Body, Society, and Subjectivity in Religious Studies

• Published in: Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol. 80; no. 1; pp. 7 - 33
• Main Author: Furey, Constance M.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cary, NC American Academy of Religion, Oxford University Press 01.03.2012; Oxford University Press; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Belief & doubt; Buddhism; Christianity; Contemporary period; General subjects; History and sciences of religions; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Human Body; Interpersonal Relations - history; Intimacy; Islam; Judaism; Personal relationships; Religion; Religion - history; Religious practices; Religious rituals; Religious studies; Rites & ceremonies; Social Behavior - history; Social Change - history; Sociological studies; Subjectivity; Theology; Protestantism; Society; Religious sciences; Body; Subjectivity
• ISSN: 0002-7189; 1477-4585
• DOI: 10.1093/jaarel/lfr088

Attention to bodies has transformed the study of religion in the past thirty years, aiding the effort to overcome the discipline's Protestant biases by shifting interest from beliefs to practices. And yet much of this work has unwittingly perpetuated an individualist notion of the religious subject. Although religionists are now well aware that bodies cannot be studied apart from the social forces that shape them, all too often the religious subject stands alone in a crowd, participating in communal rituals, subject to religious authorities and disciplinary practices, but oddly detached from intimate relationships. In this article, I first argue that the turn to the body was motivated by what it appeared to reject: theoretical questions about subjectivity. I then seek to challenge prevailing trends by arguing that these same theoretical insights should now prod us to attend to the import of intimacy and personal relationships.