A response to “Good Grief? Rituals of World Repairing”
by Douglas Davies
A panel on the public impact and engagement of Religious Studies/Study of Religion/s led by committee members of the British Association for the Study of Religions, including Dr Stephen Gregg (Wolverhampton), Dr Christopher Cotter (Edinburgh), Dr Suzanne Owen (Leeds Trinity), Dr David Robertson (The Open University) and Dr Steven Sutcliffe (Edinburgh).
The RSP is delighted to be sponsored this month by a new publication from Douglas Davies – Death, Ritual and Belief: The Rhetoric of Funerary Rites
Now in its third edition, this text provides an excellent introduction to key authors and authorities on death beliefs, bereavement, grief, and ritual-symbolism, all from a Religious Studies perspective (including anthropology and sociology). New additions to this publication cover euthanasia, terrorism, green burial, material culture, and online death studies; and case studies range from Anders Breivik in Norway, to the Rapture in the USA, to the Princess of Wales.
Toys, Rabbits, and Princess Diana – three things that may not seem at all connected. However, when one starts to question the notion of grief, bereavement, and death in the contemporary West, these three are more connected than appears. In this podcast, Breann Fallon interviews Professor Douglas Ezzy of the University of Tasmania on the power of symbols in creating relationships and world-repairing rituals in the context of grief and death.
“Unbelief” or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Imprecise Terminology
March 1st, 2018 | Discuss
A response to “From Non-Religion to Unbelief? A Developing Field…
by Alex Uzdavines[1]
In this podcast, we check in with the state of the field, discuss developments beyond the Anglophone “West”, some of the many exciting projects being worked on under the “Understanding Unbelief” banner, the utility and pitfalls of the terminology of “unbelief”, and some of the critical issues surrounding the reification of survey categories.
Edinburgh Masters students respond to Will Sweetman on “Against Invention: A Richer History for ‘Hinduism’”
by Whitney Roth and Lauren Flynn
In this interview Associate Professor Will Sweetman talks to Thomas White about the idea that ‘Hinduism’ and many of the other terms we use to classify religions—including the term religion itself—are modern inventions, emerging out of nineteenth-century inter-cultural contact and European colonialism. Will argues against this critique, and to make his case he draws on historical sources that discuss ‘Hinduism’ both outside of the anglophone experience and long before the nineteenth century. Through identifying alternative, non-anglophone sources of cross-cultural, West-East encounters, where comparative religion is the subject of reflection and description, the concept of ‘Hinduism’ is presented as obtaining a much richer history than the ‘invention thesis’ allows.
What does math have to do with religion? In his interview with Hans van Eyghen, author Chris Ransford discusses his latest book ‘God and the Mathematics of Infinity’. He discusses why mathematics is useful for thinking about religion, covering some of the conclusions he draws in the book.
A response to “Autism, Religion, and Imagination with Ingela Visuri”
by Hans van Egyhen
spectrum represent a unique population of study in the cognitive and psychological sciences of religion. Because religious cognition stems from normal social-cognitive capacities, which are altered for individuals on the spectrum, researchers also expect variation in how they think about supernatural agents. In this interview, Ingela Visuri discusses her ongoing research at the nexus between autism and religion.
A Response to “African American Spiritual Churches”
by Justine Bakker
The African American Spiritual Churches are combinatory religious sites, which blend Protestant, Catholic, Spiritualist, Haitian Voodoo, and Benin’s traditional Vodun practices. Female leadership and business management has been essential in the history of these churches. Dr. Guillory’s upcoming book draws on years of archival research, ethnographic observation, and oral history interviews to tell the story of these churches from 1920 to the present day. Hurricane Katrina looms large in this story. Most of the physical churches were destroyed in the flooding — or the former inhabitants were not allowed to return as the government began eminent domain proceedings. Yet this religious community endures.
Reflections on “The Legacy of Edward Tylor – Roundtable”
by Liam Sutherland
This roundtable recorded at the annual BASR conference at the University of Chester 2017 brought together a group of scholars interested in different perspectives on the legacy of Tylor. Topics discussed included his impact on indigenous societies, the debates over animism, monotheism and the definition of religion as well as his relevance to the cognitive sciences of religion and the degree to which Tylor can be classed as an ethnographer and more.
