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SUMMARY:IAHR-Kongress ||| Vortrag
DTSTART:20150824T070000Z
DTEND:20150824T090000Z
DTSTAMP:20260405T150533Z
UID:IAHRpaper2408_12-1572@ceres.rub.de
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION:Exploring the Methodical in 'the Comparative Method'\nOliver F
 reiberger (KHK-Fellow)\nComparison\,  in the narrower sense\, has been a c
 ommon and fundamental activity in  the academic study of religion from the
  very beginning of the  discipline. It has also been fundamentally critici
 zed primarily for its  potential to decontextualize and essentialize and f
 or being used by  scholars with theological\, phenomenological\, colonial\
 , or other agendas.  Yet comparative studies keep being produced—with va
 rying degrees of  reflexivity about the comparative process. If comparison
  is a subject of  reflection at all\, the discussed points are most often 
 theoretical\,  sometimes methodological\, but almost never methodical. Rar
 ely have  scholars suggested concrete and applicable frameworks and techni
 ques for  carrying out a comparative study. Summarizing a larger and more 
 complex  argument\, this paper outlines such a concrete procedure of compa
 ring.  After briefly addressing various options for the research design (g
 oals\,  scopes\, scales\, and modes of comparison)\, it lays out a researc
 h  process that expands a model suggested by Jonathan Z. Smith and include
 s  six steps: selection\, description\, comparison\, redescription\,  rect
 ification\, and theory building. The paper briefly introduces each of  the
 se and discusses the potential benefits of the method. Finally it  argues 
 that a developed comparative method may once again become\, if  understood
  as a second-order method\, a distinctive disciplinary feature  of the stu
 dy of religion. Considering the discipline’s long experience  with compa
 rison—albeit often employed intuitively and also  problematically—a co
 mparative method that is both based on critical  reflexivity and practical
 ly applicable may even be considered  interesting by other disciplines\, a
 nd thus exportable.\nVortrag im Rahmen des Panels: The Work of Data: Metho
 ds in the Study of Religions (24-105 | 132).
URL:https://ceres.rub.de/de/events/IAHRpaper2408_12/
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