The Contemporary Deconstruction of Religion: How Current Scholarship in Religious Studies is Changing Methods and Theories

My paper has 3 goals: 1) to introduce and outline the field of ‘critical religion’; 2) to set out my contribution to this field by explaining how and why religions should be considered ‘vestigial states’; and 3) to suggest ways in which the approach to the topic of religious synthesis in India might be influenced by critical religion in general and vestigial state theory in particular. I argue that ‘religion’ as an ahistorical, eternal, indefinable category –what Roland Barthes called ‘depoliticized’ speech –warrants energetic critique. To this end, I survey a variety of theorists whose work deconstructs ‘religion’ and attendant binaries such as religious/secular and religion/politics. I maintain that religions function as vestigial states within contemporary states. By ‘vestigial states’ I mean practices and institutions originating in particular histories as survivals of former sovereignties. These remnants are tolerated as attenuated jurisdictions within fully functioning states. These vestigial states (religions) are always somewhat problematic because they compete with contemporary states - especially if they challenge the present state’s right to control violence. However, religions also work to ground the governments that authorize them by recalling earlier, mystified forms of sovereignty. Moreover, religions are useful because they can be depicted as less progressive versions of power. Thus do ‘religions’, understood as vestigial states, both disturb and maintain current regimes. I conclude with some speculations on how insights derived from critical religion might impact work on conceptualizing ‘religious synthesis’ in India specifically and ‘interreligious’ interactions more generally in a global context

“Religion” and its limits: reflections on discursive borders and boundaries

Joint JISASR-JBASR Special IssueThe keynote contributes to critical analysis of religion and attendant categories by proposing that religions be understood as vestigial states. According to this hypothesis, religion is a modern discursive product that is not present in the Bible. The category evolves as a management strategy, a technology of statecraft to contain and control conquered, colonized and/or marginalized populations as an alternative to genocide. Examples are drawn from Greek mythology, Jewish and Druid history and recent Buddhist politics. The author uses texts pertaining to international law and political philosophy to argue that viewing religion as synonymous with displaced, uneasy, former government opposes male hegemony by revealing the political structure of mystified nostalgia for male leadership. She also maintains that understanding religions as restive governments promotes clarity in regard to contemporary conflicts between religious freedom and equality rights. Psychoanalytic theories of Sigmund Freud, Melanie Klein and Wilfrid Bion are cited to support the disassembling of foundational terms of Religious Studies

Changing of the Gods Feminism, and the End Of traditional Religions

Boston152 p.; 20 c

The Divine Masquerade - A Psychoanalytic Theory about the Play of Gender in Religion

The argument I am advancing in this lecture is composed of three interlocking parts: the first is a methodological reflection about the relationship of psychoanalysis and religion; the second is a discussion about gender and religion in the context of Freud's theory of theism followed by an update inspired by the work of Nancy Chodorow; and the third is an application of Melanic Klein's concepts of envy and jealousy to traditional religions and the contemporary women's spirituality movement

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