“Reconstructing the Study of Religion”: Entering the Conversation from a Different Corner of the Academic World

Abstract

Abstract This essay engages Josephson Storm’s project of the reconstruction of the study of religion after the latest linguistic and material turns and what he calls radical skepticism by provincializing his account of the study of religion and the human sciences. Referencing postfoundational reconstructive approaches, I argue that so called poststructural theories have already led to new reconstructive efforts, also in the study of religion, at least in the academic environment I was trained in. Furthermore, the lack of an account of power risks ignoring the role of status differentials that prefigure the ability of humans to engage in the practice of self-discovery which is central to his ethical project of revolutionary happiness.