The Religious Studies Project

In Thomas Coleman’s interview for the RSP with Tom Flynn, secular humanism is described as a “complete and balanced life stance” rejecting supernaturalism. Recorded at the Center For Inquiry’s 2013 Student Leadership Conference, Tom argues that secular humanism offers more than agnosticism and atheism.

Scholar of religion and nature Bron Taylor responds to Bruno Latour's 2013 Gifford Lectures, discussing the concept of the Anthropocence and contemporary spiritual-religious responses to the new epoch of climate change. The question about climate change has emerged as one of the defining debates of contemporary social and political discourse.

In this interview with Thomas Coleman, McCutcheon discusses what he terms as the “socio-political strategy” behind the label of “sui generis” as it is applied to religion. The interview begins by exploring some of the terms used to support sui generis claims to religion (e.g. un-mediated, irreducible etc.)...

What is the least well known book of the Bible? How many people in the UK listed their ‘religion’ as ‘Jedi Knight’ on the UK 2011 Census? What is Professor Jim Cox’s drink of choice? To find out, you need do nothing more than hit ‘Play’ and enjoy this forty minutes of pure, unadulterated, top quality Religious Studies entertainment.

In this second part we ask "the epistemic/ontological question": in studying these experiences, how far should we be concerned with the ontology? Would to do so be an abandonment of the scientific materialism which underpins the discipline, and therefore a slide back into theology? Or can there be a bigger model of materialism - a "complicated materialism", to use Ann Taves' expression - in which these phenomena might be suitably explicable?

In October 2013, a four day international conference was held at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, on the theme of ‘Anthropology and the Paranormal’. This special two part episode explores some aspects of the sometimes fraught relationship between "paranormal" events and beliefs (The World Religions")...

"...a vital tradition of the study of religion is the Durkheimian intellectual tradition. Generally dismissed by many in the study of religion because of its supposedly narrow "sociological" bent, the school of scholarship represented by Émile Durkheim, Henri Hubert, Marcel Mauss, Louis Dumont, Roger Caillois, Georges Bataille and others is, ...

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009) was the founder of structural anthropology, and is widely considered to be a foundational figure for modern anthropology. In books including Les Structures élémentaires de la parenté (1949, The Elementary Structures of Kinship), Tristes Tropiques (1955) and La Pensée sauvage (1962, The Savage Mind, 1966),...

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist. Initially a collaborator with Sigmund Freud, the two later split and Jung went on to found the Analytical Psychology school of psychotherapy. His approach focussed on what he called the process of individuation, in which the conscious and unconscious impulses in an individual are brought into harmony. He coined many concepts with a currency beyond psychiatry, including archetype, the collective unconscious, complex and synchronicity. Following a spell of "creative madness" in 1913, he increasingly applied his theories to more diverse subjects - myths, alchemy, gnosticism, even UFOs. In this entertaining interview, Robert Segal tells David about Jung's impact on theories of religion. Why was Jung so fascinated by religious ideas, and why do his ideas remain so influential today? Did he mean them in the way they have been subsequently appropriated? You can also download this interview, and subscribe to receive our weekly podcast, on iTunes. If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to rate us. And remember, you can use our Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com links to support us at no additional cost when buying your Christmas presents etc. This is the first episode on a series on early 20th century theorists of religion. Following episodes feature interviews with Paul-Francois Tremlett on Levi-Strauss and Ivan Strenski on Durkheim.

Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist. Initially a collaborator with Sigmund Freud, the two later split and Jung went on to found the Analytical Psychology school of psychotherapy. His approach focussed on what he called the process of individuation, ...

“We had so many studies focusing on institutions and on official discourse, and so few studies on the silent majority, which never shows up in these institutions... So we over-emphasize the religious belongings. All the muslims are supposed to know the Quran, although they don't. Some of them have never opened it. Some of them don't think they are Muslims. – None of us is Christian, Muslim, a Mason, Atheist, 24 hours a day. We have much more belongings, identities.”

“We had so many studies focusing on institutions and on official discourse, and so few studies on the silent majority, which never shows up in these institutions... So we over-emphasize the religious belongings. All the muslims are supposed to know the Quran, although they don't. Some of them have never opened it.

"...Rebranding the Buddhist concept of Harmony to be a more politically comparable term to the Canadian mosaic..."

"...Rebranding the Buddhist concept of Harmony to be a more politically comparable term to the Canadian mosaic..." Dr. D. Mitra Barua is an instructor of Religious Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, and has a Masters in Buddhist Philosophy undertaken in Sri Lanka.

"Pretty much unprepared for the sensory feast of a Santo Daime ritual, I was visually struck by the colourful ‘uniforms’ and brightly decorated ceremonial space. The strongly rhythmical and fervently sung ‘hymns’ also made an impact, as did the powerful smell and bitter taste of the religious sacrament which practitioners call ‘Daime’.