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Russell T. McCutcheon | Rethinking the Study of Religion: Objectivity, Method, and Theory
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Why it is important to study religion in academia?
academia?
Big question. Um
it uh an answer to that I guess
presupposes I don't want to you know get
us in the weeds right away but it presupposes
presupposes
how you define religion.
what you then think um the function of
religion is. There's uh uh anybody
familiar with debates in the academic
study of religion as it took shape in
Europe in the late 19th century and um
then uh spread around the world you know
in various forms. The International
Association for the History of
Religions, the IAHR, a number of people
here either might be familiar with it or
some might be going, you know, people
are arriving right now in Kkow in Poland
for uh every 5 years they have a world
congress. So there's a national
organizations, you know, nobody belongs
to the IHR. You belong to your national
organization which is then affiliated
with it. So scholars from around the
world are uh those able to travel are
going there right now. So the study of
religion is worldwide.
But in saying the study of religion is
worldwide, it glosses over really
significant differences that I think
everybody would agree regardless which
of those you think should be victorious.
Really significant differences in what
counts as a religion, what counts as a
way to study it. um what religion's
function is. So you know at the one end
of the perspective uh religion is what I
do and everybody else is is in trouble
right like there are people who think
that and and maybe some people on this
call do pro maybe not um but we all know
people probably we could find people and
they might want to study religion. So
what is the study of religion in that
case? And on the very far other end we
would have you know a classic kind of
Marxist position where it's uh it's
highly problematic and in a classic
early 20th century scholarly tone
secularization ought to take over and if
we can solve the issues that religion is
addressing hey Freud marks it'll go
away. So what do we mean by the study of
religion in that? for me. Um, and we can
talk a lot more about this if you want,
but I'll just say briefly, um, religion
is a historically, socially local word
that again gets exported around the
world and used in a variety of ways, but
often used um as a mode of authorizing
very mundane social, political, economic
processes. So why it's important to
study religion for me is given how I
understand it's important to study the
ways in which social contests are
managed and moderated and whatever you
think those contests whichever direction
you think they should go we might not
agree on that but it probably is useful
for us to understand how the game works
and I could talk more about that but
that's why it strikes me is uh important
to study. It doesn't strike me as
important to study because it will save
souls. There are people who say that. It
doesn't strike me that it's important to
study because it's uh deeply meaningful
and a transhuman experience that we
have. I would say the category religion
and the discourses around religion
function with regard to um mundane
social, political,
economic management issues. And so
studying how those issues work, we need
to study how people talk about religion.
Started up until the 60s or 70s, this um
way of talking and style of doing
scholarship was very persuasive to a lot
of people. Of course, those contesting
what the study of religion was trying to
attain uh to this day as you just described
described
uh were not content with uh subjective
objective uh biased unbiased this
framework that was being used and they
more than understood that they were
getting the uh short end of the stick as
we would say here. they were, you know,
um, being critiqued and marginalized in
this. The classic response was, um, it's
all subjective. Everybody has norms. And
it's easy in contemporary literature in
America to find people on the, um,
humanistic, if you know what I meant by
that earlier, to openly theological end
of the spectrum. And I think those are
different positions, but they seem
similar to me in certain regards.
both positions critiquing scholarship on
religion as no less normative. And they
will say things like that, my syllabus
has expectations and rules on it. You
can't plagiarize. You can't use AI.
These are normative rules. Uh you're
normative. It's all normative.
Strikes me as a uh less than sincere
reply. It strikes me that it's not
difficult to distinguish
normativity from normativity.
Telling my student um you know they
can't chew gum in class, you know, kind
of a very old school uh school rule that
you would associate maybe with the 1920s
or something.
Um I don't think it's difficult to
distinguish that rule
from saying uh this way of being
Buddhist is the right way. Like it
strikes me that normativity with regard
to methodology. This is how you do a
description. This is how you do comparison.
comparison.
Um uh normativity with regard to
criteria for accepting students into
degree programs. It strikes me that
these are very different things than
normativity with regard to the data,
with regard to the content.
Um, I think it's possible to talk about
Islam without taking sides in which form
of Islam is better, best, original,
uh, with regard to Christianity, with
regard to Judaism. I think we can talk
about a lot of things without going down
that road while nonetheless having a
number of normative standards about what
counts as the study of religion, what
counts as a student properly enrolled in
my course.
That distinction that I've drawn is
routinely overlooked by those trying to
critique a style of scholarship on
religion that
avoids getting meshed
in in you know the old categories inside
or outside or in participant disputes.
That's why a category like Hindu
nationalism strikes me as very
bothersome when coming out of the mouth
of a scholar. It strikes me as a
category that is being used to
adjudicate to judge between forms of
Hinduism in this case and which are
legitimate and which are not which
follow the traditional rules of um of uh
the liberal democratic nation state.
Religion is private and
compartmentalized. It is it is not part
of political disputes. It's not public.
these very old management techniques
that have long worked especially in
European history but you know are they
now well there's certain people in the
world at least in India and elsewhere if
we're going to use that example that I
just put on the table of Hindu
nationalism who don't abide by that uh
we just saw a video interrupting us of
people who don't abide by that
distinction and in the dispute to
minimize that position a dispute that
personally personally you as a scholar
may agree with for all I know but people nonetheless
nonetheless
easily I think scholars enter that
theological political debate to moderate
types of data
this is Hinduism this is Hindu
nationalism Hindu nationalism not a
neutral descriptive term it's clearly a
ranked distinction it is an inferior
type it is the wrong type it is a
problematic type and Then we see the
humanists very quickly, which is always
very curious to me, using explanatory
methods because usually we do not use
explanatory methods. We use an
interpretive methods because we presume
our object of study is deeply
meaningful. So we must decode it
properly. But when we come across that
type of scholar, when they come across
forms of the data that they find
problematic, now the question is
explanatory. Why did people even join
that group? Right? They quickly move to
the explanatory, the reductive in the
old language of the academy. And no
longer are they here to interpret and
potentially appreciate and conserve like
preserving the meaning. That's what they
do with forms of the data they
appreciate or value or take as normal or
whatever we want to say. So for me the
different ways of studying religion
really comes down to the degree to which
a scholar
knowingly or not may be aiming to
conserve types of data with which they
have affinity
and for me that's problematic. So it's
not about objectivity.
It's about addressing biases, trying to
articulate and make them public and
working hard for what I could, you know,
flippantly, flippant is the wrong word,
call an equal opportunity method that we
don't use different methods to study the
people we like. How do we study all the
things we look at in the same manner?
uh what is the limits of that form of
scholarship? We probably can't do
everything with it. But if we're here to
interpret the deep abiding meaning of this,
this,
but when it comes to those we call cults
and there's that same management device,
Indian nationalism, I think, is managing
that same spectrum of behavior that
religion cult once managed. That's the
deviant form, the wrong form, the
extremist form, instead of seeing them
all as forms of human behavior
implicated in social, political,
authority issues.
So, how do we study the so-called Hindu
nationals in the exact same way that we
study the Brahman reciting rituals? And
that's a real challenge for people
because depending their political sensibilities,
sensibilities,
um, they they easily in their
scholarship seek to normalize
a certain way of being Jewish, a certain
way of being Buddhist, a certain way,
and it's a way that for a lot of
scholars is usually um politically inconsequential,
inconsequential,
right? It's the it's the twirling
dervishes now that become the essential
heart of the tradition. And we find that
scholarship all over. It's the lone
Buddhist monk meditating who becomes the
essential heart of that tradition. It's
the It's the It's the And um I find that
typical world religions textbook
approach pretty problematic because it's
seeking to normalize
a certain form of human behavior as religion
religion
that is um politically inconsequential
and and that framework strikes me as the
framework of classic
um liberalism. If if we mean by that a
political philosophy traced to, you
know, 17th century, 18th century, still
in effect in many places, though one
could argue um changing pretty
dramatically even in places that have
traditionally been known as liberal democracies.
democracies.
Does that is that helpful? Is that
Yes, indeed. Of course. I think the
problem exactly is at a place uh or at a
theoretical base of people who advocate
for a phen phenomenological
understanding of religion. They insist
that uh if you do not get close to this
subject, you're missing something and
you're missing something really
important. And uh I think next step
after that is that claiming that the a
proper study of religion is to get close
to the subject and uh have source some
sort of a relationship with it so we can
come up with good descriptions.
Mhm. I know that you insist or uh you
have insisted that these the
descriptions are not critical and uh you
characterize phenomenological and
hermeneutical method in religious
studies as often reproducing insider
insider claims without critical
analysis. Uh can you elaborate on this
on the place of these uh
phenomenological approach to religion?
The problem for me is back to what I
said earlier is that we end up treating
people we like differently from people
we don't like. I'm being flippant saying
that. Let's say it a little more
complicated. Hey, how would Bruce
Lincoln at Chicago say it if you know
his word? I don't know. We end up
treating people for whom we have
affinity differently than the people for
whom we feel arangement.
And maybe that's a natural human uh
reaction, group building. Scholars are
humans. We're members of groups. But it
strikes me that what we're aiming for is
um an equitable method that we use to
study human behavior and what are its
limits. So if the goal is to become
close to the subject the viewpoint that
you just put on the table
to to understand the secret handshake to
feel the feeling to reexperience and
this is classic Iliadian scholarship
though people say they don't read
Iliotti over here anymore different
places in the world I think he still has
certain pull or influence but but
regardless reading him it is a very
common method the presumption that we
are, as I said earlier, here to
reexperience and somehow reactualize,
reactualize,
preserve, conserve like a museum. We're
conservators of these deep experiences.
Well, if that's your method, my guess is
a lot of the groups, and we've just been
photobombed, that we as scholars
probably should also be studying, we
would never use that method in those cases.
cases.
you in some national settings you might
be prosecuted for using that method. You
would certainly be criticized for
presuming that there was some deep
abiding experience there that the
scholar had to now reexperience for
themselves. So the question becomes
why use this method in this situation
but not in that situation and if it
comes down to a question of well I have
affinity for them and not for them it
just strikes me that now scholarship has
just utterly fallen apart if if this is
how we do our scholarship
that's how we do our social life we
treat our friends differently than of
that's but scholarship is trying to move
toward using a method that can just
study people without trying to take
sides in their disputes. So thus I'm not
a fan of talking about if some of your
guests and you know the term mainline
Protestantism that's a very common term
here mainline one word meaning dominant
meaning normal meaning largely accepted
meaning the majority mainline
Protestantism and by this in America one
would mean you know u church of England
in the in the UK maybe is mainline and
in America is it Presbyterian ians or
certain Protestant denominations perhaps
depending who the speaker is. Well,
depending who the speaker is, right?
That term is actually what I would say sociorhetorical.
sociorhetorical.
It's a way of talking about the world
that is doing something in the world and
trying to authorize one version in
competition with a large number of
alternatives that are also competing for
attention. As a scholar, can I study
Protestantism in this example
um without worrying about who's going to
be the victor and come out as being the
normal one, the dominant one and instead
can I shift and study the contest itself
and thus mainline Protestant is now in
quotation marks for me because it is it
is doing something like Roman Catholic
the universal Catholic church centered
in Rome. You know, like this is the
derivation of these terms Catholic.
That's a sociical claim that's being
made. And you don't make that claim if
you're not in contest with others. Shia,
Sunni, Terravada, a hinana, mah like I
mean we see it all over. And why
wouldn't we see it all over if we
presume social theory that no social
group is uniform? They all have
contradictions and subgroups within
them, competitions for dominance. If
this is just how social life works, then
we should expect in the domain we study,
if it is an example of human behavior,
nothing more, nothing less, interesting
behavior. We should expect to see those
same contests being waged. And as a
scholar, can we work hard not to
normalize the contest or no, sorry,
normalize the victors or the people who
think they're the victors.
So for a scholar of religion, I would
hope we become interested in how not
what tradition is. Like tradition too is
a socio rhetorical term to me for me. Um
why do you do that? Well, it's
tradition. Well, you've just repeated
that you do it. In other words, why do
you do it the same each year? You could
change how you do it. You know, you
don't do it because it's tradition.
For some other reason, you repeat the
behaviors and minimize the variations
that are inevitable every time you do it
as if it is permanent and similar. So
saying something as a tradition to me is
like saying something is mainline
Protestantism. It's a rhetorical claim
you're making that fails to see variety
that is nonetheless still happening and
fails to explain why when there could be variety
variety
you and people for whom you have
affinity opt not for the variety. What
is that doing for you? What is that
conserving? How does that affect
identity? All kinds of issues we can now
explore instead of simply putting as
scholars a stamp of approval on how the
people we study already talk about their
own worlds. So for me, the scholy move
is not objectivity.
It's it's a degree of alienation. It's a
degree of alienation and distance from
the practices of the people we study and
learning how to become curious about
them as
normal mundane ordinary practices. It
doesn't mean they're not interesting,
but it means developing a way to find
the mundane ordinary. And by mundane, I
mean, you know, people raising children,
people choosing who you can and can't
marry. That's what is the limit of the
group? How do we maintain a certain
sense of the group? Well, who within the
group gets to say what the group is? We
know there's subgroups. We know there's
contests. There's a host of fascinating
things to study, it seems to me, without
taking the step of normalizing
how either dominant or marginal people
within those groups are trying to work
within their own group.
So that's how the objectivity discussion
for me resolves. It's not about being
objective. It's it's it means can you be
a little alienated here in a in the US
maybe internationally. Bob Orsie's work
is very popular people if anyone knows
that scholar um
studying uh often studying American
Catholics. So issues of immigration
become important, issues of second and
third generation, very interesting
things. Yes. But a lot of the
scholarship is centered on
groups for which he has affinity and an
inside status already. An an uncle, a
grandfather, an anecdote like fieldwork,
an anthropologist, but anthropologist
who's already a member of the group. And
thus the plus for many would be who
therefore has deep access to the inside
experience. That position you put on the
table Maddie earlier.
Well, it strikes me as problematic
because these others you're studying,
I've written about this before. They're
no cost to others. There's there's no um
challenge. You're part of the group and
of course people are going to read it
and find your description of your uncle
endearing because you have an endearing
relations with your uncle. It's wonderful.
wonderful.
It's it's fun to read of course but you
would never study. Now let's go back to
Buddhist nationalist. That's a category
that gets used there even though how
ironic because Buddhism is ethereal and
otherworldly. We know the stereotype,
right? We've never used that method
there because our job as a scholar now
is no longer to make the people seem
endearing. It's now to explain why the
hell are they doing such crazy things,
right? Quote unquote. I hope people get
the sarcastic tone I'm using here. And
again that that's why that becomes a
problem for me is because we're picking
and choosing based on prior affinities
which are going to be very different in
your case from me from whomever is
watching this you know I see the names
across the top and now I don't know how
to have a field or a discipline or
whatever you want to call it if every
office in my department where there's an
office door and a professor if we're all
using a different method and studying
different things I I don't know what the
study of religion is now. Much less the
study of Islam, much less the study of
Hinduism, much less the study of much
less the study of Republicans versus
Democrats in America if we're just using
insider affinity language to kind of
massage social identity.
Um, so the methodological issues we're
talking about strike me as going to the
very heart of
does the field exist? Is there a field?
And I don't even mean internationally. I
mean, you know, in my own department, in
your own
or is it just a happenstance
conglomeration of people who each do
their own thing?
I would hope it would be the former, but
that probably requires us to recognize
there are limits to what we do. Thus
far, probably no further. We're going to
put a different hat on as a person when
we do that other thing. Um, I'm rambling.
rambling.
Thank you. And just my last question.
Uh, I worry if I ask uh a few more I
would taken up the time of Q&A. So this
would be the last one. Uh this if if we
are critical about the use of method and
theory and the categories and how how we
describe the data, we can engage in
critical study of religion which doesn't
serve the identity politics or doesn't
serve the victor. And my question is
what is the future of religious studies
if the knowledge is not going to serve
identity politics or serve the victors
or serve the presupposition that u that
in many cases might be the reason that
that we initiated the research at the
beginning. In many cases the
institutions are supported by this um
identity politics and uh the research
actually is started and funded by these
reasons. Uh what would the what would be
the the future?
That's a question I think that presupposes
presupposes
a conversation on what is the purpose of
a university? What is the purpose of
scholarship? And there's probably 18
purposes. Like these are not simple questions.
questions. Um,
Um,
in America right now, parts of Europe,
um, I'm not that familiar with the university
university
context in Iran, parts of Canada.
Anyone following the news who's
listening to this might more than know
um, there's a lot of closures happening
in American universities.
If you've not followed the news, you
might think a lot of that is related to
current criticisms coming from the
federal government. No, I would say
these are decadesl long trends in
America specifically, other places too,
but I'll use where I am as an example
that are that have been slowly but
consistently reinventing what higher
education is in America.
So if we recognize that what is the
university a thing that many people for
centuries have written on this is a very
long and old tradition of a university
of higher education many people have
debated it. So if we see that as not a
settled issue but an ongoing debate,
what is the university?
If you're able to persuade people that
in part what a university is, what
research is is basic sciences and and I
don't know if you would phrase it that
way and often we use that term with
regard to the natural sciences. People
doing experiments for no practical gain.
We're just doing basic science research.
And the great irony is that, you know,
show a technological innovation that
affects all of our lives, right?
Well, that's premised on basic science
research from a long time ago that was
done simply to find out what would
happen in this scenario that somebody
much later found a practical application
for. some of it no practical application.
application.
If that model of a university works in
someone's mind, then I would say the
study of religion as I understand it is
in part part of the basic sciences to
understand how social groups work, how
social contests work, how social
authority works when part of your
repertoire as a social actor
is this technique that is often called religion.
religion.
this technique of saying
um you don't know because you haven't
experienced it. Like that's a very
common and that's the move you put on
the table. That's a very common move.
And we often call that religion. Not
always, but this kind of insider
privileging technique that we can do. Uh
I don't know if you would say this, um
but we would certainly say if somebody's
laughing and somebody arrives, well, you
had to be there. you had to be there to
get the joke. And and that's
inconsequential. It's not mean, but
there's the move. There's a presumptive
normative group, a marginal group.
Something happened there. Now, if we
could take it not just from group to the
presumption of an interior ethereal
experience that is only in some polluted
manner put into the public realm,
expressed. That's a very common
presumption to the thing that many of us
study as religion that it is the sum
total of the derivative expressions myth
symbol ritual that common threesome that
we often use. It's the sum total of the
derivative expressions that if studied
properly can allow you to infer
something about the pristine inner
non-expressible experience. That's a
very well if we start to see that as a
basic social technique groups use to do
something to distinguish to rank to
negotiate and the trouble is the
minority position is doing that no less
than the dominant position there's a con
if that's what we see to be going on
then the study of religion provides us
with a very basic place
to study those contests especially over
time basic science research research to
me if instead the study of religion
which is now I think what is happening
in especially American universities if
the study of religion is practiced in a
context where a university is instead understood
understood
as and I think that's the term in your
university name as a technical institute
we're here to teach careers we're here
an instrumentalized view, right, that
we're here for practical application.
Then it gets tougher to do the study of
religion as I've described it because
now uh religion, well, it's associated
with the helping professions. Maybe I'll
become a social worker. Maybe I'll
Right. You didn't freeze, did you? Okay.
No. um
in that view which is increasingly
becoming prominent in the US. If you
follow our news, you will see not just
the humanities, you know, a designation
we'll use for certain kind of subjects
that were classically thought to be
close to the enduring human spirit and
its expressions. but also the natural
sciences. There are mathematics
departments being closed, physics
departments being closed because very
few students in their first degree will
major in that subject. Those subjects at
an undergraduate level are largely
teaching breadth requirement courses to
other students. You know, the engineers
have to take their calculus course. So
maybe if we're cutting costs, we don't
need a whole math department. we'll just
need a few instructors to teach calculus.
calculus.
That traditionally was thought to hit
the humanities hard, but now it's
hitting many of the traditional liberal
arts, as we would call them, which
includes natural sciences for me,
geography, under the presumption that a
well-educated citizen should know a
language, should know something about
music history, a very renaissance
European view of the humanities. That
model is changing here dramatically. So
if that continues to change as it seems
then the study of religion as I
described it
uh becomes a hard cell if you know what
I mean if you're talking to an
administrator to establish a budget for
a department salaries faculty lines
because for all you know their model of
the study of religion is uh being able
to teach a world religions course to the
business students so they understand
something about the world being a bigger
place because the business school
probably has an internationalizing
requirement for their business students. So
to answer the question it re and I hope
I'm not seeming to be evading it. It
really requires us to say what is a
university? What is scholarship? What is
its purpose? And if a society doesn't
want to invest in basic science research,
research,
then that's a decision they're making,
it will certainly impact the future of
these things. You know, nobody set out
to invent an iPhone.
An iPhone was something that could be
made after all kinds of other things had
been invented that had no necessary link
to even to telecommunication.
But now that they have been discovered,
oh, we can put these things together in
a novel way. So, I hope you hear me as
not criticizing technological
innovation, but um the very thing that
we're talking on right now, the
internet, nobody set about to invent a
way for us to have a zoom. It was very
basic science research. Um, my gosh,
just to figure out how to send
meaningful light pulses down a glass
line, fiber optic cables, like nobody
nobody anticipated zoom. That's how I
see the study of religion as I practice
it. It's a basic science interested in
how groups work. Now, that doesn't mean
I'm not aware that the students I teach
might not become professors, right? The
job market is incredibly tight right
now. It's very bad shape given those closures.
closures.
So in seeing it as basic science
research, how can you also understand
how the tools necessary for doing it?
How can they be applied elsewhere? My
assumption they have wide application I
would love the students who I teach and
who learn things. Why aren't they
working for the UN? Why aren't they
working for large corporations? Why
aren't they working for non-governmental
agencies? Why aren't they working for
the government?
not studying religion.
They know something. How identity works,
how social contests work, how systems of
rank and preference work, how ambiguity
works, and how social groups rebel
against ambiguity often and want very
clear impressions. They know how all
that works. And I'm thinking a host of
settings probably needs that skill and
expertise even though they never study
religion anymore. So in saying that I
see the study of religion as I practice
it as a basic science don't think that
means that it doesn't have wide
practical application.
Basic science insights have wide
practical implications
and I think as a scholar of religion in
today's university at least where I live
you have to be nimble and be able to
Is that a familiar thing where you are
in a university or is that an alien
balance to you?
Uh describing religious studies as a
basic science. I think it was really
hopeful for all of us to hear that uh in
this particular time uh where religious
studies and particularly Islamic studies
or Middle Eastern studies is being under
attack or being threatened. All those
closure you told us about uh make us all
think about what would happen next and
what would the future of this field and
uh describing it as a basic science I
think um opens door for all of us and
but to do that I think you have to be
skilled at not taking your object of
study for granted like I will jokingly
say that's the view that animates you
haven't read the bag of agita Yeah, like
we're all like that because we happen to
have come across something when we were
19 or 25 or who knows when, who knows
for what reason that fascinates us and
we want to do a deep dive into the text
or the behavior or the group and and
we're going to learn languages and and
that's great,
but we become so immersed in it that we
fail to remember what we were all like
at 19 when we didn't take that as
self-evident. important. We came to see
that over time. So that means as an
early teacher, we often walk into
classrooms and just proclaim our
interest instead of bringing the
students along to also see it as
interesting. Early career teachers often
give to their introductory students the
things that they themselves are reading
and they treat the students as if
they're dialogue partners.
failing to think, "No, no, no, they're
19. They're 20." You know, I I just got
to bring them along in these 10 weeks or
12 weeks or whatever your semester is. A B
B
we take it as so self-evidently
important to study. Have you read the
bag of Adget Gita?
Now we fail to see that part of our job
basic science application application
part of our job is to generalize from
that finding and to see the thing that
we did the deep dive into studying years
of our studies.
What is the generalizable conclusion we
can bring from that that me who doesn't
study the bagg might find relevant for
my work and that's where I come back to
how do groups work? How does identity
work? How do social contests work? How
do like groups are historical things?
They they Nobody's a Roman citizen
anymore. They come and they go. So they
go through dominant phases, ascendant,
emergent, residual phases. There's all
kinds of things that we even though we
did our deep dive in some Shinto temple
architecture history. I bet if we
realize we're not here to take that as
self-evidently important, the deep
experience, right? You know what I'm
critiquing here, we could probably
generalize from that finding to
something that uh architecture students
should be reading. Not because they
should learn about religion, but because
in this example, I'm able to illustrate
something kind of interesting about how
we build buildings and make habitable
space for ourselves. But scholars of
religion in my experience are very bad
at that generalizable move because I
think we all generally take
the bag of Agita as so self-evidently
eternally important and we fail to
challenge ourselves to say and now I'm
just being Jonathan Smith in this if any
of you have read Jonathan Smith if we
fail to say so what like why is it
interesting because if any of you have
walked into a shopping mall that you're
not familiar with or travel to a country
that is new. Everything is
self-evidently interesting to you. You
don't know where to look. It's all
competing for your attention. We don't
know how to manage it and narrow down
and that's the thing I want to look at.
Scholars of religion are already well
immersed in the narrowing and we forget
that well not everybody's reading the
bag ga. Well, why is it relevant for
somebody else? Well, it's an instance of
in group a contest and how we get people
to oh, not that I'm going to go read it,
but now me and the scholar who's done
it, we have something to talk about on
the level of theory. We don't share the
data. And that's where I think the
discipline of religion, the field of
religion exists, not on the level of
data. It's it's on the level of
questions and curiosities and methods.
Um, thus in my department, I don't study
the same thing as anybody in my
department. There's 14 of us and no
nobody studies the same thing as anybody
else. But most of us are united on the
questions and we understand that at each
of these, you know, microbiologists
growing bacteria, we call it a petri
dish, right? The agar, the we all use a
different petri dish. We all do the
experiments somewhere else,
but we're trying to generalize our
findings to inform other people doing
the same experiments, but in different
places, at different times, a temple, a
text, a ritual.
I ramble. Thank you. Thank you. Uh I
don't want to take any more questions. I
think we have a a few in interesting
questions from our audience. I'd like to
ask you if anyone wants to ask a
question please raise your hand so I can
unmute you. We have a few written
questions which I can read right now. Um
Um
let's start with some of those written
questions. Mr. So asked um are academic
norms able to handle the supernatural
which is undeniably
Well, for me, um I would say that that um
all I study are claims people make,
right? Like I don't even think I study
experiences. I don't know. I've written
on this like we could go into some depth
on that category experience.
Like at the end of the day, we study
what people say or what they put into a
text or uh a piece of architecture as um
something left over from someone who was
here. We study claims.
And if what we study are claims, we
never study the supernatural. We never
study beliefs. If you want to press me,
we study people who claim to have
beliefs. So we use that word belief at
least in English as if it somehow pairs
up with some internal thing in people.
No, it too is a claim someone's making.
And when I say claim, I don't mean to insinuate
insinuate
that they're manipulative or insincere.
And perhaps they really do think
something is happening in wherever
beliefs are. I'm not sure where they
are. I guess we think they're in our
heads and we think our feelings are in
our heart. How silly will people in the
future think we are when they think that
we had things in our heart called
feelings? Because the ancients thought
these things were in different places
than we think they are, right? But but
whatever. Um they might think that quite
sincerely and I'm not here to argue with
them. The only evidence that my method
can deal with is something empirical,
something I hear, something I read, I
see, something I So whether those things
really are out there in here, my method
can't get at that. I I have as a scholar
I'm interested in the claims people make,
make,
claims of experience, claims of belief
and if pressed
um I I think those are all hindsight
hindsight
done later hindsight fabrications
and I could if anyone's interested find
I've written on this other people
written on this like I don't think
You've had a belief until you bump into
people who do something different than
you do.
I think now you say,
"Well, I believe you should put the
pepper on before the salt."
And this comes straight from, if any of
you know, there's a new edition out, but
it's a classic 1998 book, Critical Terms
for Religious Studies. The article
belief is a very interesting article
written by a scholar of Buddhism. And he
concludes and I'm very persuaded that um
belief is an agonistic the same root as
the word agony in English meaning a
contest. Belief is evidence of a social
contest. belief claims and I don't think
you have belief until you have
an unanticipated contest moment and that
you use this claim of interiority
to try to win the moment to authorize
because prior to that I don't think
people are dumb. You got to hear me the
right way. They're sophisticated but I
don't think they have beliefs.
I don't think right now I have beliefs.
If queried by an outsider, I can now
generate the idea that I have beliefs.
I think beliefs are the result of social
moments. Almost like ethnography and anthropology.
anthropology.
If I'm a critical anthropologist, I
don't think there are insiders until the
outsider shows up and says, "Why do you
do that?"
And until that question happens, I don't
think the participant
necessarily has a reason why they're
doing it. They're just fully immersed in
the doing. They know how to do this.
They're more than capable as an
intelligent, sophisticated thinker to
come up with an answer to that question.
But in the doing, I think we are fully
immersed as human beings. like no one
right no one right now is thinking about
what their shoes feel like on their feet.
feet.
Now you are
like you were just fully immersed in the
doing prior to that. And I tend to think
that that word experience that word belief
belief
functions in that same fashion. It's a
residue of a social moment. So when I
hear the supernatural
I hear a claim being made. I'm
interested in why that claim would be
made. Why would some think someone claim
that there is a prehistorical
transhistorical whatever we mean by that
that's something I can study
whether that thing is actually there
whether it's uniform among all religious people
people
uh the perennialists say Iliad Joseph
Campbell Houston Smith if you know that
tradition and scholarship they were
interested in that question as many
people still are that's not a question
that I am necessarily uh pursuing.
Is that a is that a nice way of saying
what I'm trying to say?
I think yes. However, uh if anyone have
a question or Mr. Sat have a question, I
think you can raise your hand and I can
unmute you so you can ask yourself. For
me, it was clear clear
the way you portray religious studies. I
think uh it has something to do if you
want to describe the behavior of people
in elections. Describe the uh behavior
of people when they want to buy
something. I think religious studies
can provide essential insights into that
behavior as a basic science. And uh
I don't know if I'm describing it all
right. Um
I understand
you can agree that religion is not about religion.
religion.
Never is
belief is not about belief. You know
that whole thing I did right there.
Well, let's start applying that more
widely. If we agree, and a lot of people
don't. If we agree that claims of
religiosity, oh that's a church, that's
a mosque, they are religious places. If
we can agree that we're not interested
in the religiosity of them, whatever
that even means, but instead interested
in the classificatory move that that
person just did,
that is a bowling alley. That is not a
bowling alley. Okay. The stakes aren't
very high in that classificatory
dispute. That is legal. That is illegal.
Oh, the stakes are a little higher in
that classificatory dispute. But we know
that that classificatory distinction is
a historical phenomenon because a new
legislature gets elected and suddenly
marijuana is legal.
Oh no, a new legislature comes in and
suddenly alcohol is illegal. We know
legal illegal is a historical phenomenon
that groups use to manage behavior in
ways that many of us might agree with. I
think it is very good that driving on
the wrong side of the road is illegal,
but I know it is still nonetheless a
historical phenomenon, one that I happen
to agree with. promote certain interests
I have to live a long life to get to the
airport safely whatever
well can we look at myth history that
way can we look at ritual habit that way
there's nothing ritually about rituals
can we see the classificatory
distinction like mainline Protestant a
classificatory tax on that's doing
something. What is it doing? And come
all the way to supernatural, natural,
religious, political, sacred, secular.
So, if that's the move you make, and
I've written much on this, anybody who's
read even a little of me maybe hears
what I'm saying is a little boring,
then I think the School of Religion in
that vein, in that way, is studying a
basic site where culturewide techniques
are used that are generalizable to
elections. Yes. to social disputes
within a country. Yes. To conflicts
within a family when someone wants to be
a lawyer and father wants them to be a
doctor. Like I don't know. I think human
beings do these things all over. We
portray our classifications as
disinterested, as eternal when a little
bit of history makes it very clear that
they change over time. They're tactical.
Could you do this with privacy in public?
public?
There's nothing private about private.
We know governments debate what should
count as private. We make laws about
this. That parents don't burst into
their teenagers room.
Well, they might at some times when they
smell the wrong smell or I don't know
what. That privacy is a social construct
within groups. If we can do those
classificatory moves there to understand
that, then how much more interesting is
sacred and secular going to become,
what's going on in these cases where the
stakes are very high to groups. You
know, it's like me putting up a fence
between me and my neighbor.
There's something going on here. What is
going on? How does that work? What's at
stake? Um, the fence suggests it could
be otherwise, and I don't want it to be otherwise.
otherwise.
Where it could not be otherwise, there
is no other way it could be. We'll
probably not put up the fence. Putting
up the fence is evidence. Police forces
are evidence that it could be otherwise.
Lines on the highway are evidence that
it could be otherwise. and comparing
where people drive in England to where
people drive here there. It could be
otherwise, you know.
So, show me a classificatory system and
I'll show you someone trying to manage
that it could be otherwise
well why are they trying to manage it?
Who wants it otherwise? What will that
world look like when it's otherwise? So
many fascinating things to study without
ever taking sides in the dispute.
So I think the study of religion as I
understand is a basic science that
studies fences. We're studying fences.
Yes. I think this style of religious
studies is transformative and uh it has
many consequences. Specifically in the
case of Islamic studies, it can change a
lot of things. It can dissolve a lot of
uh hot issues that we are dealing with.
And I take this opportunity to invite
you and everyone else to join our school
which is going to take place at this
weekend which we are going to where we
are going to discuss method and theory
in Islamic studies. Uh and we are going
to specifically focus on objectivity. Uh
I take this opportunity. Uh we have
I think Ibrahim I see Ibrahim's
question. um Hadresa I think Ibrahim
should ask Aaron Hughes during the um
during the school that question about
belief practice. Um I think a basic
management device groups need is a way
to create the impression of uniformity
despite diversity and that belief
practice distinction is is right in the
midst of that management technique. Ask
We have two more questions. One of them
is uh asked from me. Uh, Professor
Makush, thank you for your insight. If
it treats religion entirely as a
productive discourse and power
structure, how do we avoid overlooking
the sincere lived experiences of
religious individuals? In other words,
is there room in your approach for
understanding how people find real
meaning and agency through a through
religion and just and not just how
religion functions socially or
politically? Thank you.
Um Oh, we're running out of time, aren't
I'm not a fan. You know that term comes
from fanatic. Okay, etmologically the
term fan comes from fanatic, but now we
think of a football fan. I'm not a fan
of lived experience or religion on the
ground. And maybe some of you hearing me
can guess that
because it seems to prioritize
the really real as opposed to the
derivative, the insincere. like those
very distinctions to me are again
managing our data in a particular way
and given the approach to the experience
as a way of talking about the world that
I take I don't think people have experiences
experiences
until they're asked about these things I
don't I don't think you and I have
experiences in us I think experience
is a social category that results from
situ situations.
So when I see lived experience talked
about, I always feel that the scholar is
downplaying or failing to understand
their role in conjuring those things
into existence. like the ethnographer
whose questions produce the identity of
an insider and the great critique of ethnography
ethnography
that they only talk to the village
elders. They only talk to the men. They
only talk to the right and it conjured a
certain kind of group into existence in
the literature that failed to talk to
the children, talk to the women, talk to
the etc etc. So yes, talk to different
people, but the scholar is actively
constituting those groups into
existence. I think those identities by
their very questions, questions which
betray how they think the world is. And
there's thus thus a dialogical
creation of insider outsider in the
moment. So for me, you know, there's no
insiders till the outsider shows up. And
often it's an outsider with a research
grant who came from a more powerful
place who came on a jet or came in the
19th century on a British Navy ship. And
so thus now ethnography is deeply
implicated in politics. It's deeply and
now we're back to say and now we're Yes.
Yes. Yes. Yes. A thousand times. Yes.
But despite that critique, we all still
talk about the east and the west. It's
kind of fascinating. We think we read
our say, but we're still all talking
about east and west. We're all as if
it's a natural thing. And so that to me
is even if we're trying to be critically
minded scholars, the temptation to come
back to, well, there is it like an
eastern mentality. Well, a lot of us
don't talk that way anymore, but I think
it still animates what we're doing. So
scholars of Islam are not talking about
the Muslim mind anymore, I hope. But I
mean it's probably not difficult to find
certain assumptions still animating the
literature even in ways we might agree
with you know or have affinity for. So the critical term some of us have in
So the critical term some of us have in mind means we have to be really mindful
mind means we have to be really mindful mainline Protestant lived experience as
mainline Protestant lived experience as if there's a more authentic way of being
if there's a more authentic way of being uh a Buddhist
uh a Buddhist and and that's a long tradition that
and and that's a long tradition that goes back to social history in the 1960s
goes back to social history in the 1960s right how do we get behind the the men
right how do we get behind the the men who were in charge and talk about you
who were in charge and talk about you know uh British working-class women in
know uh British working-class women in the early 19th century who don't appear
the early 19th century who don't appear in the archive, right? Their names were
in the archive, right? Their names were not in the newspapers, the usual places
not in the newspapers, the usual places we did our research. So, experience
we did our research. So, experience became the category those scholars used
became the category those scholars used thinking they could get behind the
thinking they could get behind the dominant authoritative sources.
dominant authoritative sources. Um,
Um, Joan Wallak Scott, if anybody's
Joan Wallak Scott, if anybody's interested, WA Lac,
interested, WA Lac, if you're interested, I'll put the name
if you're interested, I'll put the name here.
here. Thank you.
Sorry, I'm typing evidence of experience.
experience. Find that review essay. It's in a
Find that review essay. It's in a University of Chicago
University of Chicago journal,
journal, I think 1991, the journal called
I think 1991, the journal called Critical Inquiry. She's still alive.
Critical Inquiry. She's still alive. She's a very senior American historian,
She's a very senior American historian, scholar, a historian. It's a review
scholar, a historian. It's a review essay of two books that use the category
essay of two books that use the category experience.
experience. You know, one in gay culture. It's a
You know, one in gay culture. It's a 1991. These are older books. And the
1991. These are older books. And the experience of being gay in San Francisco
experience of being gay in San Francisco in the 70s. That's what the book's
in the 70s. That's what the book's about. And she zeros in on that
about. And she zeros in on that category, experience, saying, "What's
category, experience, saying, "What's going on when we say that word?" It's a
going on when we say that word?" It's a long essay. It's a review book review
long essay. It's a review book review essay, but her punchline is we're here
essay, but her punchline is we're here to study the rhetoric of experience.
to study the rhetoric of experience. Experience is a certain way we talk and
Experience is a certain way we talk and a certain way we do something socially
a certain way we do something socially with each other. And it's an error to
with each other. And it's an error to think that that emission from our mouth
think that that emission from our mouth experience.
experience. It's wrong to think it pairs up with
It's wrong to think it pairs up with something mysterious inside here. Um,
something mysterious inside here. Um, it's a fascinating article and if you're
it's a fascinating article and if you're in any way interested in this,
find Raymond Williams little book called Keywords. Raymond Williams was a Marxist
Keywords. Raymond Williams was a Marxist literary critic in England. So, he
literary critic in England. So, he studied literature, but he wrote
studied literature, but he wrote Keywords, which is a collection of
Keywords, which is a collection of critical vocabulary he thought were
critical vocabulary he thought were needed in culture studies. It's from the
needed in culture studies. It's from the 70s, I think. But his essay on
70s, I think. But his essay on experience, it's like three pages
experience, it's like three pages little, right? If you can use the word
little, right? If you can use the word experience, where does the word come
experience, where does the word come from? How do people use it? Makes a very
from? How do people use it? Makes a very important distinction. There's two
important distinction. There's two fundamental English language uses of
fundamental English language uses of experience. One is empirical, one is
experience. One is empirical, one is non-empirical. The way we're talking,
non-empirical. The way we're talking, it's that one we're talking about as if
it's that one we're talking about as if it pairs up with some interior
it pairs up with some interior thingness, right? A disposition, a
thingness, right? A disposition, a sentiment. But isn't it interesting that
sentiment. But isn't it interesting that the exact same word in English language
the exact same word in English language means something completely empirical?
means something completely empirical? Do you have work experience? Ah, now
Do you have work experience? Ah, now it's something demonstrable. It's on my
it's something demonstrable. It's on my CV. We use that word experience to mean
CV. We use that word experience to mean utterly public verifiable things. But we
utterly public verifiable things. But we also use it in this other way. So that
also use it in this other way. So that very word's history has the distinction
very word's history has the distinction in it. I'm among those trying to recover
in it. I'm among those trying to recover that other way of using it. It's a
that other way of using it. It's a public rhetorical term like work
public rhetorical term like work experience. It's observable. People
experience. It's observable. People using the word talking conditions that
using the word talking conditions that make it possible for you to experience.
make it possible for you to experience. You know, somebody wrote, an architect I
You know, somebody wrote, an architect I read once wrote, "A
read once wrote, "A a covered porch with a metal roof and a
a covered porch with a metal roof and a fine glass of wine is a place to
fine glass of wine is a place to experience the rain."
experience the rain." Being stuck in the rain is very
Being stuck in the rain is very different.
different. So what are the conditions needed to be
So what are the conditions needed to be constructed in order for you to have
constructed in order for you to have something that you think is an
something that you think is an experience? Thus, experience is an
experience? Thus, experience is an architectural phenomena. It's a social
architectural phenomena. It's a social phenomenon like privacy. It's a
phenomenon like privacy. It's a political phenomenon.
political phenomenon. It doesn't predate all those things.
It doesn't predate all those things. It's a condition that results from all
It's a condition that results from all those things. And thus, I think you can
those things. And thus, I think you can study the sociology of experience.
study the sociology of experience. Not the place it's expressed, but the
Not the place it's expressed, but the place it's invented
place it's invented and then internalized
and then internalized as if it was always there to begin with.
as if it was always there to begin with. You all don't have to agree with me, but
You all don't have to agree with me, but if you have any interest, go find Joel
if you have any interest, go find Joel Scott's and it's long. You got to bear
Scott's and it's long. You got to bear with her. Stick with it. The punchline
with her. Stick with it. The punchline comes later. I've taken up too much of
comes later. I've taken up too much of your time. We're at an end, aren't we?
your time. We're at an end, aren't we? Yes. Thank you for introducing these
Yes. Thank you for introducing these works. Uh these are really interesting.
works. Uh these are really interesting. Okay, I think we're at the end. We had a
Okay, I think we're at the end. We had a few more questions. I have to apologize
few more questions. I have to apologize we can we can't address them. Thank you
we can we can't address them. Thank you for dedicating your time to us and thank
for dedicating your time to us and thank everyone for joining us. Uh I apologize
everyone for joining us. Uh I apologize for the incident we had at the beginning
for the incident we had at the beginning and uh thank you for coming again and
and uh thank you for coming again and trying to everybody and ask Aaron Hughes
trying to everybody and ask Aaron Hughes all the tough questions. Give me the
all the tough questions. Give me the easy ones.
easy ones. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks everybody. It's good to meet you
Thanks everybody. It's good to meet you and have yourselves a wonderful weekend.
and have yourselves a wonderful weekend. It was an honor.
It was an honor. Goodbye.
Goodbye. Thanks, Marty.
Thanks, Marty. [Music]
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