Sam Gill, The Proper Study of Religion
Building on Jonathan Z. Smith
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12901412 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jacob Barrett (0000-0002-7342-4213, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Pages | 1-2 |
| Publication date | 2023-08-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal for the Study of Religion Nature and Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1749-4907 • E-ISSN: 1749-4915 |
| Publisher | Equinox Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1558/jsrnc.24905 |
| OpenAlex | W4385703285 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 1 |
Has the academic study of religion come of age' (p.6)?Sam Gill poses this important question in his exciting and reflective book, The Proper Study of Religion: Building on Jonathan Z. Smith.Using Smith and work from throughout his life, Gill shows that the question above cannot be answered with a simple 'yes' and turns to his own creative engagement with Smith's work as an avenue to find possible solutions for the field becoming 'proper'.To Gill, this means developing a study of religion 'that is appropriate to and legal in a secular university, as a field of academic study that has a responsibility to offer insight and guidance to the global presence of religions' (p.5).At times a heartfelt reflection on Gill's relationship as first a student and later a friend of Smith's, and at others an exploration of Smith's ideas through Gill's own work, this book emerges as an important example of scholarship meant to move the field forward.Gill recognizes Smith as one of the most influential scholars in the study of religion and provides concrete examples of how thinking with Smith productively served his own work while also illuminating the untapped potential Smith's work can provide to the academic enterprise of studying religion.The book begins with Gill arguing that Smith's greatest but most misunderstood contribution is his work on comparison.Gill locates the root of Smith's work on comparison in his dissertation on James Frazer's The Golden Bough (1890), as the dissertation was a history of comparison as a scholarly method and the potential comparison held for the study of religion.While Smith's most popular understanding of comparison comes from his famous chapter 'In Comparison a Magic Dwells ' (2000) where he states that comparison is not natural, Gill adopts the language of a 'necessary double face' in comparative enterprises to understand and expand Smith's thoughts on comparison.Chapter 1, 'The Necessary Double-Face', identifies two types of comparison that can be linked to Smith's engagement with Frazer.The first he names a 'limited objective type of comparison' that assumes the comparer objectively knows and can reach a conclusion about the state of the objects at the center of the comparison.The second, and more productive according to Gill, type of comparison gets named a 'subjective heuristic style of comparison' in which two things are placed next to each other and-based on the comparer's own interests-marinate, leading to an ongoing line of inquiry rather than an immediate answer.This second type of comparison is what Gill identifies as the future of scholarly comparison in the study of religion.This intervention into the study of religion is the one I find most compelling in the book, and the careful attention Gill gives to the early, widely
Art · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · Study and Philosophy of Religion
| Citations per year | 0.33 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2023 - 2023 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |