An introduction and a recapitulation of Smithâs contribution as a scholar set the stage for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltschâs concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of âWorld Religions.â The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of âreligion.â
Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smithâs publications.
Michel Despland is Professor of Religion at Concordia University.
GÃĐrard VallÃĐe is professor emeritus of religious studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada). He studied in QuÃĐbec and Germany, and worked in the fields of history of Christianity and philosophy of religion. He has also taught in Vietnam, India, and Nigeria. His publications include A Study in Anti-Gnostic Polemics (WLU Press, 1981), The Spinoza Conversations between Lessing and Jacobi (1988), The Shaping of Christianity 100â800 (1999), and Soundings in G.E. Lessingâs Philosophy of Religion (2000). He has been involved in the editing of Nightingaleâs Collected Works since 1998.