In the Intersection of Social Sciences and Theology, a Research Group turns into an Academic Program

Isabel Corpas de Posada Universidad de San Buenaventura, Bogot (Colombia) Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion Atlanta, November 1st, 2010 RELIGION AND SOCIAL SCIENCES GROUP

Once upon a time five blind men wanted to know how an elephant looked like. One of them touched its leg and said: It is like a pillar of a temple. Another man, touching the tail, thought the elephant was like a hose. The third one touched the elephants belly and thought an elephant was like a great wall. The fourth blind man, when he touched the ears, said: An elephant is like a carpet. Similarly, the last one thought that the elephant was like the moving branch of a tree because he was touching its trunk. And they began to discuss who was right in the perception of the elephant.

The blind men of this well-known Eastern parable describe the elephant from their different points of view or their where from each one of them sees the elephant. Just as the blind men, different disciplinary approaches for studying religion, as well as the different approaches from each discipline, assume different ways of delimiting their object of study and different methods for their approaches, given each ones horizons and perspectives for conducting the analyses and interpretations of religion.

The purpose of the paper

Interdisciplinary approach and different discipline approaches of a research group and academic program, its methodologies and achievements for an interdisciplinary study of religion as a fact

Point of departure
Remote and immediate backgrounds of a Colombian Interdisciplinary Group of Studies in Religion, Society and Politics An example of interdisciplinary approach to religion

The paper registers Next step

An Interdisciplinary research network How a research group turned into a Master Degree Program

Remote and Immediate Backgrounds An Example of Interdisciplinary Approach to Religion Different Disciplinary Approaches to Religion A Research Group turns into an Academic Program Our next Step: An Interdisciplinary Research Network

Remote and Immediate Backgrounds An Example of Interdisciplinary Approach to Religion Different Disciplinary Approaches to Religion A Research Group turns into an Academic Program Our next Step: An Interdisciplinary Research Network

Kant
(1724 - 1804)

(1724 - 1804) Curso sobre filosofa de la religin

Hegel

Feuerbach
(1804 - 1872)

Crtica de la razn pura Crtica de la razn prctica

Schleiermacher
(1768 - 1834)

(1778 - 1831)

Tillich

(1818 - 1883)

Marx

Dogmtica (1821)

Filosofa de la religin

The philosophers of religion

The origins of the study of religions

Remote Backgrounds

The study of religion as a fact anthropological fact, sociological fact, historical fact began with the origins of the social studies by the end of 19th Century and the beginnings of the 20th. At this time, the descriptions of the anthropologists, the explanations of sociologists and new interpretations of philosophers entered in the academic stage moved by the interest of western colonists in the exotic cultures of faraway countries.

Anyhow, theology did not show up in this debate.

The origins of the study of religions Remote Backgrounds

Edward Burnett Tylor (1832 1917)

Bronislaw Malinowski (1884 1942)

Cultura primitiva (1871)

La rama dorada

Los argonautas del Pacfico Occidental (1922) Magia, ciencia, religin (1948)

James George Frazer (1854 1941)

The founders of anthropology were interested in the origins of religion

The origins of the study of religions Remeote Backgrounds

Emile Durkheim (1858 1917)

Max Weber (1864 1920)

Lo sagrado y lo profano Las formas elementales de la vida religiosa (1912)

Marcel Mauss (1872 1950)

La tica protestante y el espritu del capitalismo

The founders of sociology were interested in the function of religion

The origins of the study of religions Remote Backgrounds

William James (1842 1910)

Rudolf Otto (1869 - 1937)

Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939) Las variedades de la experiencia religiosa: estudio de la naturaleza humana (1902)

Totem y tab (1913) Moiss y el monotesmo (1939)

Lo santo (1917)

First scholars of religious studies

The origins of the study of religions Remote Backgrounds

Mircea Eliade (1907 1986)

Tratado de historia de las religiones (1949) Lo sagrado y lo profano (1956) Mito y realidad (1963) Historia de las creencias y de las ideas religiosas (1967)

The founder of the comparative study of religion

The origins of the study of religions Remote Backgrounds

Claude Lvi-Strauss (1908 2009)

Clifford Geertz (1923 2006)

Las estructuras elementales del parentesco (1949) Tristes trpicos (1955) Antropologa estructural (1958) El pensamiento salvaje (1962) Totemismo hoy (1962) Mitolgicas 1: Lo crudo y lo cocido (1964)

Edward Evan Evans-Pritchard (1902 1973)

La interpretacin de las culturas (1973)

Las teoras de la religin primitiva (1977)

Contemporary anthropologists
The origins of the study of religions

Intermediate Backgrounds

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002)

Peter Berger (n. 1929)

La religin, hilo de la memoria

El dosel sagrado
Gnesis y estructura del campo religioso

Danile Hervieu-Lger

Contemporary sociologists
The origins of the study of religions

Intermediate Backgrounds

Michel De Certeau (1925 1986)

Emile Poulat (n. 1920)

Ana Mara Bidegain

Immediate Backgrounds

Marcel Gauchet (n. 1946)

Rodolfo De Roux

member of CEHILA historical interpretation of Roman Catholicism

Jean Pierre Bastian

Le dsenchantement du monde. Une histoire politique de la religion (1985)

studies the expansion of protestantism and pentecostalisms in Latin-America

Immediate Backgrounds

Jacques Dupuis (1923 - 2004)

Raimon Pannikar (1918 - 2010 ) Paul Ricoeur (1913 2005) Hans Kung (n. 1928 )

studies hermeneutics of religious language and phenomenology of the sacred

Torres Queiruga (n. 1940)

Immediate Backgrounds

Faustino Teixeira (n. 1954)

Severino Croatto (n. 1930) Jos Mara Mardones (n. 1940)

Jos Mara Vigil (n. 1946)

Miembros de la Asociacin Ecumnica de Telogos y Telogas del Tercer Mundo ASETT

Juan Martn Velasco (n. 1940) Juan Antonio Estrada (n. 1940) Francisco Garca Bazn (n. 1940)

Immediate Backgrounds

The characteristics of the group echo remote and immediate backgrounds:

European influences, politically involved

Theories about religion from NorthAmerican authors in the social sciences domain Influences from Latin-American theologians, politically involved
Backgrounds

Remote and Immediate Backgrounds An Example of Interdisciplinary Approach to Religion Different Disciplinary Approaches to Religion A Research Group turns into an Academic Program Our next Step: An Interdisciplinary Research Network

Theological interpretation of religious recomposition in the contemporary process of reenchantment or resacralization

Encuesta de permanencia y cambios de la identidad poltica y religiosa en Bogot

An example of interdisciplinary Approach to Religion

Remote and Immediate Backgrounds An Example of Interdisciplinary Approach to Religion Different Disciplinary Approaches to Religion A Research Group turns into an Academic Program Our next Step: An Interdisciplinary Research Network

The object of the study of religion as a fact:

a prefigurative and flexible representation , one and universal, that presupposing multiplicity of religious tendencies and behaviors encloses the possibility of setting up as a special object of study. a theoretical object of sufficient ampleness and foundations which may outline as the common ground where religion religious experiences as well as religions can be studied: religious experience as an irreducible human experience such as the German scholars (Kant, Hegel, Schelling) acknowledged and religions as differentiated objects of historical examination.
Francisco Garca Bazn

Interdisciplinary and Disciplinary Approaches to Religion

 for the sociological approach of religion,

the purpose of sociology of religion: to understand, explain, analyze, catalogue and make expressive religious experiences, practices, beliefs and institutions
for the anthropological approach of religion, the purpose of antropology of religion: analysis of the evolution, functioning and meaning of religious experiences, practices, beliefs and institutions for the historical approach of religion, its purpose, nowadays, is using social scientific methods for sudying the past, emphasizing on the relationships of religionn and politicis, economics, culture, etc.

for the philosophical approach of religion,

philosophy approaches religion from the ontological, the ethical and the anthropological perspective for the theological approach of religion, contextual hermeneutical theology following Gadamer, Schillebeeckx and Colombian Alberto Parras proposal to approach texts in their context with a pretext which defines the intentionality of the interpretation and for the psychological approach of religion?

Interdisciplinary and Disciplinary Approaches to Religion

Remote and Immediate Backgrounds An Example of Interdisciplinary Approach to Religion Different Disciplinary Approaches to Religion A Research Group turns into an Academic Program Our next Step: An Interdisciplinary Research Network

A Research Group:
Grupo Interdisciplinario de Estudios de Religin, Sociedad y Poltica, GIERSP

turns into an Academic Program:

Maestra en Estudios del Hecho Religioso

A Research Group turns into an Academic Program

Remote and Immediate Backgrounds An Example of Interdisciplinary Approach to Religion Different Disciplinary Approaches to Religion A Research Group turns into an Academic Program Our next Step: An Interdisciplinary Research Network

Red Latinoamericana de Investigacin del Hecho Religioso

Observatorio en Red de Universidades Catlicas para el Estudio de la Diversidad Religiosa en Amrica Latina

Proyecto sobre interculturalidad e interreligiosidad del Centro Coordinador de la Investigacin de la Federacin Internacional de Universidades Catlicas CCI-FIUC
Our next step

www.usbbog.edu.co/ohral

Observatorio en Red de Universidades Catlicas para el Estudio de la Diversidad Religiosa en Amrica Latina

Our next step

Our next step