With this influential book of essays, Jonathan Z. Smith has pointed the academic study of religion in a new theoretical direction, one neither theological nor willfully ideological.
Making use of examples as apparently diverse and exotic as the Maori cults in nineteenth-century New Zealand and the events of Jonestown, Smith shows that religion must be construed as conventional, anthropological, historical, and as an exercise of imagination. In his analyses, religion emerges as the product of historically and geographically situated human ingenuity, cognition, and curiosity--simply put, as the result of human labor, one of the decisive but wholly ordinary ways human beings create the worlds in which they live and make sense of them.
"These seven essays . . . display the critical intelligence, creativity, and sheer common sense that make Smith one of the most methodologically sophisticated and suggestive historians of religion writing today. . . . Smith scrutinizes the fundamental problems of taxonomy and comparison in religious studies, suggestively redescribes such basic categories as canon and ritual, and shows how frequently studied myths may more likely reflect situational incongruities than vaunted mimetic congruities. His final essay, on Jonestown, demonstrates the interpretive power of the historian of religion to render intelligible that in our own day which seems most bizarre."--Richard S. Sarason, "Religious Studies Review
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2 有用 yokojbian 2014-04-20 10:46:20
Religion has no existence apart from the academy. This does not mean that religion doesn’t exist, but it is worth keeping in mind that even when we think we have a handle on what religion is, we might... Religion has no existence apart from the academy. This does not mean that religion doesn’t exist, but it is worth keeping in mind that even when we think we have a handle on what religion is, we might be fooling ourselves. (展开)
0 有用 YING 2015-02-04 09:14:24
'Religion is solely the creation of the scholar's study.'
0 有用 siju 2012-08-02 20:38:44
密密麻麻眼睛要看瞎了, 比creation of sacred难读好多啊TAT
0 有用 迪奥普 2023-01-31 21:04:41 广东
从未读过这样的宗教学研究。其实宗教学理论并不丰富,很多时候都要借助其它人文社科理论来解释宗教。你想穷尽关于宗教的真理最后会像伊利亚德写一部煌煌的宗教思想史,并陶醉于宗教的神圣结构与美学中。但本书作者却站在宗教圣域之外审视“宗教”这个历史概念,所以他从生物学的种属分类学开始去探究宗教人类学和宗教史学上的“宗教”概念。“宗教”内涵不是固定的,而是在学术发展历史中呈现出不同的样子,最后一篇“白夜”事件暗... 从未读过这样的宗教学研究。其实宗教学理论并不丰富,很多时候都要借助其它人文社科理论来解释宗教。你想穷尽关于宗教的真理最后会像伊利亚德写一部煌煌的宗教思想史,并陶醉于宗教的神圣结构与美学中。但本书作者却站在宗教圣域之外审视“宗教”这个历史概念,所以他从生物学的种属分类学开始去探究宗教人类学和宗教史学上的“宗教”概念。“宗教”内涵不是固定的,而是在学术发展历史中呈现出不同的样子,最后一篇“白夜”事件暗示其实很多未被赋予“宗教”标签的事件其实某种程度上与宗教一致,只不过对于学者来说更重要的是解读方式。所以本书的标题重点是“想象”过程。好几篇文章都很不宗教学,用词造句尤为晦涩,很多逼人停顿的长句,而这样却给我一种“宗教”是更加深邃、黑暗的感觉,关于狩猎与仪式的那篇让人想起同样幽深的《白鲸》。 (展开)
0 有用 He is Good 2019-08-16 03:30:17
Absolutely love it! So far the most critical and original thinker I've ever encountered during my years in the academy. So many dazzling and unexpected parallels: from Babylonian Akitu festival to the... Absolutely love it! So far the most critical and original thinker I've ever encountered during my years in the academy. So many dazzling and unexpected parallels: from Babylonian Akitu festival to the myth of Hainuwele; from Bacchus to Jonestown. "In Comparison a Magic Dwells" offers a brilliant framework for comparative studies. Superb thinker! (展开)
0 有用 李从珂 2024-05-04 00:43:01 北京
incongruity, and being critical.
0 有用 迪奥普 2023-01-31 21:04:41 广东
从未读过这样的宗教学研究。其实宗教学理论并不丰富,很多时候都要借助其它人文社科理论来解释宗教。你想穷尽关于宗教的真理最后会像伊利亚德写一部煌煌的宗教思想史,并陶醉于宗教的神圣结构与美学中。但本书作者却站在宗教圣域之外审视“宗教”这个历史概念,所以他从生物学的种属分类学开始去探究宗教人类学和宗教史学上的“宗教”概念。“宗教”内涵不是固定的,而是在学术发展历史中呈现出不同的样子,最后一篇“白夜”事件暗... 从未读过这样的宗教学研究。其实宗教学理论并不丰富,很多时候都要借助其它人文社科理论来解释宗教。你想穷尽关于宗教的真理最后会像伊利亚德写一部煌煌的宗教思想史,并陶醉于宗教的神圣结构与美学中。但本书作者却站在宗教圣域之外审视“宗教”这个历史概念,所以他从生物学的种属分类学开始去探究宗教人类学和宗教史学上的“宗教”概念。“宗教”内涵不是固定的,而是在学术发展历史中呈现出不同的样子,最后一篇“白夜”事件暗示其实很多未被赋予“宗教”标签的事件其实某种程度上与宗教一致,只不过对于学者来说更重要的是解读方式。所以本书的标题重点是“想象”过程。好几篇文章都很不宗教学,用词造句尤为晦涩,很多逼人停顿的长句,而这样却给我一种“宗教”是更加深邃、黑暗的感觉,关于狩猎与仪式的那篇让人想起同样幽深的《白鲸》。 (展开)
0 有用 桃林 2021-05-31 14:40:28
great
0 有用 He is Good 2019-08-16 03:30:17
Absolutely love it! So far the most critical and original thinker I've ever encountered during my years in the academy. So many dazzling and unexpected parallels: from Babylonian Akitu festival to the... Absolutely love it! So far the most critical and original thinker I've ever encountered during my years in the academy. So many dazzling and unexpected parallels: from Babylonian Akitu festival to the myth of Hainuwele; from Bacchus to Jonestown. "In Comparison a Magic Dwells" offers a brilliant framework for comparative studies. Superb thinker! (展开)
1 有用 齐冠雄 2019-06-04 23:02:04
必读,如果不喜欢这本书或者不喜欢jz smith,建议就不要学宗教学了,自虐。