Title: Hijacked : a critical treatment of the public rhetoric of good and bad religion /
Authors: Smith, Leslie Dorrough, 1975-; Führding, Steffen, 1981-; Hermann, Adrian
Year: 2020
Subjects: Religion Public opinion Congresses.; Religious fundamentalism Public opinion Congresses.; Religion Study and teaching Social aspects Congresses.; Religion and sociology Congresses; Rhetoric Social aspects Congresses.; Religion and sociology; Religion Public opinion; Rhetoric Social aspects
Abstract: "Whether intentionally or not much of our public discourse on religion involves a subtle, but incredibly powerful, distinction between "good" and "bad" religion. The implications of these labeling practices are far-reaching, indeed, for such judgments manifest in terms such as "fundamentalist," "radical," and "extremist," words that are often the gauge by which governments worldwide determine everything from the parameters of religious freedom, to what constitutes an act of terrorism, to whether certain groups receive legal protections. Conversely, it is often surprising to see how different groups that may otherwise better typify the extremist profile remain unscathed by punitive governmental or social measures because of their pre-existing social popularity or perceived normalcy. This volume argues that public inquiry into religion is guided by unspoken value judgments, which are themselves the products of rarely-discussed political interests. Put differently, is quite easy for scholars to revoke or impart religious "credentials" to a group depending on whether that group's members behave as outside commentators think religious people should"--
Contents: Introduction: "And what kind of society does that create?" / Russell T. McCutcheon -- Good Muslim, bad Muslim : neo-orientalism and the study of religion / Aaron W. Hughes -- Religious studies and the jargon of authenticity / Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm -- Toward a critique of postsecular rhetoric / Naomi R. Goldenberg -- The political utility of the past : the case of Greek fire-walking rituals / Vaia Touna -- Privatized publics and scholarly silos : gender, religion, and their theoretical fault Lines / K. Merinda Simmons -- What's religious freedom got to do with it? On the niqab affair in Canadian politics / Matt Sheedy -- The strange and familiar spiritual journey of Reza Aslan / Martha Smith Roberts -- The journalist-ethnographer, religious diversity, and the euphemisation of social relations / Carmen Becker -- Scopophilia and the manufacture of "good" religion / Leslie Dorrough Smith -- Naturalizing the transnational capitalist class : Reza Aslan's believer and the ideological reproduction of an emerging social formation / Craig Prentiss -- Authentic religion -- or, how to be a good citizen / Steffen Führding -- 'Bad religion' on the university campus : "political correctness" and the future of the insider/outsider problem in the study of religion / Adrian Hermann, Stefan Priester -- Studying religion in a post-truth world / Stephanie Gripentrog -- The good, the bad, and the non-religion : the good/bad rhetoric in non-religion studies / Christopher R. Cotter -- The campus as a 'safe space'? A sociology of knowledge perspective on the new student protests / David Kaldewey -- What teaching new religions tells us about the discourse on 'good' and 'bad' religion / David G. Robertson -- Unintentionally constructing 'good' and 'bad' religions in teaching classical European social theories at a Japanese university / Mitsutoshi Horii -- Good and bad, legitimate and illegitimate religion in education / Wanda Alberts -- Benign religion as normal religion / Suzanne Owen.