Beyond Phenomenology: Rethinking the Study of Religion

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Summary: A controversial vision for the study of religion
Review: This is an intriguing and controversial new book in the study of religion. Taking as his premise the assuption that Religious Studies as a discipline has, on the whole, ignored contemporary methodological advances in the social sciences and critical theory, he advocates the need for 'metatheory' - thinking about the basis of the discipline's methods and theory. From the basis of postmodern theory, though distancing himself from a nihilistic postmodernist agenda, Flood uses thinkers such as Bakhtin and Riceour to construct a 'dialogic' and 'reflexive' methodlogy, and to offer a critique of the discipline's traditional usage of phenomenology. In this he, perhaps, overstates the way in which the study of religion has failed to be self-critical in its own use of method and understanding. Where the book is at its best is in offering an introduction to the thought of a number of postmodern and critical thinkers who are probably, as he suggets, often ignored by scholars of religion. Certainly, as is clear in this work, they offer many useful insights for the discipline, even if one does not concur with all his criticisms. Flood's most controversial case, however, is in the final section, where, having argued compelling for the situated nature of all our knowledge, he suggests that as long as people acknowledge their agenda the study of religion should be open to partisan accounts, rather than pretending to have a pure unbiased neutrality, which is surely impossible. Both traditional phenomenologists and critical theorists within the discipline should be challenged and intrigued by what he has to say, even though there is much here that is new and necessarily controversial. All serious scholars and students in the field should read this work.