Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the literature and fundamental concepts of phenomenology which underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. While the readings themselves are not directly about the Phenomenology of Religion, in order to understand the Phenomenology of Religion we need to address these fundamental ideas and to raise the basic questions of Phenomenology.
Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the literature and fundamental concepts of phenomenology which underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. While the readings themselves are not directly about the Phenomenology of Religion, in order to understand the Phenomenology of Religion we need to address these fundamental ideas and to raise the basic questions of Phenomenology.
Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the literature and fundamental concepts of phenomenology which underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. While the readings themselves are not directly about the Phenomenology of Religion, in order to understand the Phenomenology of Religion we need to address these fundamental ideas and to raise the basic questions of Phenomenology.
Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the literature and fundamental concepts of phenomenology which underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. While the readings themselves are not directly about the Phenomenology of Religion, in order to understand the Phenomenology of Religion we need to address these fundamental ideas and to raise the basic questions of Phenomenology.
Phenomenology is one of the most important developments in philosophy in the twentieth century that has had a deep impact on Theology and Religious Studies. This seminar series seeks to engage with some of the literature and fundamental concepts of phenomenology which underlie much work in Theology and the Phenomenology of Religion. While the readings themselves are not directly about the Phenomenology of Religion, in order to understand the Phenomenology of Religion we need to address these fundamental ideas and to raise the basic questions of Phenomenology.
Two tendencies in recent years have sought to provide explanations of religion in terms of a naturalist or eliminative reductionism, the realm of science, on the one hand, and a cultural reductionism, the realm of politics, on the other. Eliminative reductionism primarily refers to theories of cognition and evolutionary psychology along with their philosophical justification. By cultural reductionism I mean accounts that see religion only in terms of a politics of representation and structures of power.
Shifting from explicit politics to implicit cultural politics, this lecture will focus on the relation of religion to art, raising questions about how religious art expresses tradition and links in to a cosmology absent from secular art. Questions of aesthetics and function will be raised. An exhibition in London by Gilbert and George in January 2006 presented religion through a pastiche of images that showed religions to be essentially oppressive.
Religion has always been deeply implicated with politics. While the claim of these lectures is that the religious imperative cannot be reduced to power, the formation of religions as institutions has always been closely implicated in the formation of states and the legitimising of particular social and political structures. Many contemporary thinkers, deriving inspiration from genealogical thinkers such as Foucault, claim that religion can be understood in terms of power relationships and that the discourse of religion hides a will to power.
On the one hand there is a critique of religion that sees religion in terms of propositions about the nature of the world. On the other there is a reaction to such claims by the rational defence of religion.
Many of the canonical names in anthropology have been criticised for their literary style and their tendency towards evocative narrative. Here we argue that this is not a methodological weakness, but the autonomous development of a conception of understanding in terms of imaginative empathy and inter-subjectivity, which parallels hermeneutic philosophy. Religious experiences are literally recreated in the reader, forming an intimate bond between the scholar and his or her subject.
