Exploring a Profile: Theories of Religion - Period 1 Business & Economics Program Fall 2021 Semester - Amsterdam

The phenomenon of religion is well-known but less well understood. In fact, many cultures have their own ways of understanding what counts as 'religious' as distinguished from 'ancestral' or 'spiritual' or 'cultural' or otherwise. Scholars in religious studies do not even agree on a common definition of 'religion.' The very field of religious studies is a young discipline in Western universities. Great thinkers worldwide have tried to make sense of religion as an integral dimension of human culture that is not necessarily perceived as a separate domain with specific characteristics of its own. It was only in modern Western culture that such thinkers gradually constituted an entire tradition of scholarly interest in religion culminating in a more or less independent academic discipline within universities. Many theories of religion were developed.

This development of theories did not only enrich the understanding of religion, it also reflected the ways in which different historical periods were looking for different things. Initially, the Eurocentric discovery of new worlds triggered an interest in comparison and common origin, followed by evolutionary schemes and superiority issues imposed on the history of the world's religions. Nowadays, as Ivan Strenski puts on page 6 of his Understanding Theories of Religion, the main book used in this course, - the concern lies with the way religion is shaped in and by the realities of diversity - diversity of race or sex/gender, or the differentials of global power. Why did these theorists of religion think they were right? It is their shifting theoretical interests in religion that will be the topic of this course.

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) awards credits based on the ECTS system. Contact hours listed under a course description may vary due to the combination of lecture-based and independent work required for each course therefore, CEA's recommended credits are based on the ECTS credits assigned by VU Amsterdam. 1 ECTS equals 28 contact hours assigned by VU Amsterdam.