Overview

First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion is utterly unique, inexplicable, and therefore able only to be interpreted by privileged scholars. Claiming religion to be sui generis (or self-caused), this approach has undisclosed practical effects--institutional and geo-political--at a variety of sites, from the types of textbooks commonly used in introductory classes to the way that political events are often represented in the mass media. Russell McCutcheon documented the ubiquity of this approach and showed how harmful it was Updating its wide-ranging evidence and adding new chapters, this new edition demonstrates the impact of this critique while showing how little the field has generally moved in the past thirty years.

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9780197818817

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Reviews

[McCutcheon] stands in a long tradition of excellent company that goes back at least as far as classical Greek dramatists and philosophers who inquired persistently into the prevailing mythos....This book's likely to provoke very fruitful debate for many years.""-Choice McCutcheon's book is a sharp, sustained critique of the way religion is studied in North America, with an alternative proposal for a naturalist, materialist method of studying religion.""-The Cresser Trinity McCutcheon's book is a formidable critique of its subject and should be widely read and debated. It will repay close critical attention from those interested in theory and method.""-British Association for the Study of Religions Fascinating and thought-provoking.""-Religious Studies Review

Author Information

Russell T. McCutcheon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now an honorary life member of the International Association for the History of Religions. Beginning in 2001, he was the Department Chair at the University of Alabama, a role that he played for 18 years. His many publications on the history of the field and the practical effects of the category religion in liberal democracies, along with a number of resources created specifically for teachers and students, are widely used in the field today.

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