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Genealogies of religion : discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam /Talal Asad

By: Talal AsadContributor(s): Talal AsadMaterial type: Text

TextPublisher number: International Book Distributors | ;Flat No.17,Prakash Apartments ,5 Ansari Road ,Daryaganj New Delhi-110002Publication details: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press , ©1993Description: 335 pages ; 24 cmISBN: 9780801846328Subject(s): Social SciencesGenre/Form: Culture & institutionsDDC classification: 306.697 ASA

Contents:

Genealogies -- The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category -- Toward a Genealogy of the Concept of Ritual -- Archaisms -- Pain and Truth in Medieval Christian Ritual -- On Discipline and Humility in Medieval Christian Monasticism -- Translations -- The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology -- The Limits of Religious Criticism in the Middle East: Notes on Islamic Public Argument -- Polemics -- Multiculturalism and British Identity in the Wake of the Rushdie Affair -- Ethnography, Literature, and Politics: Some Readings and Uses of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.

Summary: In Genealogies of Religion Asad explores how religion as a historical category emerged in the West and has come to be applied by scholars, journalists, and politicians as a universal concept. The idea that religion has undergone a radical change since the Christian Reformation - from totalitarian and socially repressive to private and relatively benign - is a familiar part of the story of secularization. It is often invoked to explain and justify the liberal politics and world-view of modernity. And it leads to the view that "politicized religions" threaten both reason and liberty. Asad's essays explore and question all these assumptions. He argues that "religion" is a construction of European modernity, a construction that authorizes - for Westerners and non-Westerners alike - particular forms of "history making." Asad examines aspects of this authorizing process in the so-called fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia, in the Rushdie affair in Great Britain, and in other phenomena

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Holdings
Item type	Current library	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Books	SNU LIBRARY	306.697 ASA (Browse shelf(Opens below))	Available		25173

Total holds: 0

Genealogies --
The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category --
Toward a Genealogy of the Concept of Ritual --
Archaisms --
Pain and Truth in Medieval Christian Ritual --
On Discipline and Humility in Medieval Christian Monasticism --
Translations --
The Concept of Cultural Translation in British Social Anthropology --
The Limits of Religious Criticism in the Middle East: Notes on Islamic Public Argument --
Polemics --
Multiculturalism and British Identity in the Wake of the Rushdie Affair --
Ethnography, Literature, and Politics: Some Readings and Uses of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.

In Genealogies of Religion Asad explores how religion as a historical category emerged in the West and has come to be applied by scholars, journalists, and politicians as a universal concept. The idea that religion has undergone a radical change since the Christian Reformation - from totalitarian and socially repressive to private and relatively benign - is a familiar part of the story of secularization. It is often invoked to explain and justify the liberal politics and world-view of modernity. And it leads to the view that "politicized religions" threaten both reason and liberty. Asad's essays explore and question all these assumptions. He argues that "religion" is a construction of European modernity, a construction that authorizes - for Westerners and non-Westerners alike - particular forms of "history making." Asad examines aspects of this authorizing process in the so-called fundamentalism of Saudi Arabia, in the Rushdie affair in Great Britain, and in other phenomena

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