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- Convenors:
-
Alessandro Testa
(Charles University)
Thorsten Wettich (University of Bremen)
Victoria Hegner (Göttingen University)
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- Format:
- Panel
Short Abstract:
The panel invites to examine both the history and the future of writing religion ethnologically through analyses of the legacy of our disciplinary forebears (without falling into the trap of methodological presentism and anachronism) and reflections on current trends in the ethnology of religion.
Long Abstract:
Anthropology, ethnology and folkloristics were founded to document and interpret culture, including religious practices, by reading, writing, readdressing, or also confuting what was previously written. In the current Western Zeitgeist increasingly critical of bygone inscriptions, this panel invites to reflect on both the history and the evolution of the discipline. What did it mean to write religion ethnologically in the past, what does it mean in the present, what might it look like in the future?
Taking inspiration from Clifford Geertz’ stance on the anthropologist as an author, we would like to set off from considering that each ethnologist is actually first and foremost a reader, before becoming a writer. Moreover, the acquired competence of academic writing has historically always been inextricably linked with the intertwined processes of assessing (or also rejecting) existing scholarship and writing fresh interpretations – what we call accumulation and refinement of knowledge.
Based on this, the panel welcomes 1) Analyses of the legacy of our disciplinary forebears and schools of thought without falling into the trap of methodological presentism and theoretical anachronism by projecting intentions, notions, and sensibilities of today onto our predecessors; 2) Discussions on the foundation and development of the ethnology of religion, also unravelling untold stories and addressing the very idea of former “giants” in terms of canon-creating, discourse-shaping, and ground-breaking scholars, be they women or men, known or less known figures, or entire currents (functionalism, structuralism, post-structuralism, decolonialism, etc.); 3) Well-informed reflections on current trends in the ethnological writing of religion.
This Panel has so far received 1 paper proposal(s).
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