Conference
LUCSoR at 10: Practising Comparison in the Study of Religion
- Date
- Friday 1 November 2024
- Time
- Address
-
Lipsius
Cleveringaplaats 1
2311 BD Leiden - Room
- 1.47
We welcome colleagues, former colleagues, students, and friends to celebrate with us the tenth anniversary of the Leiden University Centre for the Study of Religion (LUCSoR). After an overview of the first ten years of LUCSoR by programme chair Corey Williams, we will explore together the continued relevance of the study of religion through a series of talks on how to practice comparison in research and teaching.
Participation is free, but registration is required. You can register using this form.
Programme
9.30 Arrival; coffee and tea
10.00 Welcome (Ab de Jong, academic director LIAS)
10.05 LUCSoR at 10 (Corey Williams, programme chair religious studies)
10.35 The Comparative Religion Network in Leiden (Markus Davidsen, chair comparative religion network)
11.05 Coffee
Session 1 | Chair: Corey Williams
11.25 Comparing antisemitism and islamophobia (real title to follow; Gerard Wiegers)
11.55 Up in the tree and down in the grave: An ideal-type model for analogical comparison of the dimensions of ambiguity of extra-social beings (Arjan Sterken)
12.25 Lunch (Faculty Club)
Session 2 | Chair: Markus Davidsen
13.20 Georg Hornius (1620-1670) and the comparative study of history, peoples and religions in Leiden (Eric Jorink)
13.50 Comparison for what? Some critical remarks on the comparative method (Wim Hofstee)
14.20 Methodological naturalism is too restrictive (real title to follow; Nathal Dessing)
14.50 Coffee
Session 3 | Chair: John-Harmen Valk
15.20 Unwanted and Impossible? The Cross-Cultural and Trans-Historical Comparison of Religious Change (Mattias Brand, Zürich, formerly UL)
15.50 Deep History of Religion (Ab de Jong, UL)
16.20 Wrap-up (Markus Davidsen and Corey Williams)
16.40 Drinks (Faculty Club)
More information: contact Markus Davidsen via m.davidsen@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Abstracts
Markus Davidsen: The Comparative Religion Network in Leiden
In January 2021, a group of colleagues at LUCSoR took initiative to form the ‘Leiden Working Group for the Fundamental Problems and Methods in the Science of Religion’; three years later the group was formalized as a LIAS-wide research network and changed its name to the Comparative Religion Network. The formation of the Working Group was inspired by a spirited exchange on the current constitution (crisis?) of the study of religion in the Netherlands that I had had in the NTT with colleagues from the rest of the country (see here). While not all Leiden colleagues agreed on my suggested programme for a revived systematic science of religion, we all agreed on this: comparison is core to the study of religion. We all compare, whether we like it or not, and, more importantly, it is through comparison and the use of general categories and theories that we make our specialized work relevant to colleagues. In this spirit, we agreed to devote the meetings in the Working Group/Network to two things: (i) to read and discuss capita selecta in the discipline on how to practice comparison, and (ii) to read and discuss each other’s work, with special attention to theoretical questions that transcend our own particular material. In my brief talk I will tell the story of the network, and share some conclusions from our discussions on how to practice comparison in the study of religion.
Arjan Sterken: Up in the tree and down in the grave: An ideal-type model for analogical comparison of the dimensions of ambiguity of extra-social beings
The current research project for my dissertation examines the ambiguity associated with all kinds of supernatural (or extra-social) beings. For this project, two case studies are compared: the yakṣa, a type of tree spirit, as found in the Araṇyaka Parva (the third book of the Indian Epic Mahābhārata); and the nålouper, the revenant which returns after death, in North-Saxon folklore of 19th- and 20th-century Groningen (the Netherlands) and Niedersachsen (Germany). These case studies depart from other work in comparative mythology, which often overvalues homological comparisons – comparisons whose members are assumed to have arisen from the same source. This comparison is instead a phenomenological or analogical comparison, where the comparanda share a structural similarity: they deal with beings that, while their existence is rejected by the secular composition components of the social realm, it is possible for people to socially interact with them. Such extra-social beings demonstrate ambiguity more often than not. This ambiguity is examined though an ideal type model based on an extensive literature review. Two ideal types are constructed: the positively evaluated and negatively evaluated extra-social being. This is assigned based on five dimensions: ontology, behaviour, allegiance, appearance, and location. For the pitch and chapter, a few examples from the case studies are analysed in order to demonstrate the rich evaluation of extra-social ambiguity that the model offers, by pointing out similarities and differences between the case studies.
Eric Jorink: Georg Hornius (1620-1670) and the comparative study of history, peoples and religions in Leiden
Now largely forgotten, the Leiden professor of history Georg Horn, played a crucial role in recognizing the importance and establishing the study of a secular approach to the history of the world and its religions. Earlier scholars –such as for example Joseph Scaliger and Gerardus Johannes Vossius – had traced back the history of the world and its inhabitants to the letter of Genesis, considering Christianity the only true religion. Facing the radical biblical criticism of, for example, Vossius’ libertine son Isaac and Isaac la Peyrère, as well of the influx of previously unknown sources on China and the New World, Hornius adopted a new approach, changing a predetermined eschatological view on human history to a relativist, comparative narrative. For Hornius, other religions than Christianity were worth studying per se, and not as deviated forms of the truth. In this presentation, I will discuss this fascinating scholar, who operated not from the faculty of theology but from the lower faculty of arts, who was also engaged in alchemy, and ended his life in a state of madness.
Wim Hofstee: Comparison for what? Some critical remarks on the comparative method
In the academic study of religion one can observe a keen interest in comparison. In many historical overviews figures like Gerardus van der Leeuw and Mircea Eliade (to mention only two examples) are considered as ‘giants’ in the field of comparative religion. Both scholars are promoting comparison as part of a phenomenological approach which is essentialistic, a-historical and religionistic at the same time. How does comparison look like in the phenomenological approach, and why is comparison used in the first place ? How can it be that many historians of religions use a method that is not historical at all, and, in many cases, leads to disturbing political points of view?
Mattias Brand: Unwanted and Impossible? The Cross-Cultural and Trans-Historical Comparison of Religious Change
The recent reappraisal of the comparative method has created space for a specific type of contextual and small-scale comparisons, variously labelled as “weak,” “illuminative,” or “relational.” Simultaneously, large-scale comparisons with a cross-cultural and/or trans-historical focus continue to be treated with suspicion. They are frequently associated with outdated perspectives involving Christian (or Western) hegemony, essentialism, and decontextualization. This paper poses the question of whether such cross-cultural and trans-historical comparisons are indeed unwanted and impossible. Are religious transformation processes such as "Christianization," "Reformation," and "Secularization" so distinct that they can only be compared at a historiographical meta level? Could cultural and historical differences and similarities speak to more than their localized particularities?
This paper argues that there is indeed potential for comparative research that brings together diverse and seemingly unrelated phenomena to discuss large-scale and dynamic processes of change. It will address the challenge of formulating generalizations that respect social and historical contexts and avoid oversimplification.