni 9. Discursive Study of Religion: from States of the Mind to Communication and Action, K. von Stuckrad 10. The Study of Religion as Corrective Reading, G. Flood SECTION 4: EXPLANATION: REDUCTION AND CAUSALITY Section Introduction 11. Is a Science of Religion Possible? H. Penner & E. Yonan 12. Basic Positions of Religionswissenschaft, K. Rudolph 13. Methodological Foundations of the Comparative History of Religions, W. Tyloch 14. Beyond thick descriptions and interpretive sciences: explaining religious meaning, D. Wiebe SECTION 5: DECONSTRUCTION: REFLEXIVITY AND CRITIQUE Section Introduction 15. Religion, Religions and World Religions - Religious Studies: a critique, T. Fitzgerald 16. Secularism and the "iatrogenic" effect of studying religion, R. King 17. Postcolonial Reflections: challenges for Religious Studies, M. Joy 18. Outlaws or In-Laws? Queer Theory, LGBT Studies and Religious Studies, M. Wilcox SECTION 6: INTERVENTION: ENGAGED AND APPLIED MODELS Section Introduction 19. A Default of Critical Intelligence? The Scholar of Religion as Public Intellectual, R. McCutcheon 20. The Academy as Real Life: New Participants and Paradigms in the Study of Religion, J. Plaskow 21. The Task and Function of the Academic Study of Religion in the Face of Religious Diversity, E. Franke Conclusion Bibliography Index