The Insider/Outsider Problem in the Study of Religion: A Reader (Controversies in the Study of Religion)

This anthology collects and introduces 30 classic and contemporary readings that investigate the ways in which scholars of religion have grappled with the relations between studying, practicing, and advocating. Writers range from Kant, Hume, Schleiermacher, and Otto to Ninian Smart, Mircea, Eliade, Karen McCarthy-Brown, and Wendy Doniger-O'Flaherty.

The insider/outsider problem in religious discourse has its impact at the academic level, rarely venturing into lay realms of belief and faith. The notion that someone can get inside another's belief system and speak with integrity about it exists in tension alongside the notion that only those within a tradition can speak for it. The debate rages on between etic and emic, reductionism and belief, anthropology and theology. These controversies continue, remarks editor McCutcheon (religion, SouthWest Missouri State Univ.), but re-creating the claims and counter-claims provides invaluable insight. Reprinting stellar essays from the likes of Kant, Geertz, Otto, and current scholars like Wendy O'Flaherty and Rosalind Shaw, this work covers religious experience, religious anthropology, reductionism, neutrality, and the scholarly voice. As McCutcheon notes, this text has no one use. Indeed, its application to religious studies seems nearly universal. Highly recommended.?Sandra Collins, Univ. of Pittsburgh
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