Continuum Religion and the Discourse on Modernity (Continuum Advances in Religious Studies): 3

This important volume provides a major forum for re-reading key theorists in religious studies, with the aim of creating a new vision for the study of religions.Following Habermas' claim that the discourse on modernity is characterised by a critique of reason that privileges aesthetic experience free from constraints of time and space and by a narrative of increasing rationality, an important point of departure for reframing debates about theory and method in the study of religions is made available.In "Religion and the Discourse on Modernity" Paul Tremlett argues that the aesthetic critique of modernity is constitutive of Marxist and post-modern thought and also of aspects of the phenomenology of religion and its critique of 'profane' existence. He argues further that the Enlightenment promise of progressive rationality is constitutive of liberal and Marxist visions of modernity and the phenomenology of religion with its dream of global religious dialogue.This provides an opening for re-reading the likes of Otto, Eliade, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Foucault, de Certeau, Derrida and Bourdieu and for a new vision of the study of religions.This ground breaking new series offers original reflections on theory and method in the study of religions, and demonstrates new approaches to the way religious traditions are studied and presented. Studies published under its auspices look to clarify the role and place of Religious Studies in the academy, but not in a purely theoretical manner. Each study will demonstrate its theoretical aspects by applying them to the actual study of religions, often in the form of frontier research. About the Author Paul-Francois Tremlett is a Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies and a Visiting Lecturer at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London, UK. He has published essays on theory and method in the study of religions, on aspects of religion and culture in the Philippines and on the anthropology of religion on Taiwan.