On the Subject of Religion

James Dennis LoRusso currently serves as Vice President of the North American Association for the Study of Religion. He is a former Associate Research Scholar in the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University, USA and is the author of Spirituality, Corporate Culture, and American Business: The Neoliberal Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capital (Bloomsbury, 2017).

• IntroductionPatchwork or Mosaic? The Fabric of Religious StudiesJames Dennis LoRussoPart I: Teaching the FieldOn the Grammar of Teaching Religious StudiesLeslie Dorrough Smith, Avila UniversityResponse: Can't Live with it, Can't Drop it: World ReligionsRita Lester, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Jacob Barrett, University of AlabamaResponse: Practising TheoryIan Alexander Cuthbertson, Dawson CollegeResponse: The Gaze from Somewhere: Teaching Situated Writing about ReligionLeonie Geiger, University of BonnResponse: Weaponizing Religious Literacy: Religionizing as Revitalizing the Field or Reinforcing Neoliberal Values? Martha Smith Roberts, Fullerton CollegePart II: The History of the FieldThe Enduring Presence of Our Pre-Critical Past Or, the Same As itEver Was, the Same As it Ever Was Russell T. McCutcheon, University of AlabamaResponse: The Vocation of a Scientist of ReligionD. Jamil Grimes, Middle Tennessee State UniversityResponse: Historicizing EnduranceAndrew Durdin, Florida State UniversityResponse: Intercepted Dispatches: A Speculative History of the Future of Religious StudiesRebekka King, Middle Tennessee State UniversityPart III: The Role and Influence of Private Funding in the FieldPrivate Money and the Study of Religion: Problems, Perils, andPossiblities Gregory D. Alles, McDaniel CollegeResponse: Drugs, Dog Chow, and Dharma Michael Altman, University of AlabamaResponse: Between Wittgenstein and Zuckerberg: Selling the Academic Study of Religion in a Buyer’s Market John W. McCormack, Aurora UniversityResponse: Religious Studies: A Pawn in the Culture Wars Natalie Avalos, University of Colorado, BoulderPart IV: International Perspectives on the FieldInternational Perspectives on/in the Field Rosalind I. J. Hackett, University of Tennessee, KnoxvilleResponse: Field of Dreams: What Do American Scholars of Religion Really Want? F. LeRon Shults, University of Agder, and Wesley J. Wildman, Boston University Response: The Benefit of CompassionVaia Touna, University of AlabamaResponse: Developing the FieldYasmina Burezah, University of Bonn