A Modest Proposal on Method: Essaying the Study of Religion

by Russell T McCutcheon

A Modest Proposal on Method further documents methodological and institutional failings in the academic study of religion. This collection of essays--which includes three previously unpublished chapters--identifies the manner in which old problems (like the presumption that our object of study is a special, deeply meaningful case) yet remain in the field. But amidst the critique there are a variety of practical suggestions for how the science of religion can become methodologically even-handed and self-reflexive--the markings of a historically rigorous exercise. Each chapter is introduced and contextualized by a newly written, substantive introduction.

252 pages, Hardcover

First published October 6, 2014

Reviews

[Signe Cohen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection of essays on the academic study of religion is interesting and provocative. Most of the chapters have been published previously in other formats, but there are newly written introductions to each chapter. The satirical essay "I have a hunch" is a particularly fascinating critique of much of the scholarship in the field. This book is definitely worth reading, although the sheer number of personal anecdotes about the author and his relationships with other (admired and not so admired) scholars in the field distracted a little from the treatment of the subject matter itself.