Religion in the Making: The Emergence of the Sciences of Religion

Description

This volume explores the ways in which religion became the object of scientific research in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Most obvious is the development of an increasingly autonomous science of religion (with founding fathers like Max Müller and C. P. Tiele). However, within anthropology (Tylor, Frazer), sociology (Durkheim, Max Weber), and psychology (William James), religion also came to be seen as a separate entity to be studied comparatively. To capture this wide field this book focuses on the emergence of the discourse on religion in a broad academic context, among different disciplines. The emphasis is on general socio-historical developments, rather than on individual biographies. Part I deals with the institutionalization of science of religion in France, Britain, and the Netherlands. Part II focuses on boundary disputes between the emerging "sciences of religion". Part III examines new conceptualizations of religion underlying the new endeavour ("ritual", "magic", "survival"). Preface vii Contributors ix ARIE L. MOLENDIJK / Introduction 1 PART ONE. INSTITUTIONALIZATION: NATIONAL SETTINGS MICHEL DESPLAND / Sciences of Religion in France During the July Monarchy (1830-1848) 31 PETER BYRNE / The Foundations of the Study of Religion in the British Context 45 ARIE L. MOLENDIJK / Transforming Theology: The Institutionalization of the Science of Religion in the Netherlands 67 PART TWO. EMERGING DISCIPLINES: BOUNDARY DISPUTES SIGURD HJELDE / The Science of Religion and Theology: The Question of Their Interrelationship 99 ROBERT ACKERMAN / J. G. Frazer and the Cambridge Ritualists and the "Scientific" Study of Religion 129 IVAN STRENSKI / The Ironies of 'Fin-de-Siècle' Rebellions against Historicism and Empiricism in the 'École Pratique des Hautes Études', Fifth Section 159 DAVID M. WULFF / Rethinking the Rise and Fall of the Psychology of Religion 181 PART THREE. RETHINKING RELIGION: CONCEPTUAL INNOVATIONS ROBERT J. BAIRD / How Religion Became Scientific 205 MIRIAM PESKOWITZ / Religion Posed as a Racial Category. A Reading of Émile Burnouf, Adolph Moses, and Eliza Sunderland 231 WOUTER J. HANEGRAAFF / The Emergence of the Academic Science of Magic: The Occult Philosophy in Tylor and Frazer 253 BARBARA BOUDEWIJNSE / British Roots of the Concept of Ritual 277 HANS G. KIPPENBERG / Survivals: Conceiving of Religious History in an Age of Development 297 Index of Names 313 Index of Subjects 317