After World Religions ─ Reconstructing Religious Studies

The World Religions Paradigm has been the subject of critique and controversy in Religious Studies for many years.After World Religions provides a rationale for overhauling the World Religions curriculum, as well as a roadmap for doing so. The volume offers concise and practical introductions to cutting-edge Religious Studies method and theory, introducing a wide range of pedagogical situations and innovative solutions. An international team of scholars addresses the challenges presented in their different departmental, institutional, and geographical contexts. Instructors developing syllabi will find supplementary reading lists and specific suggestions to help guide their teaching. Students at all levels will find the book an invaluable entry point into an area of ongoing scholarly debate.

Christopher R. Cotter is Co-Editor-in-Chief at the Religious Studies Projectand Co-Director of the Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network. His ongoing doctoral research at Lancaster University takes a discursive approach to ‘non-religion’, ‘the secular’ and related concepts. He has published journal articles, book chapters, and book reviews in these areas, and co-edited Social Identities between the Sacred and the Secular(2013).

David G. Robertson is Co-Editor-In-Chief of the Religious Studies Project and Bulletin Editor for the British Association for the Study of Religion. He teaches at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He has published numerous papers on new religions, millennialism, conspiracy theories and critical theory, recently guest-edited a special issue ofNova Religio and is the author of UFOs, Conspiracy Theories and the New Age: Millennial Conspiracism(2016).