Historicizing "Tradition" in the Study of Religion

Description

This collection of essays analyzes ‛tradition' as a category in the historical and comparative study of religion. The book questions the common assumption that tradition is simply the "passing down" or imitation of prior practices and discourses. It begins from the premise that many traditions are, at least in part, social fabrications, often deliberately serving particular ideological ends. Individual chapters examine a wide variety of historical periods and religions (Congolese, Buddhist, Christian, Confucian, Cree, Esoteric, Hawaiian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, New Religious Movement, and Shinto). Different sections of the book consider tradition's relation to three sets of issues: legitimation and authority; agency and identity; modernity and the West. Illuminating the Half-Life of Tradition: Legitimation, Agency, and Counter-Hegemonies Tradition, Legitimation, and Authority Tradition The Rhetoric of Innovative Tradition in the Festival Commemorating the Night of Muhammad's Ascension The "Golden Age" of Muslim Spain: Religious Identity and the Invention of a Tradition in Modern Jewish Studies Central African Women: Victims between African and Christian Traditions Historicizing Modern Shinto: A New Tradition of Yasukuni Shrine Tradition as Legitimation in New Religious Movements Tradition, Agency, and Identity Women and the Book of Mormon: The Creation and Negotiation of a Latter-Day Saint Tradition Continuity, Rupture, and Traditionalism in a Buddhist Tradition The Autonomy of Tradition: Creating Space for Indian Medicine Incarcerated Tradition: Native Hawaiian Identities and Religious Practice in Prison Contexts Whose Tradition? Conflicting Ideologies in Medieval and Early Modern Esotericism Confucianism and Tradition Dispatches from Memory: Genealogies of Tradition Tradition, Modernity, and the West Histories of Tradition in Bhaktapur, Nepal: Or, How to Compile a Contemporary Hindu Medieval City The Hasidic Tales of an American Yiddish Journalist Re-Orienting Tradition: Radhakrishnan's Hinduism Rights and Values in the American Constitutional Tradition Re(Making) Tradition in an International Tibetan Buddhist Movement: A Lesson from Lama Gangchen and Lama Michel Afterward: Tradition's Legacy List of Participants Index of Names Index of Topics