Getting Religious Studies Right
MAY 08, 2016
To the Editor:
I should respond to Wendy Doniger’s essay ("The Repression of Religious Studies," April 29, 2016) because I am the "Hindu" whose entry on Hinduism was substituted for her own by Microsoft Encarta in 2003. As it was put to me, some Hindus complained that they did not recognize themselves in Doniger’s piece and therefore it was being replaced. My entry could have conceivably been written by a non-Hindu who presented Hinduism in such a way that followers of Hinduism could relate to it, as is sometimes the goal of the phenomenological method of studying religion. This is a point I will return to later.
Doniger’s essay in The Chronicle Review contains many useful insights. One is the distinction she draws "between pious and academic ways of talking about religion." Another is the distinction she makes between interreligious dialogue and religious studies. A third is provided by her account of being asked at public lectures, always by an Indian, "Do you meditate?," and when she confesses that she does not, her questioner says, "Then you cannot understand the Upanishads."
On the first point, it could be argued that the clash is not between pious and academic ways of talking about religion but rather between two academic ways of talking about it — one is faithful to the self-understanding of the followers of a religion, the other is not. This corresponds to the distinction between reductive and nonreductive methods of studying religion. A lot is at stake here. There is a fundamental controversy in religious studies around the question: Is the ultimate nature of religion "religious" or not? According to reductive methods, the nature of religion is not "religious" but psychological, social, political, geographical, or something else. According to nonreductive methods, the nature of religion is "religious"— the manifest assumption of theology.
There is, however, another method, known as the phenomenology of religion. A phenomenologist believes that believers believe, without necessarily believing what they believe. Perhaps what those Hindus who object to Doniger are trying to say is that they would prefer a phenomenological presentation of Hinduism, not necessarily a pious one. Such a view does not mean that only insiders can teach a religion, nor does it mean that the person presenting the believer’s perspective shares that perspective.
Let’s turn to Doniger’s account of being asked whether or not she meditates. The issue should be viewed not in personal but professional terms, namely, as indicating that a certain kind of knowledge or practice may be a professional requirement before one can undertake the duties of the profession. Many Hindus feel unhappy that Sanskrit texts are often translated by scholars who have a good knowledge of Sanskrit but do not speak it. They ask: Would you trust a translation of Shakespeare into French by a French scholar who knows English but cannot speak it?
Doniger’s essay ends with a plea to defend academic freedom. I agree. The problem, however, arises when academic freedom degenerates into academic license, and academic license degenerates into academic licentiousness.
Arvind Sharma
Professor in comparative religion
McGill University
Professor in comparative religion
McGill University
To the Editor:
As a religion-studies scholar, I am most grateful to Wendy Doniger for her thoughtful and comprehensive analysis of the threats to the field. In addition to standing up for scholars such as Doniger and Sheldon Pollock, religion-studies departments could also look to their own behaviors to see if we are unwittingly abetting the prevalent notion that we teach from a faith-based perspective. Every time a member of a religion department gives a benediction at commencement, or agrees to be adviser to Hillel or the Newman Club, we are perpetuating that error. We can talk about "wearing different hats" all we want, but neither our students nor our administration will get the distinction if we don’t model it consistently. By the same token, we should be very careful about accepting money for, e.g., a chair in Catholic studies. Will the donors be agreeable if the first holder of that chair is not Catholic? And if we start a Jewish-studies program, we should be clear that our goal is the academic study of Jewish history, culture, and religion, not to make Jewish students "proud," or "more comfortable" on campus. These can be tough boundaries to patrol, but Doniger has shown us the consequences of inattention.
Dena Davis
Professor of religion studies
Lehigh University
Professor of religion studies
Lehigh University
Wendy Doniger responds:
I’m grateful for two such thoughtful responses to my essay. Dena Davis has taken my concerns to heart, and the putative examples of attitudes from donors that she warns us of are precisely the sort of dangers that I had in mind.
http://chronicle.com/article/Getting-Religious-Studies/236357