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The Anthropology of Religion: An Introduction
This introductory text combines discussion of the origin and development of ideas and debates within the anthropology of religion with a look at where the subject is going today.
284 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
July 12, 2020
I was given this book by a friend of mine, who is an academic bio-anthropologist.
I am not an academic or a student. I read this book mostly because he gave it to me. I have a general interest in religion and the study of religion. My only prior reading in the Anthropology of Religion was James Frazier's 'The Golden Bough' which I enjoyed a great deal.
All this to say that I am not the intended audience (non-academic lay person) for the book.
I tried to assess the expectations I held prior to reading this book. They were vague, perhaps somewhere along the lines of 'a compilation or comparison of various religions and religious practices around the world from an anthropological perspective'.
Bowie's writing style is engaging, if the overall threads are somewhat hard to follow at times.
The book turned out to be be very heavy on the theory (not in an absolute sense, but relative to my expectations), in fact it functions almost as much as an intro to 20th century theory as the anthropology of religion. Many of the chapters are structured around a handful of, generally adumbrated, reports of fieldwork or practices of a culture which are then used to demonstrate various approaches of theory.
At times there is a focus on the personalities of the field: Levi-Strauss, Jung, Freud, Mead, Saussure et al., their various schools and the dialectic of these schools. I'm torn because, on the once hand this does introduce and situate one within the academic world, but it also has little to do with the actual topic(s) at hand. There is, for instance, a fairly long section near the end on the Levi-Strauss' approach to dissecting myth which concludes by pointing out that structuralism has fallen out of favor and no longer has many followers.
There is also a not-insignificant amount of time spent on Feminist approaches to anthropology and neo-paganism, at least more than I would expect in an introductory text. While these are important areas, I don't see how Carlos Castaneda can warrant as much air time as he receives in this book.
I am not an academic or a student. I read this book mostly because he gave it to me. I have a general interest in religion and the study of religion. My only prior reading in the Anthropology of Religion was James Frazier's 'The Golden Bough' which I enjoyed a great deal.
All this to say that I am not the intended audience (non-academic lay person) for the book.
I tried to assess the expectations I held prior to reading this book. They were vague, perhaps somewhere along the lines of 'a compilation or comparison of various religions and religious practices around the world from an anthropological perspective'.
Bowie's writing style is engaging, if the overall threads are somewhat hard to follow at times.
The book turned out to be be very heavy on the theory (not in an absolute sense, but relative to my expectations), in fact it functions almost as much as an intro to 20th century theory as the anthropology of religion. Many of the chapters are structured around a handful of, generally adumbrated, reports of fieldwork or practices of a culture which are then used to demonstrate various approaches of theory.
At times there is a focus on the personalities of the field: Levi-Strauss, Jung, Freud, Mead, Saussure et al., their various schools and the dialectic of these schools. I'm torn because, on the once hand this does introduce and situate one within the academic world, but it also has little to do with the actual topic(s) at hand. There is, for instance, a fairly long section near the end on the Levi-Strauss' approach to dissecting myth which concludes by pointing out that structuralism has fallen out of favor and no longer has many followers.
There is also a not-insignificant amount of time spent on Feminist approaches to anthropology and neo-paganism, at least more than I would expect in an introductory text. While these are important areas, I don't see how Carlos Castaneda can warrant as much air time as he receives in this book.
April 25, 2023
Having not looked at the anthropology of religion in any great length previously I found the book to be I have to say very satisfactory. The style of writing although not exceptional in any means by the author in terms of engagement none the less mangages to give a thoughtful presentation of the ideas relating to the subject matter which is a strength.
It also helps that the book is nicely constructed in terms of content where the reader immediately upon introduction gets a grasp of the aim of the field along with some famous historical approaches laid down by figures such as Emile Durkheim and Mary Douglas to name a few. This includes the previously held more popular theories such as the structural approach famous in the 70's as exposed by Levi-Strauss where the aim was a conceptual, unified understanding in terms of inate structures pertaining to religion in contrast to more relativistic models which still remain popular in the field. I concur with the assesment that structuralists are going to face problems in terms of the dangers of generalizing too much between differing relgions. Too long has the notion of symbols and cultural constructs been presented as having universally recognized meanings when in fact the meanings very often differ in terms of meaning. Bowie mentions here the example of the Eucharistic bread and wine symbolizing the spiritual Christ while the same symbol has been treated among Hindus as symbolizing a cannibalistic resonance. I would also add Jung to the list here where he takes for granted the feminine symbolic representation of the moon in contrast to the masculine sun as being universal, but the Hitties would have had something to say about this as they viewed the moon as a masculine symbol. Thus, as is presented in the book one should aspire to collecting as much emperical research as possible in terms of differing religious culures which immediately reveals the multitude of differing interpretations according to differing religions. There is something very real to be said about the more you generalize the more you are prone to error.
I am glad also that the impact of Darwin is mentioned early on as he if any is responsible for a great surge in both secularism as well as giving foundations for the atheist position which historically can be considered somewhat of a crisis for large organized religions. The chapter on rituals is also interesting as it presents rituals in relation to the organization of a religious worldview specific for its practising peoples.
Although several multifaceted approaches to defining religion are presented I think a strong commonality between all of them can be related to seeing relgion as a response to humankinds urge for being to quote Max Weber " meaning makers" where relgion is seen in a larger context of providing meaning as well as reinforcing social structures and relations within a group.
There is as others have pointed out a substantive part dedicated to issues concerning gender especially in terms of the power balances which manifests itself between the female and the male, but this should also be considered pertinent questions to ask in religious studies so I do not mind the portion spent upon it. In fact the most unknown to me and interesting chapter of the book "The body as a symbol" details how the body is given metaphysical and relgious significance in conccordance with shared biological experiences which again gives rise to differing purtity rules in which women often are assigned a more negative role than their male counterparts.
In all a very worthwhile introduction to the anthropology of relgion and would reccommend it to anyone interested in issues concerning both relgion, religious practice and anthropology.
Note: I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating system of thumbs up/down. This later rating system increases in my humble opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to engage with a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars of a given book.)
It also helps that the book is nicely constructed in terms of content where the reader immediately upon introduction gets a grasp of the aim of the field along with some famous historical approaches laid down by figures such as Emile Durkheim and Mary Douglas to name a few. This includes the previously held more popular theories such as the structural approach famous in the 70's as exposed by Levi-Strauss where the aim was a conceptual, unified understanding in terms of inate structures pertaining to religion in contrast to more relativistic models which still remain popular in the field. I concur with the assesment that structuralists are going to face problems in terms of the dangers of generalizing too much between differing relgions. Too long has the notion of symbols and cultural constructs been presented as having universally recognized meanings when in fact the meanings very often differ in terms of meaning. Bowie mentions here the example of the Eucharistic bread and wine symbolizing the spiritual Christ while the same symbol has been treated among Hindus as symbolizing a cannibalistic resonance. I would also add Jung to the list here where he takes for granted the feminine symbolic representation of the moon in contrast to the masculine sun as being universal, but the Hitties would have had something to say about this as they viewed the moon as a masculine symbol. Thus, as is presented in the book one should aspire to collecting as much emperical research as possible in terms of differing religious culures which immediately reveals the multitude of differing interpretations according to differing religions. There is something very real to be said about the more you generalize the more you are prone to error.
I am glad also that the impact of Darwin is mentioned early on as he if any is responsible for a great surge in both secularism as well as giving foundations for the atheist position which historically can be considered somewhat of a crisis for large organized religions. The chapter on rituals is also interesting as it presents rituals in relation to the organization of a religious worldview specific for its practising peoples.
Although several multifaceted approaches to defining religion are presented I think a strong commonality between all of them can be related to seeing relgion as a response to humankinds urge for being to quote Max Weber " meaning makers" where relgion is seen in a larger context of providing meaning as well as reinforcing social structures and relations within a group.
There is as others have pointed out a substantive part dedicated to issues concerning gender especially in terms of the power balances which manifests itself between the female and the male, but this should also be considered pertinent questions to ask in religious studies so I do not mind the portion spent upon it. In fact the most unknown to me and interesting chapter of the book "The body as a symbol" details how the body is given metaphysical and relgious significance in conccordance with shared biological experiences which again gives rise to differing purtity rules in which women often are assigned a more negative role than their male counterparts.
In all a very worthwhile introduction to the anthropology of relgion and would reccommend it to anyone interested in issues concerning both relgion, religious practice and anthropology.
Note: I don't like the star rating and as such I only rate books based upon one star or five stars corresponding to the in my opinion preferable rating system of thumbs up/down. This later rating system increases in my humble opinion the degree to which the reader is likely to engage with a review instead of merely glancing at the number of stars of a given book.)
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November 13, 2020Read for an Anthropology of Magic, Science, and Religion course.
Read
April 12, 2017This is effectively an introductory textbook for first-year students of anthropology which I happened to pick up from my college library. To that extent it would be rather presumptuous of me to 'review' it (I am no expert), but I can say that it is fairly clear and readable as academic textbooks go. It is also worth noting that those misinformed atheists who would use anthropology as a weapon against religion will find no comfort in the actual study of it; the accumulation of data is rather too big for anyone to make over-generalisations.
June 10, 2008
This book wasn't what I expected but I enjoyed it anyway. It is written for anthropology 101 so introduces ideas without extensive elaborations. The bibliography and media notes are extensive though and I plan to use them to explore areas of interest to me.
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June 22, 2016I need better on the crapper books . . .
February 22, 2014
Aj so lesno, krsi noga!!!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews