1st Edition

Religion and the Secular Historical and Colonial Formations

By Timothy Fitzgerald Copyright 2007
    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    288 Pages
    by Routledge

    Religion has dominated colonialism since the 16th century. 'Religion and the Secular' critically examines how religion has been used to subject indigenous concepts to the needs of colonial powers. Essays present the colonial relationship from the perspective of colonized cultures - including Mexico, Guatemala, Vietnam, India, Japan, South Africa and Canada - and colonizing powers, namely England, Germany and the United States. The volume offers a historical and ethnographical analysis of the relationship between the sacred and the secular, examining religion in relation to politics, economics and civil power.

    Introduction Timothy Fitzgerald 1. Dialectics of Conversion: Las Casas and Maya Colonial and Post-colonial Congregacion Anna Blume, (SUNY College of Visual Arts) 2. The Higher Ground: The Secular Knowledge of Objects of Religious Devotion Trevor Stack (University of Aberdeen) 3. The Alaskan Native Claims Settlement Act in the Context of the Colonisation of the Indigenous People of Alaska James Cox, (University of Edinburgh) 4. State Shinto, Westernisation, and the Concept of Religion in Japan Jun'ichi Isomae, (Japan Women's College) 5. Religious and Secular in the Vietnam War and the Emergence of Highland Ethno-nationalism Tom Pearson, (Wabash Center for Learning) 6. Colonialism all the way down? Religion and the secular in early modern writing on south India Will Sweetman, (University of Otaga) 7. Politics as Performance in Colonial and Postcolonial India John Zavos, (University of Manchester) 8. Imperial Inventions of Religion in Colonial Southern Africa David Chidester, (University of Cape Town) 9. Religion in Islamic Thought and Practice Abdulkader Ismail Tayob (University of Cape Town) 10. Rudolf Otto, German Cultural Colonialism, and the 'Discovery' of the Holy Gregory Alles, (McDaniel College) 11. Encompassing Religion and privatised religions and the invention of modern politics Timothy Fitzgerald 12. Colonialism and the Myth of Religious Violence William T. Cavanaugh, (University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN.)

    Biography

    Timothy Fitzgerald is Reader in Religion at the University of Stirling.