Against the background of the recent proliferation of guides on key concepts for the analysis of issues across religious traditions, this article traces David Chidester’s theoretical elaboration of “colonialism” and “material culture” from an African and South African perspective and his application of these key terms to South African case studies. It is argued that within the current context of demands for a decolonisation of the curriculum these terms need to be foregrounded in rethinking Religious Studies programmes at South African universities. How this transformation of the curriculum may be effected, is illustrated with reference to two introductory courses in Religious Studies at the University of South Africa.
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David Chidester, “Postgraduate Students Producing Knowledge,” Journal for the Study of Religion 26, no. 1 (2013): 5–7.
See, for example, Aljazeera, “ ‘Decolonising’ South African Universities,” The Stream, 8 April 2015, online: http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201504081517-0024671; Amit Chaudhuri, “The Real Meaning of Rhodes Must Fall,” The Guardian, 16 March 2016, online: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall?CMP=share_btn_fb; Tanya Farber, “Black Studies for UCT,” Times Live, 22 April 2015, online: http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2015/04/22/black-studies-for-uct; Martin Hall, “The Symbolic Statue Dividing a South African University,” BBC News, 25 March 2015, online: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31945680; and Brian Kamanzi, “ ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ – Decolonisation Symbolism – What is Happening at UCT, South Africa?” The Postcolonialist, 29 March 2015, online: http://postcolonialist.com/civil-discourse/rhodes-must-fall-decolonisation-symbolism-happening-uct-south-africa/.
See, for example, David Chidester, “Colonialism”; David Chidester, “Colonialism and Religion,” Critical Research on Religion 1, no. 1 (2013): 87–94; David Chidester, “Postgraduate Students,” 5–7; David Chidester, “Thinking Black: Circulations of Africana Religion in Imperial Comparative Religion,” Journal of Africana Religions 1, no. 1 (2013): 1–27; David Chidester “Studying Religion in South Africa,” in The Next Step in Studying Religion: A Graduate’s Guide, ed. Mathieu E. Courville (London: Continuum, 2007), 75–115; David Chidester, “Primitive Texts, Savage Contexts: Contextualizing the Study of Religion in Colonial Situations,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 15 (2003): 272–283; David Chidester, “Embracing South Africa: Internationalizing the Study of Religion,” Journal for the Study of Religion 11, no. 1 (1998): 5–33; and David Chidester, “Response: No First or Final Solutions: Strategies, Techniques, and Ivan Strenski’s Garden in the Study of Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 66, no. 2 (1998): 369–376.
David Chidester, Empire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 223–255.
Chidester, “Colonialism,” 2000: 432–436, maps postcolonial approaches from indigenist (essentialist) to hybrid, with strategic uses of indigeneity between the two poles. He does not discuss Mondlane, nor does he critique essentialist approaches in this chapter from 2000.
Cf. Dick Houtman and Birgit Meyer, “Introduction,” in Things: Religion and the Question of Materiality, eds. Dick Houtman and Birgit Meyer (New York: Fordham University Press, 2012), 1–23; Birgit Meyer, “The Genealogy of Presence: Towards a Material Approach to Religion,” Inaugural Lecture as Professor in Religiewetenschap, University of Utrecht, 2012, online: http://www2.hum.uu.nl/onderzoek/lezingenreeks/pdf/Meyer_Birgit_oratie.pdf; Meyer, Birgit, David Morgan, Crispin Paine and S. Brent Plate, eds., “Material Religion’s First Decade,” Material Religion 10, no. 1 (2014): 105–111.
David Chidester, “Review Essay: Material Terms for the Study of Religion,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 68, no. 2 (2000): 367–379, doi: 10.1093/jaarel/68.2.367. The reviewed work was Mark C. Taylor, ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998).
Cf. also David Chidester, “Anchoring Religion in the World: A Southern African History of Comparative Religion,” Religion 26, no. 2 (1996): 141–160.
The dissertation, completed in 1981, was published in revised form in 1992.
David Chidester, Christianity: A Global History (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2000).
David Chidester, Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 112–131.
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Against the background of the recent proliferation of guides on key concepts for the analysis of issues across religious traditions, this article traces David Chidester’s theoretical elaboration of “colonialism” and “material culture” from an African and South African perspective and his application of these key terms to South African case studies. It is argued that within the current context of demands for a decolonisation of the curriculum these terms need to be foregrounded in rethinking Religious Studies programmes at South African universities. How this transformation of the curriculum may be effected, is illustrated with reference to two introductory courses in Religious Studies at the University of South Africa.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 699 | 81 | 1 |
Full Text Views | 233 | 4 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 51 | 6 | 0 |