Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020s have been consistently framed as a time crisis. Rather than take this at face value, asking how religious people may handle a crisis or what religion can offer people who feel they are in crisis, this volume asks what happens when we classify something as a crisis, and what is at stake in linking these "crises" to "religion." Discourses of Crisis and the Study of Religion highlights how these terms and categories, though seemingly self-evident, serve particular social and political ends. After an opening section that explores the deployment of crisis rhetoric in various aspects of higher education, this volume structures the critical approach to the category of crisis through four distinct sections: Language, Lexicon, Locus, and Locution. The section on language examines the various rhetorical and theoretical frameworks for "crisis." The third section, Lexicon, considers the question of method in the study of religion, interrogating the ways in which perceived crises mark shifts in how we do our work. The section on locus takes up the concept of data for religion and crisis, analyzing examples of how the construction of "crisis" can force moments of decision, adaptation, and reaction. Examples compare instances from North America, Brazil, Mexico, and Russia. The final section, Locution, brings together senior scholars to assess recent approaches to "the role of religion in crisis" and offers alternatives to that framework in the field of religious studies. The volume concludes with an epilogue reflecting on how scholars themselves theorize (or choose not to theorize) crises in regard to their own lives. This volume, focusing on discourses of crisis during a time that is constantly mediated as "in crisis," shows us ways of doing religious studies that are up to the challenge of reflecting on the problems, strategies, and political structures through which we construct our social worlds.
Introduction Don't call it a crisis/It's been here for years: The Uses and Abuses of Anomaly Lauren Horn Griffin Part I: Critiquing "Crisis" in Higher Education Ch 1: Crisis, What Crisis? The Study of Religion is Always in Crisis Aaron Hughesm University of Rochester Ch 2: The "Discipline" of Humanities: Rhetorics of Interiority, Discourses of Crisis, and Contemporary Nationalist Ideology Lauren Horn Griffin Ch 3: "I went to the crossroads, fell down on my knees": On the Rhetoric of Crisis and Academic Labor James Dennis LoRusso Ch 4: Theology and Religious Studies: A Relationship in Crisis? Suzanne Owen, Leeds Trinity University Ch
5. Scholars are People Too: The (Sometimes) Difficult Shift to the Discourse of Crisis Russell T. McCutcheon, University of Alabama Part II: Language: Crisis as a Turning Point Ch
6. Profit and Loss: The New Time of Crisis Zoe Anthony, University of Toronto Ch
7. Black Fires: Crisis as Nadir and the Memory of Racial Violence in the South Aaron M. Treadwell, Middle Tennessee State University Ch 8: Force of Law: Resources in Derrida for Rethinking Policing Karen Zoppa, University of Winnipeg Ch 9: When is a crisis a "turning point"? Andrew Durdin, Florida State University Part III: Lexicon: Crisis as Method in the Study of Religion Ch 10: The crisis of world religions and the critique of essentialism Michael P. DeJonge, University of South Florida Ch 11: Enlarging Religious Studies, Wither-ing Neoliberalism Matt Sheedy, University of Bonn Ch 12: Pop Goes the People-Populism, Panics, and Pandemics Carmen Celestini, University of Waterloo Part IV: Locus: Landmarks in Religious Adaptations in the Face of "Crisis" Ch 13: 'Social' Church and 'Pragmatic' Relationship with the State: The Wager of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico and the Orthodox Church in Russia in Response to Discourses of Crisis Xochiquetzal Luna Morales, Wilfrid Laurier University Ch 14: Yoga's Flexibility in Brazil During the COVID-19 Pandemic Gustavo H. P. Moura, Wilfrid Laurier University Ch 15: Compounded Crises: How the Principle of Subsidiarity Informs Catholic Responses to Critical Issues in North America Ben Szoller, University of Waterloo Part V: Locution: Upending the Discipline Ch 16: World Society: Upended? Adrian Hermann, University of Bonn Ch 17: Competing Economies in Studies of Identity and Religion K. Merinda Simmons, University of Alabama Afterword Aaron Hughes
Lauren Horn Griffin is assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies and the Department of History at Louisiana State University. Her teaching and research focus on religion, politics, media, and technology.
