Taxonomy Construction and the Normative Turn in Religious Studies

Jonathan Z. Smith contends that a taxonomic agenda underlies the study of religion. Before Smith, structuralist scholars saw it as their task to uncover the roots of human taxonomic arrangements that present themselves as natural. Drawing somewhat anachronistically on Smith's taxonomic model, I...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:  
Détails bibliographiques
Publié dans:Religions
Auteur principal: Cooper, Travis Warren (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
En cours de chargement...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Publié: MDPI [2017]
Dans: Religions
Sujets non-standardisés:B Social Anthropology
B the study of religion
B Categories
B Taxonomy
B normativity and values
B Structuralism
B Jonathan Z. Smith
Accès en ligne: Accès probablement gratuit
Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
Description
Résumé:Jonathan Z. Smith contends that a taxonomic agenda underlies the study of religion. Before Smith, structuralist scholars saw it as their task to uncover the roots of human taxonomic arrangements that present themselves as natural. Drawing somewhat anachronistically on Smith's taxonomic model, I argue that underlying investigative categories posed by structural anthropologists are operative strategies of subjective value and valuation. I employ Smith to amend structuralist classificatory paradigms and to speak to questions of normativity, values, and concealed agendas in the contemporary study of religion. Smith's comparative program serves as a fertile territory of encounter between divergent religious studies subfields. In short, I argue that although the normative turn in religious studies has generally succeeded in deconstructing appeals to scholarly objectivity, it faces challenges along other parameters.
ISSN:2077-1444
Contient:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel8120270