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The Invention of World Religions: Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 200.704
EAN: 9780226509891
ISBN: 0226509893
Label: University Of Chicago Press
Manufacturer: University Of Chicago Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 384
Publication Date: May 15, 2005
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press
Studio: University Of Chicago Press
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Editorial Review:
The idea of "world religions" expresses a vague commitment to multiculturalism. Not merely a descriptive concept, "world religions" is actually a particular ethos, a pluralist ideology, a logic of classification, and a form of knowledge that has shaped the study of religion and infiltrated ordinary language.In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - Necessity is Still the Mother of Invention
Well, this is a good, thought-provoking book in a number of ways, but like so many other "Invention of" academic titles it promises way more than it ends up delivering. In this case, the invention of the category "world religion" is not really discussed and analyzed; rather, the book covers in much interesting detail the category's prehistory, as it were, including prior category conceptualizations and the confused (and confusing) welter of ideas supposedly leading up to the appearance of "world ... Read More
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