Decolonizing Religious Studies

Debates and Practical Strategies

Authors

  • Natalie Avalos University of Colorado
  • Richard Newton University of Alabama
  • Peter Valdina Albion College

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.26654

Keywords:

decolonization, postcolonialism, land back, race, ethnic studies, religious studies, colonialism

Abstract

Knowing that the working scholar cannot be everywhere at once, The Conference fills in readers on what they may have missed from various academic gatherings. In this issue, we are pleased to share a panel discussion from the 2022 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Denver, Colorado. On behalf of the Academic Relations Committee, Peter Valdina (Albion College) moderated a conversation on decolonization and the academic study of religion. The panel brought Bulletin Editor Richard Newton (University of Alabama), Natalie Avalos (University of Colorado) together to discuss the matter from their research expertise in this area. Also participating in the discussion was Jessica Albrecht, PhD. candidate at the University of Heidelberg, among other scholars.

Author Biography

  • Richard Newton, University of Alabama

    Richard Newton received his PhD in Critical Comparative Scriptures from Claremont Graduate University.

    Dr. Newton’s areas of interest include theory and method in the study of religion, African American history, the New Testament in Western imagination, American cultural politics, and pedagogy in religious studies. His research explores how people create “scriptures” and how those productions operate in the formation of identities and cultural boundaries. He has published an array of journal articles, book chapters and online essays. His book, Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures (Equinox 2020), casts Alex Haley’s Roots as a case study in the dynamics of scriptures and identity politics with critical implication for the study of race, religion, and media. He is also the curator of the  multimedia professional development network, Sowing the Seed: Fruitful Conversations in Religion, Culture, and Teaching.

References

Avalos, Natalie. 2020a. “Taking a Critical Indigenous and Ethnic Studies Approach to Decolonizing Religious Studies.” Contending Modernities, Decoloniality and Liberation Theology Series, October 14.

———. 2020b. “Indigenous Stewardship as a Lifeway.” Journal of Environmental Media, 1.2: 133–138.

———. 2020c. “Decolonizing Religious Studies and its Layers of Complicity.” The Religious Studies Project, podcast interview by David McConeghy, August 17.

———. 2022. “Latinx Indigeneities and Christianity.” In The Oxford Handbook of Latino/a Christianities in the United States, edited by Kristy Nabhan Warren, 296–315. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

———. 2023. “Indigenous Stewardship: Religious Praxis and ‘Unsettling’ Settler Ecologies.” Political Theology. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317X.2023.2212473.

Feminist Critical Hindu Studies Collective. 2021. “Feminist Critical Hindu Studies in Formation.” Religion Compass, March 2021.

———. 2022a. “Hindu Fragility and the Politics of Mimicry in North America.” Immanent Frame, November 2, 2022.

———. 2022b. “Auntylectuals: A Nonce of Aunty-Power.” Text and Performance Quarterly 42.3: 346–357.

Jain, Andrea. 2014. Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture. New York: Oxford University Press.

———. 2020. Peace, Love, Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality. New York Oxford University Press.

Newton, Richard. 2018. “Skin in the Game: Raising the Stakes with The Race Card Project.” Religious Studies News, November 5, 2018. https://rsn.aarweb.org/spotlight-on/teaching/anti-racism/raising-stakes-race-card-project.

———. 2020. Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures. Sheffield, UK: Equinox.

Newton, Richard and Vaia Touna. 2023. Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting the Classics. London: Bloomsbury Academic.

Smith, Jonathan Z. 1988. “‘Narratives into Problems’: The College Introductory Course and the Study of Religion.” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 56.4: 727–739.

Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Zed Books.

Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. 1995. Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History. Boston: Beacon Press.

Tuck, Eve and K. Wayne Yang. 2012. “Decolonization is Not a Metaphor.” Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society 1.1: 1–40.

wa Thiong’o, Ngugi . 1986. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann.

White, Hayden. 1978. Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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Published

2023-09-07

Issue

Vol. 52 No. 1 (2023)

Section

The Conference

Categories

How to Cite

Avalos, N., Newton, R., & Valdina, P. (2023). Decolonizing Religious Studies: Debates and Practical Strategies. Bulletin for the Study of Religion, 52(1), 26-36. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsor.26654