The invention of world religions, or, How European universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism / Tomoko Masuzawa.

Author
Masuzawa, Tomoko [Browse]
Format
Book
Language
English
Published/​Created
Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Description
xv, 359 p. ; 24 cm.

Availability

Copies in the Library

Location Call Number Status Location Service Notes
Firestone Library - Stacks BL80.3 .M27 2005 Browse related items Request
    Stokes Library - Wallace Hall (SPIA) BL80.3 .M27 2005 Browse related items Request

      Details

      Subject(s)
      Summary note
      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.
      Bibliographic references
      Includes bibliographical references (p. [329]-350) and index.
      Contents
      • Ch. 1. "The religions of the world" before "world religions"
      • Ch. 2. legacy of comparative theology
      • Ch. 3. birth trauma of world religions
      • Ch. 4. Buddhism, a world religion
      • Ch. 5. Philology and the discovery of a fissure in the European past
      • Ch. 6. Islam, a semitic religion
      • Ch. 7. Philologist out of season : F. Max Muller on the classification of language and religion
      • Ch. 8. Interregnum : omnibus guide for looking toward the twentieth century
      • Ch. 9. question of hegemony : Ernst Troeltsch and the reconstituted European universalism.
      Other title(s)
      • Invention of world religions
      • How European universalism was preserved in the language of pluralism
      ISBN
      • 0226509885 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
      • 9780226509884 ((hardcover ; : alk. paper))
      • 0226509893 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))
      • 9780226509891 ((pbk. ; : alk. paper))
      LCCN
      2004021998
      OCLC
      56599430
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