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Talal Asad
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Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam Paperback – August 18, 1993

by Talal Asad (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 21 ratings
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In Geneologies of Religion, Talal Asad explores how religion as a historical category emerged in the West and has come to be applied as a universal concept.

The idea that religion has undergone a radical change since the Christian Reformation—from totalitarian and socially repressive to private and relatively benign—is a familiar part of the story of secularization. It is often invokved to explain and justify the liberal politics and world view of modernity. And it leads to the view that "politicized religions" threaten both reason and liberty. Asad's essays explore and question all these assumptions. He argues that "religion" is a construction of European modernity, a construction that authorizes—for Westerners and non-Westerners alike—particular forms of "history making."

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Previous page
  1. Print length
    344 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Johns Hopkins University Press
  4. Publication date
    August 18, 1993
  5. Dimensions
    6 x 0.78 x 9 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0801846323
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0801846328
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

This eloquent, lucid, and complex work is the product of remarkable intelligence and erudition; it is a profound contribution to the understanding of the cultural hegemony of the West.
―Ralph M. Coury, Religious Studies Review

All articles are extremely well written, exhibit impressive scholarship, and are thoughtful and are thoughtful and stimulating. Asad's criticisms are neither judgmental nor self-righteous but are generally driven by the will to understand.
―James R. Wood, Contemporary Sociology

About the Author

Talal Asad is a professor of anthropology at the Johns Hopkins University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Johns Hopkins University Press; First Edition (August 18, 1993)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 344 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0801846323
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0801846328
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.78 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

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Talal Asad

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4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
21 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mikhail B
5.0 out of 5 stars A Critical History of the Secular Conceit
Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2015
I have to say I was a bit flabbergasted reading this book at first. I'm a firm secularist with a general suspicion towards spiritual/political conflation of any kind. For better or for worse. Yet as an anthropology student who studies religion, I was keen to see how Talal Asad challenged that dichotomy. And my entire perspective was blown apart, rightly I should say. In this brilliant collection of essays (as well as his other work), Talal Asad turns the study of religion on its head by proposing not an analysis of the religious phenomenon in western society but of secularism itself. The roots of secularism as an idea, its conceits and its intellectual limitations in a society challenged by its inability to accept and incorporate the Other. By tying secularism to its Protestant roots where religion was separated as a phenomenon from other aspects of life, Talal Asad illustrates the provincial and exclusionary character of Enlightenment claims to establish a free irreligious social space, generalizing its own specificity and vilifying those that don't conform to its image of a rational liberal citizen. Asad illustrates the implications of this political logic towards the very end in two brilliant polemics on Salman Rushdie and The Satanic Verses affair. While I counted myself a strong supporter of Rushdie's right to free expression and of the literary merits of The Satanic Verses against an obscurantist fanatical crowd who were overreacting to a work that was meant to identify with their plight as immigrants, Asad's essays turned my assumptions on their head by showing those same exclusionary practices of western liberal secularism targeted an entire minority for expressing objections that wouldn't be considered so unreasonable if expressed by other groups deemed respectable by secular society. Not to mention re-enforcing British elitist stereotypes of British Muslims as an unassimilable other that can never belong.
9 people found this helpful
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Faraz Rabbani
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing for anyone seeking thoughtful understanding of religion
Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2009
Talal Asad is one of the remarkable minds of our times. This work is one of the most insightful works on how to understand religion in the modern world...
10 people found this helpful
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I LOVE MYSTICISM!
4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Postmodern Deconstructionist Critique of the Modern Concept of Religion
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2015
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Although I only read the Intro and 1st Chapter of this book, I can tell you that Asad was one of the first Postmodern Deconstructionist Scholars of Religion who argues that the concept 'religion' as we know it today was created in Europe around the time of the Enlightenment and that ancient and medieval people had a much different idea of what religion was than what the modern understanding of it is today. Asad argues that there was no division between the private secular and the religious public as we have in the modern world today, but that every aspect of medieval life was permeated by various religious ideas, rituals, groups, journeys, careers, etc, mostly of the Roman Catholic variety. This was the status quo in Europe till the time of the Protestant Reformation, the subsequent Wars of Religion, and John Locke's influential political philosophy which grew out the turbulence of the British royal struggles between Protestantism and Christianity.

So although we have a vague and general idea of religion in the modern era, Asad argues for a more particular study of religion that subdivides it into smaller categories. He writes:

'In the Middle Ages, such [religious] discourses ranged over an enormous domain, defining and creating religion: rejecting 'pagan' practices or accepting them; authenticating particular miracles and relics (the two confirmed each other); authorizing shrines; compiling saints' lives, both as a model of and as a model for the Truth; requiring the regular telling of sinful thoughts, words, and deeds to a priestly confessor and giving absolution to a penitent; regularizing popular social movements into Rule-following Orders (for example, the Fransciscans), or denouncing them for heresy or for verging on the heretical (for example, the Beguines). The medieval Church did not attempt to establish absolute uniformity of practice; on the contrary, its authoritative discourse was always concerned to specify differences, gradations, exceptions. What it sought was the subjection of all practice to a unified authority, to a single authentic source that could tell truth from falsehood. It was the early Christian Fathers who established the principle that only a single Church could become the source of authenticating discourse. They knew that the 'symbols' embodied in the practice of self-confessed Christians are not always identical with the theory of the 'one true Church,' that religion requires authorized practice and authorizing doctrine, and that there is always a tension between them - sometimes breaking into heresy, the subversion of Truth - which underlines the creative role of institutional power.'

Hope this gives you a taste of what you will be getting with this book. Required Reading for the Anthropologist of Religion and Recommended Reading for the General Scholar of Religion! I give it 4 stars!
8 people found this helpful
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shoayb adamm
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
Reviewed in the United States on March 1, 2004
A fascinating book, in which the author argues that "religion" as a historical and political category was created in Europe, an interesting book.
10 people found this helpful
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Andrew Harris
5.0 out of 5 stars Great introduction book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 15, 2018
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Delivery as expected
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Cliente Amazon
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente.
Reviewed in Spain on January 3, 2016
Verified Purchase
Muy buen texto, conjunto de artículos sobre la noción moderna de religión, ritual y otras. Una buena entrada al problema.
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