The Invention of World Religions
Or, How European Universalism Was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism
University of Chicago Press, 2005
Cloth: 978-0-226-50988-4 | Paper: 978-0-226-50989-1 | Electronic: 978-0-226-92262-1
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226922621.001.0001
Cloth: 978-0-226-50988-4 | Paper: 978-0-226-50989-1 | Electronic: 978-0-226-92262-1
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226922621.001.0001
AVAILABLE FROM
University of Chicago Press (paper, ebook)Amazon Kindle
Apple Books
Barnes & Noble Nook
Brytewave (CafeScribe-Follett Higher Ed)
Chegg Inc
Google Play
Kno
Kobo
ABOUT THIS BOOKAUTHOR BIOGRAPHYTABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The idea of "world religions" expresses a vague commitment to multiculturalism. Not merely a descriptive concept, "world religions" is actually a particular ethos, a pluralist ideology, a logic of classification, and a form of knowledge that has shaped the study of religion and infiltrated ordinary language.
In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
In this ambitious study, Tomoko Masuzawa examines the emergence of "world religions" in modern European thought. Devoting particular attention to the relation between the comparative study of language and the nascent science of religion, she demonstrates how new classifications of language and race caused Buddhism and Islam to gain special significance, as these religions came to be seen in opposing terms-Aryan on one hand and Semitic on the other. Masuzawa also explores the complex relation of "world religions" to Protestant theology, from the hierarchical ordering of religions typical of the Christian supremacists of the nineteenth century to the aspirations of early twentieth-century theologian Ernst Troeltsch, who embraced the pluralist logic of "world religions" and by so doing sought to reclaim the universalist destiny of European modernity.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Tomoko Masuzawa is associate professor of history and comparative literature at the University of Michigan. She is the author of In Search of Dream Time: The Quest for the Origin of Religion, also published by the University of Chicago Press.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Part 1
Chapter 1: “The Religions of the World” before “World Religions”
Chapter 2: The Legacy of Comparative Theology
Part 2
Chapter 3: The Birth Trauma of World Religions
Chapter 4: Buddhism, a World Religion
Chapter 5: Philology and the Discovery of a Fissure in the European Past
Chapter 6: Islam, a Semitic Religion
Chapter 7: Philologist Out of Season: F. Max Müller on the Classification of Language and Religion
Part 3
Chapter 8: Interregnum: Omnibus Guide for Looking toward the Twentieth Century
Chapter 9: The Question of Hegemony: Ernst Troeltsch and the Reconstituted European Universalism
Bibliography
Index