Conference
LUCSoR at 10: Practising Comparison in the Study of Religion
- Date
- Friday 1 November 2024
- Time
- Location
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.47
We welcome colleagues, former colleagues, students, and friends to celebrate with us the tenth anniversary of the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR). After an overview of the first ten years of LUCSoR by programme chair Corey Williams, we will explore together the continued relevance of the study of religion through a series of talks on how to practice comparison in research and teaching.
Participation is free, but registration is required. You can register using this form.
Programme
9.30 Arrival; coffee and tea
10.00 Welcome (Ab de Jong, academic director LIAS)
10.05 LUCSoR at 10 (Corey Williams, programme chair religious studies)
10.35 The Comparative Religion Network in Leiden (Markus Davidsen, chair comparative religion network)
11.05 Coffee
Session 1 | Chair: Corey Williams
11.30 Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Reflection on comparison (Gerard Wiegers, UvA, formerly UL)
12.00 Up in the tree and down in the grave: An ideal-type model for analogical comparison of the dimensions of ambiguity of extra-social beings (Arjan Sterken, RU)
12.30 Lunch (Faculty Club)
Session 2 | Chair: Markus Davidsen
13.40 Comparison for what? Some critical remarks on the comparative method (Wim Hofstee, formerly UL)
14.10 Towards an Engaged Scholarship in the Study of Religion (Nathal Dessing, UL)
14.40 Coffee
Session 3 | Chair: John-Harmen Valk
15.15 Unwanted and Impossible? The Cross-Cultural and Trans-Historical Comparison of Religious Change (Mattias Brand, Zürich, formerly UL)
15.45 The death of expertise and the future of comparison in the study of religion (Ab de Jong, UL)
16.15 Wrap-up (Markus Davidsen and Corey Williams)
16.40 Drinks (Faculty Club)
More information: contact Markus Davidsen via m.davidsen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Abstracts
Markus Davidsen: The Comparative Religion Network in Leiden
In January 2021, a group of colleagues at LUCSoR took initiative to form the ‘Leiden Working Group for the Fundamental Problems and Methods in the Science of Religion’; three years later the group was formalized as a LIAS-wide research network and changed its name to the Comparative Religion Network. The formation of the Working Group was inspired by a spirited exchange on the current constitution (crisis?) of the study of religion in the Netherlands that I had had in the NTT with colleagues from the rest of the country (see here). While not all Leiden colleagues agreed on my suggested programme for a revived systematic science of religion, we all agreed on this: comparison is core to the study of religion. We all compare, whether we like it or not, and, more importantly, it is through comparison and the use of general categories and theories that we make our specialized work relevant to colleagues. In this spirit, we agreed to devote the meetings in the Working Group/Network to two things: (i) to read and discuss capita selecta in the discipline on how to practice comparison, and (ii) to read and discuss each other’s work, with special attention to theoretical questions that transcend our own particular material. In my brief talk I will tell the story of the network, and share some conclusions from our discussions on how to practice comparison in the study of religion.
Gerard Wiegers: Antisemitism and Islamophobia: Reflection on comparison
Against the background of my researches of the past years on different aspects of the history of Jews and Muslims in Europe, I will revisit the question of the relations between Antisemitism and Islamophobia in comparative perspective. My starting point will be Brian Klug’s inquiries into the notion of analogy.
Arjan Sterken: Up in the tree and down in the grave: An ideal-type model for analogical comparison of the dimensions of ambiguity of extra-social beings
The current research project for my dissertation examines the ambiguity associated with all kinds of supernatural (or extra-social) beings. For this project, two case studies are compared: the yakṣa, a type of tree spirit, as found in the Araṇyaka Parva (the third book of the Indian Epic Mahābhārata); and the nålouper, the revenant which returns after death, in North-Saxon folklore of 19th- and 20th-century Groningen (the Netherlands) and Niedersachsen (Germany). These case studies depart from other work in comparative mythology, which often overvalues homological comparisons – comparisons whose members are assumed to have arisen from the same source. This comparison is instead a phenomenological or analogical comparison, where the comparanda share a structural similarity: they deal with beings that, while their existence is rejected by the secular composition components of the social realm, it is possible for people to socially interact with them. Such extra-social beings demonstrate ambiguity more often than not. This ambiguity is examined though an ideal type model based on an extensive literature review. Two ideal types are constructed: the positively evaluated and negatively evaluated extra-social being. This is assigned based on five dimensions: ontology, behaviour, allegiance, appearance, and location. For the pitch and chapter, a few examples from the case studies are analysed in order to demonstrate the rich evaluation of extra-social ambiguity that the model offers, by pointing out similarities and differences between the case studies.
Wim Hofstee: Comparison for what? Some critical remarks on the comparative method
In the academic study of religion one can observe a keen interest in comparison. In many historical overviews figures like Gerardus van der Leeuw and Mircea Eliade (to mention only two examples) are considered as ‘giants’ in the field of comparative religion. Both scholars are promoting comparison as part of a phenomenological approach which is essentialistic, a-historical and religionistic at the same time. How does comparison look like in the phenomenological approach, and why is comparison used in the first place ? How can it be that many historians of religions use a method that is not historical at all, and, in many cases, leads to disturbing political points of view?
Nathal M. Dessing: Towards an Engaged Scholarship in the Study of Religion
The study of religion at Leiden University, as at many other universities, shows a shift from theology to religious studies, from the study of God based on text interpretation to accounts of religion as a socio-empirical phenomenon. The socio-empirical approach brought about an increasing objectification of religion, enlarging the distance between the university and religious life and practice. Scholars are no longer actively involved in religious and societal debates, but talk about them. Methodological agnosticism, now considered the proper stance of the investigator, further increased the distance between researcher and researched. At the same time, the demand from research funding agencies for societal utility prompts researchers to thematize religion as a problem or threat. Have we gone too far? These developments turn religion and religious life into an “other” that quickly seems premodern and strange. In this talk, I will explore new ways of knowing about religion that promote relationality and openness. Retrieving some elements of the theological stance, the result will promote a new engaged scholarship in the study of religion.
Mattias Brand: Unwanted and Impossible? The Cross-Cultural and Trans-Historical Comparison of Religious Change
The recent reappraisal of the comparative method has created space for a specific type of contextual and small-scale comparisons, variously labelled as “weak,” “illuminative,” or “relational.” Simultaneously, large-scale comparisons with a cross-cultural and/or trans-historical focus continue to be treated with suspicion. They are frequently associated with outdated perspectives involving Christian (or Western) hegemony, essentialism, and decontextualization. This paper poses the question of whether such cross-cultural and trans-historical comparisons are indeed unwanted and impossible. Are religious transformation processes such as "Christianization," "Reformation," and "Secularization" so distinct that they can only be compared at a historiographical meta level? Could cultural and historical differences and similarities speak to more than their localized particularities?
This paper argues that there is indeed potential for comparative research that brings together diverse and seemingly unrelated phenomena to discuss large-scale and dynamic processes of change. It will address the challenge of formulating generalizations that respect social and historical contexts and avoid oversimplification.
Ab de Jong: The death of expertise and the future of comparison in the study of religion
Two developments seem to come together in the current crisis of confidence in the academic study of religion: an assault on ‘comparison’ and a gradual abandoning of expertise in a particular religion as one of the requirements for a responsible study of religion. Although these developments seem to contradict each other intellectually, their combined effects have resulted in a growing disconnect between ‘experts’ who no longer contribute to bigger questions and generalists who lack a sound empirical foundation for their theorizing. In my talk I would like to ask the question if there is a way out of this situation.