Johannes Quack
Biographic Data
| ID | 90821 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Johannes Quack |
| GIVEN NAMES | Johannes |
| FAMILY NAME | Quack |
| SIGNATURE | QUACK J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Heidelberg University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7406-219X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 63 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 16 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2011 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Who Counts as 'None: Ambivalent, Embodied, and Situational Modes of Nonreligiosity in Contemporary South Asia
People in South Asia who neither believe in god(s) nor engage in religious practices nevertheless often self-identify as Muslims or Hindus rather than-or in addition to-identifying as atheists. The situational and contextual dynamics generating such positionings have implications for the conceptualization of nonreligion and secular lives. Based on ethnographic research in India and Bangladesh and focusing on two individuals, we attend to embodied…
How to Conceptualize an Introductory Course on the Academic Study of Religion: Systematic Reflections and Exemplary Answers
How should instructors conceptualize an introductory course on the academic study of religion? This article combines an abstract and broader review of different conceptualizations of such courses with hands-on discussions of two exemplary teaching models. The ‘case study model’ applies different approaches within the study of religion to a single case study in order to exemplify and compare their potentials and limitations. The ‘monograph model’ …
The Diversity of Nonreligion: Normativities and Contested Relations
This book explores the relational dynamic of religious and nonreligious positions as well as the tensions between competing modes of nonreligion. Across the globe, individuals and communities are seeking to distinguish themselves in different ways from religion as they take on an identity unaffiliated to any particular faith. The resulting diversity of nonreligion has until recently been largely ignored in academia. Conceptually, the book advance…
Graphy
Based on these assumptions, Rees raises pertinent questions about the present state and future of the discipline: What is anthropology today? Is it a discipline, a set of philosophical questions, a method, a praxis, or an art form? On what (implicit) understandings of anthropos is it based? And what is the current status of ethnography? What role does ethnos play in contemporary research and writing? Or has the discipline entered a new age that c…
Identifying (with) the Secular
This chapter discusses two academic strands with respect to scholarly attempts to identify the secular. Based on a review of criticism brought forward against the classical secularization thesis, it outlines, on one hand, what consequences have been drawn by descriptive and explanatory social scientists and how they apply notions such as secularity, secularism, and secularization today, and, on the other, examines the conceptual histories as well…
Godless People and Dead Bodies: Materiality and the Morality of Atheist Materialism
Religious Indifference
This book provides a conceptually and empirically rich introduction to religious indifference on the basis of original anthropological, historical and sociological research. Religious indifference is
Godless People and Dead Bodies: Materiality and the Morality of Atheist Materialism
Atheists are not the only people who donate their bodies, yet the practice is strikingly prevalent in a variety of atheist circles. We concentrate here on the Indian case, exploring body donation as a key instance of the material culture of atheism. Recent efforts to reinvigorate study of the material culture of religion are to be welcomed, but they should be extended to non-religion in order to address the irony that sees scholars representing m…
Asymmetrical Conversations: Contestations, Circumventions, and the Blurring of Therapeutic Boundaries
Ideas about health are reinforced by institutions and their corresponding practices, such as donning a patient's gown in a hospital or prostrating before a healing shrine. Even though we are socialized into regarding such ideologies as "natural" and unproblematic, we sometimes seek to bypass, circumvent, or even transcend the dominant ideologies of our cultures as they are manifested in the institutions of health care. The contributors to this vo…
Outline of a Relational Approach to 'Nonreligion
This article proposes a programmatic approach to study nonreligion relationally. "Nonreligion" denotes phenomena that are generally not considered religious but whose significance is more or less dependent on religion (atheists are an obvious example). This approach draws on sociological field-theory to outline how different modes of nonreligiosity result from different configurations of the religious field they relate or are related to, influenc…
India
“What do I know?” Scholastic fallacies and pragmatic religiosity in mental health-seeking behaviour in India
This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork on psychiatrists and their patients (their care-givers and their communities) in North India. It addresses the questions as to when and why people approach psychiatrists and religious healers by arguing that approaches assessing “explanatory models” and other knowledge structures relevant to the people's health-seeking behaviour should place more emphasis on the people's strong desire to get well, in any…
Organized Rationalism in 20th-Century India
This chapter outlines why people like B. R. Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ramaswami Periyar, Abraham Kovor, as well as M. N. Roy and his Radical Humanists and Gora and his Atheist Centre, are often considered by the contemporary rationalist organisations to be their “ancestors”. Further, the role of the Rationalist Press Association of London is discussed with respect to the most influential Indian rationalist organisations of the 20th century. Fin…
ANiS in Action: The Science-Van
This chapter gives an ethnographic account of how ANiS activists use their science-vans to “disenchant India”, i.e. they conduct programmes at schools, colleges and villages with the aim of “spreading scientific temper” and “eradicating superstition”. After a description of the science-van, the general structure of an ANiS programme is provided, with a special focus on the way in which ANiS activists expose and explain alleged miracles performed …
Disenchanting IndiaOrganized Rationalism and Criticism of Religion in India: Organized Rationalism and Criticism of Religion in India
In academic no less than popular thought, India is frequently represented as the quintessential land of religion. Disenchanting India qualifies this representation through an analysis of the contemporary Indian rationalist organisations (those that affirm the values and attitudes of atheism, humanism or free-thinking).To understand the genesis of organised rationalism in India the book addresses the rationalists’ emphasis on maintaining links to …
Organised Atheism in India: An Overview
This article provides an overview of the history and the aims and activities of organised atheism in India. Most of the contemporary atheist, rationalist, and humanist groups form part of a larger movement, despite the different labels used. Most of the groups have direct forebears in nineteenth-century England and in the social and religious reform movements of nineteenth- and twentieth-century India. Drawing on a year of ethnographic fieldwork …
Ignorance and utilization: Mental health care outside the purview of the Indian state
The paper discusses different positions by psychiatrists and anthropologists taken towards 'folk' mental health care and summarizes what has been said in favour of the folk sector. Further, examples indicating a changing relationship between the Indian state and the folk sector are outlined, including the impacts of the fire tragedy at the dargah of Erwadi in 2001. On this basis it is argued that a prevailing ignorance of the folk sector has prov…
Memory, Religion and Museal Spaces
For centuries, nativity scenes have been used to illustrate, teach, and commemorate central biblical stories in a tangible display. Oscillating between public crib exhibitions at the museum and crib displays in private homes, the dynamics between individual and collective re-narration, re-construction, re-experience, and re-membering lead to the construction of a collective memory within specific political contexts. The article suggests the term …
Outline of a Relational Approach to 'Nonreligion
This article proposes a programmatic approach to study nonreligion relationally. "Nonreligion" denotes phenomena that are generally not considered religious but whose significance is more or less dependent on religion (atheists are an obvious example). This approach draws on sociological field-theory to outline how different modes of nonreligiosity result from different configurations of the religious field they relate or are related to, influenc…
Ignorance and utilization: Mental health care outside the purview of the Indian state
The paper discusses different positions by psychiatrists and anthropologists taken towards 'folk' mental health care and summarizes what has been said in favour of the folk sector. Further, examples indicating a changing relationship between the Indian state and the folk sector are outlined, including the impacts of the fire tragedy at the dargah of Erwadi in 2001. On this basis it is argued that a prevailing ignorance of the folk sector has prov…
Organised Atheism in India: An Overview
This article provides an overview of the history and the aims and activities of organised atheism in India. Most of the contemporary atheist, rationalist, and humanist groups form part of a larger movement, despite the different labels used. Most of the groups have direct forebears in nineteenth-century England and in the social and religious reform movements of nineteenth- and twentieth-century India. Drawing on a year of ethnographic fieldwork …
Memory, Religion and Museal Spaces
For centuries, nativity scenes have been used to illustrate, teach, and commemorate central biblical stories in a tangible display. Oscillating between public crib exhibitions at the museum and crib displays in private homes, the dynamics between individual and collective re-narration, re-construction, re-experience, and re-membering lead to the construction of a collective memory within specific political contexts. The article suggests the term …
Organized Rationalism in 20th-Century India
This chapter outlines why people like B. R. Ambedkar, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ramaswami Periyar, Abraham Kovor, as well as M. N. Roy and his Radical Humanists and Gora and his Atheist Centre, are often considered by the contemporary rationalist organisations to be their “ancestors”. Further, the role of the Rationalist Press Association of London is discussed with respect to the most influential Indian rationalist organisations of the 20th century. Fin…
ANiS in Action: The Science-Van
This chapter gives an ethnographic account of how ANiS activists use their science-vans to “disenchant India”, i.e. they conduct programmes at schools, colleges and villages with the aim of “spreading scientific temper” and “eradicating superstition”. After a description of the science-van, the general structure of an ANiS programme is provided, with a special focus on the way in which ANiS activists expose and explain alleged miracles performed …
Disenchanting IndiaOrganized Rationalism and Criticism of Religion in India: Organized Rationalism and Criticism of Religion in India
In academic no less than popular thought, India is frequently represented as the quintessential land of religion. Disenchanting India qualifies this representation through an analysis of the contemporary Indian rationalist organisations (those that affirm the values and attitudes of atheism, humanism or free-thinking).To understand the genesis of organised rationalism in India the book addresses the rationalists’ emphasis on maintaining links to …
Organised Atheism in India: An Overview
This article provides an overview of the history and the aims and activities of organised atheism in India. Most of the contemporary atheist, rationalist, and humanist groups form part of a larger movement, despite the different labels used. Most of the groups have direct forebears in nineteenth-century England and in the social and religious reform movements of nineteenth- and twentieth-century India. Drawing on a year of ethnographic fieldwork …
Ignorance and utilization: Mental health care outside the purview of the Indian state
The paper discusses different positions by psychiatrists and anthropologists taken towards 'folk' mental health care and summarizes what has been said in favour of the folk sector. Further, examples indicating a changing relationship between the Indian state and the folk sector are outlined, including the impacts of the fire tragedy at the dargah of Erwadi in 2001. On this basis it is argued that a prevailing ignorance of the folk sector has prov…
India
“What do I know?” Scholastic fallacies and pragmatic religiosity in mental health-seeking behaviour in India
This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork on psychiatrists and their patients (their care-givers and their communities) in North India. It addresses the questions as to when and why people approach psychiatrists and religious healers by arguing that approaches assessing “explanatory models” and other knowledge structures relevant to the people's health-seeking behaviour should place more emphasis on the people's strong desire to get well, in any…
Asymmetrical Conversations: Contestations, Circumventions, and the Blurring of Therapeutic Boundaries
Ideas about health are reinforced by institutions and their corresponding practices, such as donning a patient's gown in a hospital or prostrating before a healing shrine. Even though we are socialized into regarding such ideologies as "natural" and unproblematic, we sometimes seek to bypass, circumvent, or even transcend the dominant ideologies of our cultures as they are manifested in the institutions of health care. The contributors to this vo…
Outline of a Relational Approach to 'Nonreligion
This article proposes a programmatic approach to study nonreligion relationally. "Nonreligion" denotes phenomena that are generally not considered religious but whose significance is more or less dependent on religion (atheists are an obvious example). This approach draws on sociological field-theory to outline how different modes of nonreligiosity result from different configurations of the religious field they relate or are related to, influenc…
Godless People and Dead Bodies: Materiality and the Morality of Atheist Materialism
Atheists are not the only people who donate their bodies, yet the practice is strikingly prevalent in a variety of atheist circles. We concentrate here on the Indian case, exploring body donation as a key instance of the material culture of atheism. Recent efforts to reinvigorate study of the material culture of religion are to be welcomed, but they should be extended to non-religion in order to address the irony that sees scholars representing m…
Identifying (with) the Secular
This chapter discusses two academic strands with respect to scholarly attempts to identify the secular. Based on a review of criticism brought forward against the classical secularization thesis, it outlines, on one hand, what consequences have been drawn by descriptive and explanatory social scientists and how they apply notions such as secularity, secularism, and secularization today, and, on the other, examines the conceptual histories as well…
Godless People and Dead Bodies: Materiality and the Morality of Atheist Materialism
Religious Indifference
This book provides a conceptually and empirically rich introduction to religious indifference on the basis of original anthropological, historical and sociological research. Religious indifference is
The Diversity of Nonreligion: Normativities and Contested Relations
This book explores the relational dynamic of religious and nonreligious positions as well as the tensions between competing modes of nonreligion. Across the globe, individuals and communities are seeking to distinguish themselves in different ways from religion as they take on an identity unaffiliated to any particular faith. The resulting diversity of nonreligion has until recently been largely ignored in academia. Conceptually, the book advance…
Graphy
Based on these assumptions, Rees raises pertinent questions about the present state and future of the discipline: What is anthropology today? Is it a discipline, a set of philosophical questions, a method, a praxis, or an art form? On what (implicit) understandings of anthropos is it based? And what is the current status of ethnography? What role does ethnos play in contemporary research and writing? Or has the discipline entered a new age that c…
How to Conceptualize an Introductory Course on the Academic Study of Religion: Systematic Reflections and Exemplary Answers
How should instructors conceptualize an introductory course on the academic study of religion? This article combines an abstract and broader review of different conceptualizations of such courses with hands-on discussions of two exemplary teaching models. The ‘case study model’ applies different approaches within the study of religion to a single case study in order to exemplify and compare their potentials and limitations. The ‘monograph model’ …
Who Counts as 'None: Ambivalent, Embodied, and Situational Modes of Nonreligiosity in Contemporary South Asia
People in South Asia who neither believe in god(s) nor engage in religious practices nevertheless often self-identify as Muslims or Hindus rather than-or in addition to-identifying as atheists. The situational and contextual dynamics generating such positionings have implications for the conceptualization of nonreligion and secular lives. Based on ethnographic research in India and Bangladesh and focusing on two individuals, we attend to embodied…
Sociology (13 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Religion and Society Interactions (8 works) · Political science (7 works) · Social science (6 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (5 works) · Anthropology (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Art (4 works)