-PDF Download- Critical Thinking And The Academic Study Of Religion EBOOK

Critical Thinking and the Academic Study of Religion

Author: Richard Penaskovic

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13:

Originally Published by Scholars Press Now Available from Duke University Press This work responds to a renewed emphasis on teaching in the academy. Written from the perspective of a classroom teacher, it is a practical application of the principles behind the critical thinking movement to the study of religion. Emphasizing that the acquisition of critical thinking depends less on what is taught than on how it is taught, the author presents concrete examples from his own experience to illustrate a student-centered approach to teaching. By demonstrating how the study of religion contributes to the development of critical thinking--through the acquistion of problem-solving, decision-making, and metacognitive skills--Penaskovic suggests its value to a broader liberal arts curriculum as well. Both a theoretical view of critical thinking and a nuts-and-bolts manual on how it can be used and assessed in the classroom, this work will challenge new and veteran teachers alike to reexamine and renew what the do in the classroom.

Religious Studies Skills Book

Author: Eugene V. Gallagher

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-12-13

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1350033758

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Studying religion in college or university? This book shows you how to perform well on your course tests and examinations, write successful papers, and participate meaningfully in class discussions. You'll learn new skills and also enhance existing ones, which you can put into practice with in-text exercises and assignments. Written by two award-winning instructors, this book identifies the close reading of texts, material culture, and religious actions as the fundamental skill for the study of religion at undergraduate level. It shows how critical analytical thinking about religious actions and ideas is founded on careful, patient, yet creative “reading” of religious stories, rituals, objects, and spaces. The book leads you through the description, analysis, and interpretation of examples from multiple historical periods, cultures, and religious traditions, including primary source material such as Matthew 6:9-13 (the Lord's Prayer), the gohonzon scroll of the Japanese new religion Soka Gakkai, and the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj). It provides you with typical assignments you will encounter in your studies, showing you how you might approach tasks such as reflective, interpretive or summary essays. Further resources, found on the book's website, include bibliographies, and links to useful podcasts.

Religion Today

Author: Ross Aden

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2024-07-02

Total Pages: 409

ISBN-13: 1538183390

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Religion Today introduces students to key concepts in religious studies through a compelling problem-solving framework. Each chapter opens with a contemporary case study that helps students engage in current religious issues, explore possible solutions to difficult religious problems today, and learn key themes and concepts in religious studies. To enhance student learning, a free Student Study Guide is available for download from Rowman & Littlefield. The Study Guide features chapter summaries, definition quizzes for students to test themselves on key terms, and possible learning activities.

Thoreau's Religion

Author: Alda Balthrop-Lewis

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-01-21

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 1108835104

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Boldly reconfigures Walden for contemporary ethics and politics by recovering Thoreau's theological vision of environmental justice.

Reasoning and Religion

Author: Ilan Y. Goldberg

Publisher:

Published: 2011

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion

Author: Craig Martin

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-04-21

Total Pages: 177

ISBN-13: 1315474395

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion introduces the key concepts and theories from religious studies that are necessary for a full understanding of the complex relations between religion and society. The aim is to provide readers with an arsenal of critical concepts for studying religious ideologies, practices, and communities. This thoroughly revised second edition has been restructured to clearly emphasize key topics including: Essentialism Functionalism Authority Domination. All ideas and theories are clearly illustrated, with new and engaging examples and case studies throughout, making this the ideal textbook for students approaching the subject area for the first time.

Studying Religion

Author: Russell T. McCutcheon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-12-05

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 1317491661

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Widely used as a primer, a text and a provocation to critical thinking, 'Studying Religion' aims to develop students' skills. The book clearly explains the methods and theories employed in the study of religion. Essays are offered on a range of topics: from the history and functions of religion to public discourse on religion and the classification of religions. The works of key scholars - from Karl Marx, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Otto to Mircea Eliade, James G. Frazer, and Sigmund Freud - are analysed and explored. 'Studying Religion' represents a shift away from the traditional focus of describing the exotic or curious religious 'Other' to an examination of how religious behaviours and institutions are studied. The book will be invaluable to students of religious studies.

Religion as Critique

Author: Irfan Ahmad

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2017-11-20

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1469635100

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Irfan Ahmad makes the far-reaching argument that potent systems and modes for self-critique as well as critique of others are inherent in Islam--indeed, critique is integral to its fundamental tenets and practices. Challenging common views of Islam as hostile to critical thinking, Ahmad delineates thriving traditions of critique in Islamic culture, focusing in large part on South Asian traditions. Ahmad interrogates Greek and Enlightenment notions of reason and critique, and he notes how they are invoked in relation to "others," including Muslims. Drafting an alternative genealogy of critique in Islam, Ahmad reads religious teachings and texts, drawing on sources in Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, and English, and demonstrates how they serve as expressions of critique. Throughout, he depicts Islam as an agent, not an object, of critique. On a broader level, Ahmad expands the idea of critique itself. Drawing on his fieldwork among marketplace hawkers in Delhi and Aligarh, he construes critique anthropologically as a sociocultural activity in the everyday lives of ordinary Muslims, beyond the world of intellectuals. Religion as Critique allows space for new theoretical considerations of modernity and change, taking on such salient issues as nationhood, women's equality, the state, culture, democracy, and secularism.

Critical Thinking and the Academic Study of Religion

Author: Richard Penaskovic

Publisher: South Florida Studies in the H

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

Why Study Religion?

Author: Richard B. Miller

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 0197566812

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

"This book asks: Can the study of religion be justified? It poses this question on the view that scholarship in religion, especially work in "theory and method," is preoccupied with matters of methodological procedure and thus inarticulate about the goals that can justify the study of religion and motivate scholarship in the field. For that reason, it insists, the field suffers from a crisis of rationale. The book identifies six prevailing methodologies in the field, each of which it critically examines as symptomatic of this crisis, on the way toward offering an alternative framework for thinking about purposes for studying religion. Shadowing these methodologies is a Weberian scientific ideal for studying religion, one that privileges value-neutrality. This ideal poses obstacles to making justificatory claims on behalf of studying religion and fortifies a repressive conscience about thinking normatively within the field's regime of truth. After making these points, the chapter describes the book's alternative framework, Critical Humanism, especially how it theorizes about the ends rather than the means of humanistic scholarship and offers a basis for thinking about the ethics of Religious Studies as held together by four values: Post-critical Reasoning, Social Criticism, Cross-cultural Fluency, and Environmental Responsibility. Ordered to such purposes, the book argues, the study of religion can imagine itself as a valuable and desirable enterprise so that scholars of religion can relax their commitment to matters of methodological procedure and avow the values of studying religion"--