Religious Studies and its Relationship with Theology: A Spatial Analysis

Authors

  • Kim Knott University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.7911

Abstract

Academic disciplines can be understood as tribes with their own territories (Becher 1989) which are protected from outsiders and invested with power and meaning for those within. The language which scholars use to delineate and distinguish them from one another is replete with spatial metaphor and the language of war and struggle. References to inside/outside, inclusion/exclusion, to boundaries, incursions, incorporation, integration and embrace are frequently made, particularly when scholars write about their own discipline in relation to others. In this article I offer a spatial analysis of discourse about the discipline of religious studies and its relationship to theology. I note the importance in such discourse of the container schema (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) for depicting possible disciplinary relationships and various perspectives on ‘religion’ as an object of study. A spatial approach offers a clear visual depiction of the views of selected scholars of religion on the relationship of religious studies to theology, whilst also revealing some of the power strategies at work in disciplinary construction.

Keywords: Religious studies, Theology, spatial language, academic disciplines

Author Biography

Kim Knott, University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

KIM KNOTT is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Leeds, United Kingdom.

Downloads

Published

2007-09-01

How to Cite

Knott, K. (2007). Religious Studies and its Relationship with Theology: A Spatial Analysis. Temenos - Nordic Journal for the Study of Religion, 43(2). https://doi.org/10.33356/temenos.7911

Issue

Vol. 43 No. 2 (2007)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2007 Temenos - Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License.

Author's Guarantee

  • The Author acknowledges that the Work will be publicly accessible on the Internet and that such access will be free of charge for the readers.
  • The Author guarantees that the Work is her/his original work that has not been published before and cannot be construed as copying or plagiarism. Furthermore, the Author confirms that the Work contains no statement that is unlawful, defamatory or abusive or in any way infringes the rights of others.
  • The Author confirms that she/he has secured all written permissions needed for the reproduction in the Publication of any material created by a third party.

User Rights

Under the CC BY 4.0 license, the Author/s and users are free to:

  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially,
  • However, the Work must be attributed to the original Author and source of publication.

The license of the published metadata is Creative Commons CCO 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0)

Author Rights

The Authors maintain the right to:

  • copyright, and other proprietary rights relating to the Work,
  • the right to use the substance of the Work in future own works,
  • the right to self-archiving/parallel publishing (publisher's PDF allowed).

Rights of Publisher

  • The Publisher reserves the right to make such editorial changes as may be necessary to make the Work suitable for publication in the publication, e.g. style of punctuation, spelling, headings and the like.
  • The Publisher will publish the Work if the editorial process is successfully completed and reserves the right not to proceed with publication for whatever reason.
  • The publication entitles the author to no royalties or other fees. This agreement will be governed by the laws of Finland.