Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies

Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies analyses the role of religion in past and present understandings of Asia. Religion, and the history of its study in the modern academy, has exercised massive influence over Asian Studies fields in the past century. Asian Studies has in turn affected, and is increasingly shaping, the study of religion. Religion and Orientalism in Asian Studies looks into this symbiotic relationship – both in current practice, and in the modern histories of both Orientalism and Area Studies.

Each chapter of the book deals with one regional sub-discipline in Asian Studies, covering Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies, Korean Studies, South Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Studies, and Central Eurasian Studies. The chapters are integrated by shared themes that run through the past and present practice of Asian Studies, covering the role of state actors in originating Area Studies, the role of local scholarship in defining and developing it, the interaction between humanities and social science approaches, debates over the dominance of Western and/or modern categories and frameworks, the interaction of past and present and the role of religious actors and religious sensibilities in shaping Asian Studies.

Introduction
1. Religion and South-East Asian Studies: Past and Present, Ben Arps (Professor of Indonesian and Javanese Languages and Cultures, Leiden University, the Netherlands)
2. Religion in Colonial and Nationalist Manufactures of India, Rowena Robinson (Professor of Sociology, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, India)
3. Indology and 'Indian Religion', Peter Bisschop (Professor of Sanskrit and South Asian Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands)
4. The Study of Chinese Religions in the Social Sciences: Beyond the Monotheistic Assumption, Anna Sun (Associate Professor of Sociology, Kenyon College, USA)
5. Coming to Terms with Religion in East Asia, Tim Barrett (Professor Emeritus of East Asian History, SOAS, London, UK)
6. Sinology, Religion and Orientalism, Barend ter Haar (Professor of Chinese Studies, University of Oxford, UK)
7. Korean Studies and Religion from the 19th century to the Present, Marion Eggert (Professor of Korean Studies, Ruhr University, Bochum, Germany)
8. Japanese Studies as a Secularist Project, Hans Martin Kraemer (Professor of Japanese Studies, Heidelberg University, Germany)
9. Religion and the Japanese Shaping of East Asian Studies, Kiri Paramore (Lecturer in Japanese History, Leiden University, the Netherlands)
10. The Comparative Lens: Eastern Europe, Central Asia and Area Studies, Michael Kemper (Professor of Eastern European Studies, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands) and Christian Noack (Associate Professor of Eastern European Studies, University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands)
Bibliography
Index

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