Exploring Religion, Nature and Culture—Introducing the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture

Authors

  • Bron Taylor

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v1i1.5

Keywords:

religion, nature, culture

Abstract

A wide-ranging, interdisciplinary, taboo-free inquiry is essential to engage the central question animating this new journal: What are the relationships among human beings, their diverse religions, and the earth’s living systems? Likewise, it is critical that we wrestle with the terms that constitute the journal’s title—religion, nature and culture—given their diverse and contested meanings. I argue that the proper approach for this new journal is to provide habitat for all reasoned scholarly debate surrounding these terms and the relationships among them. Illustrating this argument by focusing especially on the term religion, I maintain that it is much more
important for this journal to entertain interesting hypotheses about people and their environments than it is to resolve disagreements about the precise meaning, analytical value, or boundaries of phenomena that would be understood as religion by some but not all observers.

References

Albanese, C.L. 1990 Nature Religion in America: From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

Reconsidering Nature Religion (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International).

Alston, W.P. 1967 ‘Religion’, in P. Edwards (ed.), Encyclopedia of Philosophy, VII (New York: Macmillan/The Free Press): 140-45.

Anttonen, V. 1996 ‘Rethinking the Sacred: The Notions of “Human Body” and “Territory” in Conceptualizing Religion’, in Idinopulos and Yonan (eds.) 1996: 36-64.

Asad, T. 1993 Genealogies of Religion: Disciplines and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press).

Auffarth, C., and H. Mohr 2005 ‘Religion’, in K. von Stuckrad (ed.), Brill Dictionary of Religion, III (Leiden: E.J. Brill): 1607-19.

Bailey, E.I. 1997 Implicit Religion in Contemporary Society (Leuven: Peeters).

Benthall, J. 2006 ‘Archeology and Anthropology as Religoid Movements’, Anthropology Today 22.5: 1-2.

Callicott, J.B., and M.P. Nelson 1998 The Great New Wilderness Debate (Athens: University of Georgia Press).

Chidester, D. 1996 Savage Systems: Colonialism and Comparative Religion in Southern Africa (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia).

Authentic Fakes: Religion and Popular American Culture (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press).

Cronon, W. 1995a ‘In Search of Nature’, in W. Cronon (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: Norton): 23-56.

b ‘The Trouble with Wilderness; Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature’, in W. Cronon (ed.), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York: Norton): 69-90.

Dawkins, R. 2006 The God Delusion (New York City: Houghton Mifflin).

Dennett, D.C. 2006 Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon (New York City: Viking Press).

Dilthey, W. 1978 Dilthey’s Philosophy of Existence: Introduction to Weltanschauungslehre (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press).

Dubuisson, D. 2003 The Western Construction of Religion (Washington, DC: The Johns Hopkins University Press).

Durkheim, E. 1965 [1912] Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (New York: The Free Press).

Eliade, M. 1959 The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion (New York: Harcourt Brace & World).

Evernden, N. 1992 The Social Creation of Nature (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press).

Feil, E. 2000 On the Concept of Religion (Binghamton, UK: Global Publications).

Fitzgerald, T. 1999 The Ideology of Religious Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

Frazer, J.G. 1994 [1890] The Golden Bough: A History of Myth and Religion (London: Chancellor Press).

Geertz, C. 1973 The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic).

Guthrie, S. 1993 Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press).

‘The Sacred: A Sceptical View’, in Idinopulos and Yonan (eds.) 1996: 124-38.

Haraway, D. 1991 Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York and London: Routledge).

Idinopulos, T.A., and E.A. Yonan (eds.) 1996 The Sacred and Its Scholars: Comparative Methodologies for the Study of Primary Religious Data (Leiden: E.J. Brill).

James, W. 2002 [1902] The Varieties of Religious Experience (Centenary Edition) (London and New York: Routledge).

Jensen, J.S. 2003 The Study of Religion in a New Key (Arhus, the Netherlands: Arhus University Press).

Masuzawa, T. 1998 ‘Culture’, in Taylor (ed.) 1998: 70-93.

The Invention of World Religions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

McCutcheon, R.T. 1997 Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse of Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia (Oxford and Cambridge: Oxford University Press).

The Essential Max Müller: On Language, Mythology and Religion (ed. J. Stone; New York: Palgrave/Macmillan).

Müller, F.M. 2002 [1873] Introduction to the Science of Religion (London: Longmans, Green & Co.).

Nietzsche, F. 1999 ‘Zur Genealogie der Moral. Eine Streitschrift’, in G. Colli and M. Montinari (eds.), Friedrich Nietzsche: Sämtliche Werke, kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden (Berlin and New York: W. de Gruyter): 245-412.

Otto, R. 1958 The Idea of the Holy (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2nd edn).

Price, J.L. 1996 ‘Naturalistic Recreations’, in P.H. Van Ness (ed.), Spirituality and the Secular Quest (New York: Crossroad): 414-44.

Proctor, J.D., and E. Berry 2005 ‘Social Science on Religion and Nature’, in Taylor (ed.) 2005: 1571-76.

Saler, B. 1993 Conceptualizing Religion: Immanent Anthropologists, Transcendent Natives, and Unbounded Categories (Leiden: E.J. Brill).

Schleiermacher, F. 1996 [1799] On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Smart, N. 1966 Dimensions of the Sacred: An Anatomy of the World’s Beliefs (Berkeley: University of California Press).

Worldviews: Crosscultural Explorations of Human Beliefs (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 3rd edn).

Smith, J.Z. 1998 ‘Religion, Religions, Religious’, in Taylor (ed.) 1998: 269-84.

Smith, J.Z., and W.S. Green 1995 ‘Religion, Definition of’, in The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion (New York: HarperCollins): 893-94.

Smith, W.C. 1962 The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: Macmillan).

Soulé, M., and G. Lease (eds.) 1995 Reinventing Nature? Responses to Postmodern Deconstruction (Washington DC: Island Press).

Southwold, M. 1978 ‘Buddhism and the Definition of Religion’, Man 13: 362-79.

Spiro, M. 1966 ‘Religion: Problems of Definition and Explanation’, in M. Banton (ed.), Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion (London: Tavistock Publications): 85-126.

Stuckrad, K. von 2003 ‘Discursive Study of Religion: From States of the Mind to Communication and Action’, Method & Theory in the Study of Religion 15: 255-71.

Taylor, B. 2001a ‘Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part I): From Deep Ecology to Radical Environmentalism’, Religion 31.2: 175-93.

b ‘Earth and Nature-Based Spirituality (Part II): From Earth First! and Bioregionalism to Scientific Paganism and the New Age’, Religion 31.3: 225-45.

‘A Green Future for Religion?’, Futures Journal 36.9: 991-1008.

‘Ecology and Nature Religions’, in L. Jones (ed.), Encyclopedia of Religion (New York: MacMillan, 2nd edn): 2661-66.

Taylor, B. (ed.) 2005 Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (2 vols; London and New York: Continuum, 1st edn).

Taylor, M.C. (ed.) 1998 Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press).

Tweed, T. 2002 ‘On Moving Across: Translocative Religion and the Interpreter’s Position’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 70.2: 253-77.

Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press).

Tylor, E.B. 1871 Primitive Culture: Researches Into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom (London: J. Murray).

Weber, M. 1978 [1925] Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (2 vols.; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press).

Weber, M. 1958 [1905] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Scribners).

Weckman, G. 1996 ‘Respect of Others’ Sacreds’, in Idinopulos and Yonan (eds.) 1996: 178-86.

White, L. 1967 ‘The Historic Roots of Our Ecologic Crisis’, Science 155: 1203-207.

Whitney, E. 2005 ‘White, Lynn—Thesis of’, in Taylor (ed.) 2005: 1735-37.

Downloads

Published

2007-04-20

How to Cite

Taylor, B. (2007). Exploring Religion, Nature and Culture—Introducing the Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture . Journal for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture, 1(1), 5-24. https://doi.org/10.1558/jsrnc.v1i1.5

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 > >>