Russell T. McCutcheon is University Research Professor and, for 18 years, was the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, USA. His publications include a variety of works on the history of the field, the everyday effects of the category "religion," along with a number of practical resources for scholars, teachers, and students.

Foreword to the Second Edition

Acknowledgments to the First Edition

Acknowledgments to the Second Edition

Copyright Permissions

Introduction to the Second Edition

Part I. Background

1. "Not Nearly Critical Enough": Studying Religion as Part of the Humanities

Part II. Redescribing Religion as Something Ordinary

Introduction to Chapter 2

2. More than a Shapeless Beast: Lumbering Through the Academy with the Study of Religion

Introduction to Chapter 3

3. Redescribing "Religion" as Social Formation: Toward a Social Theory of Religion

Part III. Dispatches from the Theory Wars

Introduction to Chapter 4

4. Writing a History of God: "Just the Same Game Wherever You Go"

Introduction to Chapter 5

5. Explaining the Sacred: Theorizing on Religion in the Late Twentieth Century

Introduction to Chapter 6

6. "We're All Stuck Somewhere": Taming Ethnocentrism and Trans-Cultural Understandings

Introduction to Chapter 7

7. The Economics of Spiritual Luxury: The Glittering Lobby and the Parliament of Religions

Introduction to Chapter 8

8. "My Theory of the Brontosaurus...": Postmodernism and "Theory" of Religion

Part IV. Culture Critics and Caretakers

Introduction to Chapters 9 and 10

9. A Default of Critical Intelligence? The Scholar of Religion as Public Intellectual

10. Talking Past Each Other: Public Intellectuals Revisited

Part V. Going Public: Teaching Theory

Introduction to Chapters 11-14

11. Our "Special Promise" as Teachers: Scholars of Religion and the Politics of Tolerance

12. Redescribing "Religion and..." Film: Teaching the Insider/Outsider Problem

13. Methods and Theories in the Classroom: Teaching the Study of Myths and Rituals

14. Theorizing in the Introductory Course: A Survey of Resources

Part VI. This Messy Mix of Historical Human Performance

Afterword to the Second Edition

Bibliography

Index