Excerpts from a Conversation with Noam Chomsky

Abstract

While discursive approaches and social theory enjoy some notoriety in the academic study of religion, the so-called critical turn is no stranger to challenges. Some reject it as philosophically apolitical; others, as ignorant of biological and psychological insights. In this edition of The Interview, we turn to an exchange with MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky, whose work has informed how many scholars of religion approach the sciences and cultural politics. Chomsky sat with retired Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broadcaster and Continuing Senior Fellow of Massey College at the University of Toronto, Ian Alexander, and Chair of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Victoria, Martha McGinnis, as part of the John Albert Hall Lectures’ Values for a New World series at the University of Victoria’s Centre for Studies in Religion and Society. We’ve excerpted this rich exchange from a longer two-part interview which we encourage you to access on the CSRS’s YouTube channel: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1AZa5z85YY&t=4054s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDP71Q2-T3s&t=1s).