Global Religious History and Religious Comparison: a Programmatic Outline

Understandings of religion have been fundamentally transformed since the nineteenth century. The respective contradictions, ambiguities, continuities, and ruptures can be most comprehensively grasped when viewed against the background of global entanglements. For this purpose, the approach of global religious history proposes a range of theoretical and methodological tools. Its theoretical repertoire is largely informed by a critical engagement with poststructuralist epistemology and postcolonial perspectives embedded in a consistent genealogical approach. At the outset, it aims at bridging divisions, including those between postcolonial and global history, between disciplines such as religious studies and history, as well as between different area studies. This implies a theoretically robust reflexion of the question of what global entanglements mean in global religious history, along with the question of how to distinguish global religious history from approaches usually qualified by the prefix trans as, for example, in “transregional.” In this introduction, we offer an in-depth discussion of the theoretical foundations and methodological implications of global religious history.

This article focuses on debates about the relationship between religion, science and national identity that unfolded in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Bengal. Combining perspectives from religious studies and global history, it offers a specific approach to theoretical and methodological issues revolving around entanglement, agency and modernity. This will be operationalized, first, through an exploration of personal networks surrounding the Bengali Tantric pandit Shivachandra Bhattacharya Vidyarnava; his Bengali disciple, philosopher and nationalist educator, Pramathanath Mukhopadhyay and Shivachandra’s British disciple, the judge John Woodroffe. Second, an investigation of the connections between self-referentially ‘orthodox’ societies, so-called reformers, and the Theosophical Society will further illustrate the global exchanges that conditioned and shaped contemporary debates about religion, science and politics. This will complicate and shed new light on the contested relationship between modernity and tradition, or reformism and orthodoxy, opening new perspectives for further dialogue between religious studies and global history.

Beyond introducing the subject matter and critically surveying the state of scholarship, this introduction offers a substantial theoretical and methodological elucidation of the book’s approach that is also relevant for readers not strictly interested in the specialized subject. Combining perspectives from religious studies, global history, South Asian studies, and the study of esotericism, the foundations of global religious history are discussed both in abstraction and in light of the source material. This especially considers historiographical challenges such as (post)colonialism, Eurocentrism, and orientalism, as well as issues such as the blurry meaning of “global connections” and differentiations between the global, regional, and local. Leading themes such as the contested meaning of tradition, revival, reform, and modernity are scrutinized, as are the relationship and meanings of religion, science, esotericism, and nationalism that remain the subject of scholarly debate. Global religious history makes proposals for resolving such debates by eliding disciplinary boundaries.

Reviewed by: Aging in World History by David G. Troyansky David Lipton Aging in World History. By david g. troyansky. New York: Routledge, 2016. 152 pp. $155.00 (cloth); $39.95 (paper); $34.95 (ebook). The elderly were apparently never the subject of a topically focused world history, until Aging in World History was published. As David Troyansky states, Western civilization has been the focus of earlier histories about old persons. This 152-page book provides an introduction to the history of aging, as well as a more general consideration of the causes and zeitgeists of historical eras in several regions of the world. Thus, Aging in World History may be useful for introductory survey courses in World History. Unlike some authors of popular books about aging in American history,3 Troyansky does not seek a single thematic explanation for all relevant human behavior. Instead, he offers objective presentations of the most important paradigms in each era and in each culture. Troyansky frequently explains how gender and class influenced the attitudes of younger generations toward the elderly. He offers many nuanced analyses that include gradients of both positive and negative attitudes for each culture in each era. Nevertheless, discussion of some generalized beliefs in African society fail to state the name of any specific ethnicity that articulated these ideas. Of the book’s thirteen chapters, only six are focused on the eras that predated the Enlightenment. Chapter 2 is an anecdotal globalized presentation of the Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras in Kenya, Botswana, Brazil, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, and the Arctic Region. Chapter 3 discusses the experiences of the aged in ancient outer Eurasian civilizations in Europe, the Middle East, India, and China. Chapter 4 offers similar geographical breadth in its treatment of the medieval and Renaissance eras. This chapter includes Korea and Japan, but it omits the Indian subcontinent. Chapter 5 describes varying western European attitudes toward the elderly during the Reformation and the scientific revolution, as well as pensions and segregation for the elderly. In subsequent chapters, global coverage is gradually resumed, organized by the chronology of European civilization’s colonial expansion and cultural diffusion from the 1500s through the present time. More pages are used for shorter intervals as the author approaches the present time. The concluding chapter considers theories about the future. [End Page 699] In the second half of the book, Troyansky includes anecdotal discussions about encounters between Western European and non-Western civilizations. One important theme is the diffusion of the concept of social welfare from Western Europe to the United States and to other nations throughout the world. However, this focus on diffusion might deemphasize creativity and independent agency by non-European civilizations during their colonial subjugation by European states. One particular strength of Aging in World History is its consideration of the elderly in underrepresented groups in the United States, including African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, and women. Another strength is a crossdisciplinary global consideration of relevant issues in anthropology, sociology, economics, gerontology, political science, and religious studies. This integration may provide a model for research and composition in other subdisciplines of world history. The quality of presentation is also enhanced by the inclusion of frequent excerpts from original sources, including those written by elderly persons who described their own sociocultural experiences. Successor works might offer greater equality of coverage by including a broad range of materials produced by dominant and subaltern cultures throughout the world at each era in their respective history. Within outer Eurasia, coverage might be expanded for Southeast Asia. There also might be consideration of Zoroastrianism and Manicheanism, as well as the ancient Phoenician civilization. Likewise for pre-twen-tieth-century inner Eurasia, as well as sub-Saharan Africa, Oceania, and the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere including pre-Aztec Mesoamerican civilizations. The impressive extent of the author’s research is apparent from the relatively long annotated bibliographies for this relatively short book. These bibliographies might be more useful for introductory level students, if only one citation were included in each paragraph, and if the bibliographical citations were always alphabetically sorted by using the authors’ surnames. Despite its shortcomings, Aging in World History is an important volume in that...

The paper argues that the final forging of our current understanding of “religion” and “esotericism” did not take place before the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and that it was a global endeavor right from the beginning. Previous research has not fully appreciated the new situation that arose because of scientific materialism and the challenge presented by conceptions of a general religious history. By focusing on the relationship of “religion” and “science” within a global religious history (globale Religionsgeschichte) from the late nineteenth century till today, the paper shows how “religion” and “esotericism” can be understood as constitutive parts of the same global history.

Lately, Islamicists have called to discard “religion” as a conceptual tool and/or to use the “Qurʾānic term” dīn instead, arguing that “religion” entails Eurocentric bias. Analyzing how Fazl-ur-Rahman Ansari conceptualized Islam and religion in the late 1930s and early 1940s, this article presents a threefold argument. Firstly, I argue that a global history approach which examines in a poststructuralist framework how “Islam” and “religion” are used in concrete contexts is better suited to address the problem of Eurocentrism in both Religious Studies and Islamic Studies. Secondly, I challenge the scholarly thesis that twentieth-century Southeast Asian intellectual debates which referred to Islam as religion were mere emulators of debates conducted in the “West.” Instead of assuming isolated histories and ignoring Southeast Asian debates, I contend that the current use of and debates about conceptualizations of Islam as/and religion are the product of one and the same discourse – a result of global negotiation processes in which Europeans were as involved as Southeast Asia-based non-Europeans, even if they did not speak from the same position of power. Finally, I submit that the approach of global religious history opens new perspectives on contemporary Malaysian politics.

Anthropology and Global History explains the origin and development of human societies and cultures from their earliest beginnings to the present—utilizing an anthropological lens but also drawing from sociology, economics, political science, history, and ecological and religious studies. Carmack reconceptualizes world history from a global perspective by employing the expansive concepts of “world-systems” and “civilizations,” and by paying deeper attention to the role of tribal and native peoples within this history. Rather than concentrating on the minute details of specific great events in global history, he shifts our focus to the broad social and cultural contexts in which they occurred. Carmack traces the emergence of ancient kingdoms and the characteristics of pre-modern empires as well as the processes by which the modern world has become integrated and transformed. The book addresses Western civilization as well as comparative processes which have unfolded in Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa. Vignettes opening each chapter and case studies integrated throughout the text illustrate the numerous and often extremely complex historical processes which have operated through time and across local, regional, and global settings.

Purpose The purpose of this study is to critically review the book Islamic Law and International Law by Emilila Powell. Design/methodology/approach The book review is undertaken from a comparative legal and political science perspective, including arguments and insights from international relations, international law, Islamic law, Islamic culture, religious studies, legal history and European as well as international political history. Findings While the empirical part of Powell’s work (chapters 5, 6 and 7) shows a methodologically veryc well done approach and at the same time highly interesting insights, both foundation and context show several critical points, in particular, a lack of differentiation with respect to the Western politico-legal tradition, its concepts and the resulting implications. Research limitations/implications The book represents an excellent starting point that should inspire new, more intensive as well as exhaustive research on this topic. Practical implications The book generates valuable insights for practitioners such as judges at international courts dealing with issues involving so-called Islamic law states, as well as politicians or public service officials in the context of international law and international politics. Originality/value As the paper is a comprehensive review of the book based upon comparatively based insights from international relations, international law, Islamic law, Islamic culture, religious studies, legal history and European as well as international political history, the arguments of Powell are analyzed and commented upon in a comprehensive, well-founded and fair way. This should give potential readers a good understanding of Powell’s arguments, inspire a critical lecture of the book and contribute to the important discourse on the connex between international law and Islamic law.

The global prominence of Tantra today owes much to the publications of “Arthur Avalon,” the name under which a team of learned South Asians and the British judge John Woodroffe wrote. In the early twentieth century, the Avalon publications were pivotal to the academic recognition of Tantra as an integral part of (South) Asian culture. The present monograph demonstrates that their project was the outcome of Bengali efforts going back to the second half of the nineteenth century. Engaging with orientalist scholars and representatives of Theosophy, occultism, and Spiritualism, the Bengali Tantrics transformed perceptions of Tantra and yoga, a project whose ramifications are still felt today. Combining perspectives from religious studies, global history, South Asian studies, and the study of esotericism, the book illuminates the exchanges behind these developments. Rather than assuming the diffusion of “Western” perceptions of Tantra and yoga, the book highlights the active role of Indians within global exchanges under colonialism. The book employs sources in Bengali and European languages to contextualize local struggles about “orthodox” versus “reform” Hinduism, anticolonial revolutionaries, and seekers of “Aryan wisdom” in global debates about the meaning of religion, science, esotericism, race, and national identity. It elides boundaries between historical contexts that have hitherto been viewed merely in isolation, tackling issues such as revivalism and reformism, as well as the emergence of comparative religion and religious studies in relation to esotericism—an integrative approach that suggests proposals to resolve scholarly and public controversies about (post)colonialism, cultural appropriation, and contested meanings of modernity.

Review: <i>Occult Roots of Religious Studies: On the Influence of Non-Hegemonic Currents on Academia around 1900</i>, edited by Yves Mühlematter and Helmut Zander

Drawing on methods from religious studies, philosophy, and cognitive science, Jack Williams develops a unique and interdisciplinary approach to the study of religious conversion. This is the first major philosophical study of conversion to treat the phenomenon as a long-term process, shaped by the convert’s embodiment and immersion in a linguistic, social, and ritual community. Williams’ analysis of the conversion process is rooted in a view of cognition as both embodied and affective, and is informed by the latest research in phenomenology, affect theory, neuroscience, and enactivist cognitive science. In conversation with diverse conversion narratives, he advances a theory of conversion that is not restricted to a modern, Western context but that can be applied to experiences of conversion across global history and culture. Rethinking Religious Conversiondisplays an original approach to the philosophical study of diverse religious practices. By bringing together a diverse array of contemporary and historical scholarship, it revitalizes the study of conversion for both philosophy and religious studies.

For years, self-identified witches have demanded the public acknowledgement of witchcraft as “religion” in Nigeria. These political debates are reflected in a long-ongoing scholarly discussion about whether “witchcraft” in Africa should be regarded as religion or not. At its core, this discussion concerns the quest for African meanings. I argue that we should focus on the translingual practice as the reason for today’s perception of “African” and “European” differences as incommensurable. Tracing back today’s understanding of witchcraft among the Yoruba (àjé), the Alatinga anti-witchcraft movement of the early 1950s becomes the nodal point of Yoruba witchcraft history. Discussing the Alatinga as translingual practice, I understand Yoruba witchcraft concepts as products of a global religious history. Only in the aftermath of the Alatinga, a hybrid movement, did the need arise to demarcate “African” and “European” meanings. Thus, Yoruba translingual practice has also affected European understandings of religion and witchcraft today.

The analytical review examines the most signifi cant publications of Russian researchers devoted to Śaṁkara (VII–VIII centuries), issued since 2000. The review is divided into parts devoted to individual authors, and their works are evaluated according to their contribution to Russian Śaṁkara studies, the criterion of which is the author’s translations of Śaṁkara’s texts from Sanskrit into Russian, and their conceptual interpretations. The “calling card” of V.K. Shokhin’s works is the inclusion of Śaṁkara’s discourse within the discussion of topical issues of philosophical Indology, theoretical philosophy and religious studies. The review examines the monograph “Stratifi cation of Reality in the Ontology of Advaita-Vedānta” and a number of articles; it explicates the methods by which Śaṁkara “fi ts” into the history of world philosophy. In S.L. Burmistrov’s publications, Śaṁkaraa’s texts are also used not only to solve special historical and philosophical problems, but also to solve topical problems of philosophy. The article “The Concept of Consciousness in the Philosophy of Śaṁkara” makes a completely reasonable conclusion on the decisive role of Śaṁkara in the formation of the Vedāntist concept of consciousness. In the article “Religious Consciousness in Classical Advaita-Vedānta”, Śaṁkara’s interpretations of Ātman are placed in the context of modern discussions on the forms of religious consciousness. N.V. Isaeva’s publication “The Teachings of Śaṁkara – Brahman as a Look and a Tail ...” contains interesting material that contributes to Śaṁkara’s understanding of Brahman as “full of bliss” (ānandamaya), and an assessment of the importance of the philosopher’s ideas in the development of Vedānta concepts. In V.G. Lysenko’s article “Sleep and Dreaming as States of Consciousness...”, structured as a “slow reading of the text”, two versions of Śaṁkara’s topology of consciousness are considered. The researcher reveals ambiguity of Vedāntist terminology, leading to different models of consciousness. Y.V. Predtechenskaya in her article “Defi nitions of Brahman in the Upaniṣads: Apophatic and Cataphatic Approaches ...” quite productively draws Śaṁkara’s comment to the solution of the religious problem of contrasting apophatic and cataphatic approaches to the defi nition of the Absolute. The book by R.V. Pshu “Vedārthasaṁgraha by Rāmānuja and the Formation of Viśiṣṭā-dvaita-vedānta” brings some new information of the infl uence of Śaṁkara’s ideas on t he Vedānta movement. The author notes that the Vedāntists lived after Śaṁkara did not consider his ideas as fundamental to them, and they did not develop them, but Śaṁkara’s teachings provoked their criticism, and they formulated their conceptions as antitheses to Śaṁkara’s ideas. There in the book, the reader can also fi nd useful information on the history of world Śaṁkara Studies.

Re-examining English and/in the Geography of (World) Literature

Along with the critique of generic terms, such as religion or mysticism, regarded as Western-centric, comparison in religious studies has been faulted for reinforcing Western dominance over the rest of the world. Global Religious History claims to constructively address these charges by focusing on global entanglements. On closer inspection, however, if the latter are theorized at all, an astounding exclusion comes to the fore: the omission of gender as category of knowledge. Engaging this phallogocentrism in Global Religious History, this article calls for a conceptualization of global entanglements that takes this omission seriously. As a case study, I use a tract published serially in a Singapore-based Islamic missionary journal (1938–1941), to argue that a revised conceptualization of global entanglements can help to uncover the contributions of non-hegemonic subjects to contemporary discourses on religion, mysticism, Islam, and Sufism, as well as to the comparative study of religion.