A Magic Still Dwells

by Patton, Kimberley C.; Ray, Benjamin C.

• ISBN13: 9780520219717
• ISBN10: 0520219716
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-01-01
• Publisher: Univ of California Pr

Summary

This collection looks at how the postmodern critique has impacted comparative religious studies, and how scholars in the field have responded to it.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
A Note to the Reader	ix
Introduction	1	(22)
Kimberley C. Patton
Benjamin C. Ray
Prologue: In Comparison a Magic Dwells	23	(24)
Jonathan Z. Smith
Part One. Comparative Religion: The State of the Field
The Scholar as Mythographer: Comparative Indo-European Myth and Postmodern Concerns	47	(8)
David Gordon White
Contested Identities: The Study of Buddhism in the Postmodern World	55	(8)
Malcolm David Eckel
Post-modern and -colonial -structural Comparisons	63	(14)
Wendy Doniger
Part Two. Case Studies: Critical Issues in the History of Religions
What's Beyond the Post? Comparative Analysis as Critical Method	77	(15)
Barbara A. Holdrege
The Contextual Illusion: Comparative Mysticism and Postmodernism	92	(9)
Jonathan R. Herman
Discourse about Difference: Understanding African Ritual Language	101	(16)
Benjamin Caleb Ray
American Religion Is Naturally Comparative	117	(14)
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan
Dialogue and Method: Reconstructing the Study of Religion	131	(22)
Diana L. Eck
Part Three. A Revised Comparison: New Justifications for Comparative Study
Juggling Torches: Why We Still Need Comparative Religion	153	(19)
Kimberley C. Patton
Methodology, Comparisons, and Truth	172	(10)
Huston Smith
Elements of a New Comparativism	182	(11)
William E. Paden
The Magic in Miniature: Etymological Links in Comparative Religions	193	(13)
Laurie L. Patton
The Net of Indra: Comparison and the Contribution of Perception	206	(37)
Lawrence E. Sullivan
Epilogue: The ``End'' of Comparison: Redescription and Rectification	237	(6)
Jonathan Z. Smith
Contributors	243