Titus Hjelm is Associate Professor in the Study of Religion at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Until the end of 2018 he was Reader in Sociology at University College London, UK. His publications include Peter Berger and the Sociology of Religion: 50 Years after The Sacred Canopy (ed., Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) in addition to other books and many journal articles. He is the co-editor of the Journal of Religion in Europe and the founding chair of the American Academy of Religion’s Sociology of Religion Group.
"A lot of definitional magic has been spent to save religion from secularisation theory," writes Titus Hjelm in this response to our episode with Paul-François Tremlett, "but at the end of the day, incommensurability is a real issue in this debate." So what can be said today of the ongoing differences between lived religious perspectives at the level of the individual and those scholarly perspectives that look at broader social and cultural forces and trends.
It's a COVID-style international spectacular for the ninth(!) annual RSP mid-season special. It's time to play... the Weakest Link! Join Andie Alexander, Jonathon O'Donnel, Titus Hjelm, Naomi Goldenberg, Sidney Castillo, Russell McCutcheon, Ray Radford, and Megan Goodwin as David Robertson fires questions at them and Chris Cotter remotely operates PowerPoint! Who will win the coveted fictional research funding?
What makes the sociology of religion and Religious Studies distinct from each other - if anything? Paul-Francois Tremlett, Titus Hjelm and David Robertson discuss what the two approaches have in common, and how they differ. Importantly, they consider how they might learn from each other.
What is social constructionism, and how is it important to the study of religion? Titus Hjelm explains how approaches which see social realities as built from discourses challenge how we think about ontology, epistemology and power.What is social constructionism, and how is it important to the study of religion? In this interview,
"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is indeed the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man, state, society. This state and this society produce religion, ...
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