Vocabulary for the Study of Religion
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Subject: Religious Studies
Edited by: Robert A. Segal & Kocku von Stuckrad.
The Vocabulary for the Study of Religion offers a unique overview of critical terms in the study of religion(s). This first dictionary in English covers a broad spectrum of theoretical topics used in the academic study of religion, including those from adjacent disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, historiography, theology, philology, literary studies, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political sciences.
Subscriptions: Brill.com
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The Vocabulary for the Study of Religion offers a unique overview of critical terms in the study of religion(s). This first dictionary in English covers a broad spectrum of theoretical topics used in the academic study of religion, including those from adjacent disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, historiography, theology, philology, literary studies, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political sciences.
Subscriptions: Brill.com
Dialectic / Dialectical Materialism
(1,184 words)
Abstract: Dialectic originated in ancient philosophy as a mode of reasoning through argumentative contradiction to truthful conclusions. It developed as a practice of disputation in the European midd…
Dialogism
(1,487 words)
Abstract: Dialogue has replaced conversion as the model of interreligious relations in the post-War years. Various forms of it can be identified — but at the heart of all lies the willingness to be c…
Diaspora
(2,630 words)
Abstract: “Diaspora” has gained force as a key word for the study of religion, along with the phrase, “diasporic religion.” This essay interprets the reasons for the expansion, gives definitional par…
Differentiation (Social)
(2,347 words)
Abstract: Differentiation remains a core concept in the debates over secularization and its significance for religion in a post-modern world. In its most basic formulation, differentiation refers to …
Diffusion and dispersion
(1,924 words)
Abstract: Religions and religious ideas and images move through and between populations. If a religion, idea, or image is accepted throughout a receiving society, it is said to have diffused. Christi…
Disclosure
(1,230 words)
Abstract: Derived from the Latin
dis-
claudere, disclosure refers to the exposure or opening of things that have been hidden or concealed. In a religious context disclosure is the exposure, opening, or reve…
Date:
2014-09-16
Discourse
(5,463 words)
Abstract: This entry sketches the diversity of discourse research and then focuses on approaches to discourse that are informed by the sociology of knowledge and the work of Michel Foucault. After ha…
Disenchantment
(1,402 words)
Abstract: The notion of disenchantment is central to Max Weber’s sociology of religion. In the history of religion the expectation of salvation became independent of external means such as magic, sp…
Dissociation
(1,182 words)
Abstract: Dissociation is a disruption of the integrative functioning of consciousness, memory, and identity. The entry describes various forms of dissociative disorders and investigates the relation…
Date:
2014-09-16
Dissonance (Cognitive)
(2,135 words)
Abstract: Religious believers frequently experience dissonance between their convictions and empirical reality. Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance has been most influential in the study …
Date:
2014-09-16
Divination
(3,374 words)
Abstract: Divination can be divided into natural and inductive kinds. The natural kind empathizes with the divine. The inductive kind analyzes the patterns in portents. Those patterns can be discover…
Divine Kingship
(1,518 words)
Abstract: Divine kingship, the deification or self-deification of kings during their lifetimes, is a widely attested phenomenon, yet not all kings at all times were divine. The deification of kings i…
Date:
2014-09-16