| Description |
335 pages ; 24 cm |
| 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."--Jacket |
| Analysis |
Religion Broadcasting |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-323) and index |
| Subject |
Rushdie, Salman.
|
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Christian civilization.
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Islamic civilization.
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Religion.
|
| LC no. |
93021831 |
| ISBN |
0801846315 |
|
0801846323 |
|
9780801846311 |
|
9780801846328 |
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