Theory, History, and the Study of Religion in Late Antiquity - Speculative Worlds

Theory is not a set of texts, it is a style of approach. It is to engage in the act of speculation: gestures of abstraction that re-imagine and dramatize the crises of living. This Element is a both a primer for understanding some of the more predominant strands of critical theory in the study of religion in late antiquity, and a history of speculative leaps in the field. It is a history of dilemmas that the field has tried to work out again and again - questions about subjectivity, the body, agency, violence, and power. This Element additionally presses us on the ethical stakes of our uses of theory, and asks how the field's interests in theory help us understand what's going on, half-spoken, in the disciplinary unconscious.

List of contents

Introduction; 1. Gender, Difference, Thereness, and Representation; 2. Foucault and Defamiliarization, or 'Keeping Late Antiquity Weird'; 3. Colonial Histories and the Vexations of the Global; Conclusion: Theory and Its Uses; References.

Product details

• Authors: Maia Kotrosits, Maia (University of Waterloo Kotrosits, Kotrosits Maia
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 31.03.2023
• EAN: 9781009012003
• ISBN: 978-1-0-0901200-3
• No. of pages: 75
• Series: Elements in Religion in Late Antiquity; Elements in Religion in Late A
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Religion/theology > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > Philosophy, religion > Religion: general, reference works; Europe, RELIGION / General, Religion: general, Gender studies, gender groups, 5th century, c 400 to c 499, 6th century, c 500 to c 599, Decolonisation and postcolonial studies, 4th century, c 300 to c 399