Talk on:
Religious Studies in the 21st century

 

Date:	22 Jun 2009
Time:	3pm - 4pm
Location:	Seminar Room B, Level 1, AS7 Shaw Foundation Building, 5 Arts Link, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117570

Abstract: There is a distinct possibility that, in the twenty-first century, Religious Studies as a discipline could come into its own. Its multidisciplinary orientation could, if handled with due critical awareness about its own former grandiose ambitions and present preoccupations provide insight into the various conflictual disorders that beset contemporary existence. There have been many recent challenges to the study of religion as a non-normative approach to studying the different religions of the world. These include deconstruction, postcolonial theory, fundamentalism.
Religious Studies, as most other disciplines that were conceived as a result of the modernist impulse, brings with it the inevitable biased presuppositions that informed its formative period. No western discipline from that time has emerged unscathed. Such a history – with all of its colonial baggage – requires critical evaluation. In this exercise, I think it is appropriate to keep the observations of Talal Asad firmly in mind – particularly when he advocates that, though he does not necessarily recommend reducing the meaning of religious practices and utterances to social phenomena, a thorough examination of its modernist historical pedigree is absolutely necessary.
While this paper will not attempt to supply solutions for these challenges, it will endeavour to understand and suggest some appropriate responses.

About the speaker: Morny Joy is University Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary. Professor Joy’s principal areas of research are religion and philosophy, especially Continental philosophy. She has written and co-edited a number of books and has published many articles in the areas of postcolonialism, women, philosophy and religion. Her most recent work is Divine Love: Luce Irigaray, Women, Gender and Religion (University of Manchester, 2007).

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 FOR ENQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT:

Rodney Sebastian

Faculty of Arts and Social Science Religion Research Cluster, National University of Singapore

Email: fasrodn{at}nus{dot}edu{dot}sg