Critical Religion Reader

WHAT IS CRITICAL RELIGION AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?Critical Religions entry point is the understanding that religion is not a thing that is simply there in the world. While many people would claim that they know a religion when they see one there are ongoing debates in Religious Studies on how to define the very subject of the discipline or whether it should be defined or whether in academic discourse we should even have a term religion that is wrought with so many complexities and associations with conflict and violence.The word critical here should be understood in a positive sense: scholars of Critical Religion seek to illuminate the various uses of the category religion and reflect on the consequences that follow from some communities and their practices texts behaviours or objects being labelled as either religious or non-religious. This edited volume contains contributions by the following authors: Fiona DarrochPaige MedlockFrancis StewartMelanie BarbatoPer-Erik NilssonAlexander HenleyCarolina IvanescuTimothy FitzgeraldBrian NailAndrew W. HassAlison JasperRajalakshmi Nadadur KannanNaomi GoldenbergCameron MontgomeryKatja NeumannMichael MartenMitsutoshi Horii