Long-lost Brothers

On the Co-histories and Interactions Between the Comparative Science of Religion and the Anthropology of Religion

Bibliographic Data

ID5796426
AuthorsArmin W Geertz (0000-0002-5426-5368, Aarhus University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume61
Issue2-3
Pages255-280
Publication date2014-03-18
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueNumen (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0029-5973 • E-ISSN: 1568-5276
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/15685276-12341319
OpenAlexW2022403102
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited118

This article briefly surveys and compares the histories of research in the comparative science of religion (beginning with Friedrich Max Müller) and the anthropology of religion. The article notes the close interactions between these two fields and argues that the comparative science of religion drew significant inspiration from anthropology and sociology during the twentieth century until about the 1970s when anthropology came under heavy fire from critics. The postcolonial, feminist, and postmodern wave did not have a significant impact on the comparative science of religion until the 1990s. But already during the 1980s a new approach to religion, championed by Jonathan Z. Smith, contributed to a theoretical and critical analysis of religion that neither bought into postmodernism nor into the sui generis approach to religion. During the 1990s, another new approach began making an impact, namely, the cognitive science of religion, championed by E. Thomas Lawson, Robert N. McCauley (both scholars of religion), and Pascal Boyer (anthropologist). The article suggests in conclusion that the two disciplines can once again meet in the growing fields of experimental anthropology and experimental science of religion and in the need to explore and address how culture affects and rewires the brain. Furthermore, evolutionary theory is also beginning to serve as a common framework for thinking about religion

Anthropology of religion · Lived religion · Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation · Religion and Society Interactions · Study and Philosophy of Religion

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub