Beyond Phenomenology : Rethinking the Study of Religion

This book argues that understandings and explanations of religion are always historically contingent. Grounded in the work of Bakhtin and Ricouer, it positions the academic study of religion within contemporary debates in the social sciences and humanities concerning modernity and postmodernity, and, in particular, contested issues regarding truth and knowledge. It challenges the view that religions are privileged, epistemic objects, argues for the importance of meta-theory, and presents an argument for the dialogical nature of inquiry. The study of religion should begin with language and culture. This shift in emphasis to the philosophy of the sign in hermeneutics and away from the philosophy of consciousness in phenomenology has far-reaching implications. Gavin Flood argues for a new ethic of practice which is sensitive to power relations in any epistemology, and in so doing, opens the door to feminist and postcolonial critique, as well as providing a methodology which allows for the interface between religious studies, theology and the social sciences. Book jacket.