Publications: Anthologies and Editions | Critical Histories of the Study of Religion and "Religion"
The Study of Religion as a Durkheimian Project | Intellectual Biography in Context
Conscience and the Public Intellectual | Religion, Power and Politics

Critical Histories of the Study of Religion and "Religion"

Our concepts are not natural kinds, but reflect ways we see the world. I have been drawn to understand how and why central categories in the study of religion have been assumed to be what theorists believe them to be. "Myth", "Sacrifice", "Religion" are three such categories about which I have written in this vein.
  • 1988 Four Theories of Myth in Twentieth-Century History (Macmillan/Iowa)
  • 2002 Contesting Sacrifice: Religion, Nation and Social Thought in France (University of Chicago)
  • 2003 Theology and the First Theory of Sacrifice (E. J. Brill)
  • 2006c Thinking about Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell)
  • 2009a Four Theories of Myth in 20th-Century History, Korean Edition with Preface to Korean Edition, Yong Joo Lee, trans. (Seoul: I-Hak Press)
  • 2011 Four Theories of Myth in 20th-Century History, Chinese Edition with Preface, Lee Chuang, trans., (Beijing:xxxx)

Articles, Chapters in Books, Papers

  • 2000 "Durkheimians and Protestants in the École Pratique, Fifth Section: The Dark Side" Durkheimian Studies/Etudes Durkheimiennes 6: 105-14
  • 1997 "Does History of the Study of Religion Matter to the Study of Religion?" Cz'owiek Iwartoszci (Festschrift for Professor Jan Szmyd), A. Komendery, R. Padoa, Micha'a Zliwy, eds., (Krakow: Wydawnictwo Naukowe WSP), 146-56.
  • 1996a "The Rise of Ritual and the Hegemony of Myth: Sylvain Lévi, the Durkheimians and Max Müller, Myth and Method, W. Doniger and L. Patton, eds., (Charlottesville: U Virginia) , 52-81.
  • 1996a "Mis-reading Max Müller," Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 8 (3): 291-6.
  • 1995a "Émile Durkheim, Henri Hubert et le discours des modernistes religieux sur le symbolisme," L'ethnographie françaises 91/1, no. 117 (1995): 33-52.
  • 1991a "L'apport des él&egrav;ves de Durkheim", La tradition française en sciences religieuses, M. Despland, ed. (Qu&egrav;bec: University Laval), 109-27.
  • 1996a "Mis-reading Max Müller," Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 8 (3): 291-6.
  • 1989a "Durkheim, Hamelin and the French Hegel," R&egrav;flexions historiques/Historical Reflections 16: 135-70.
  • 1989b "Theories and Social Facts: A Reply to My Critics," Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 1: 196-212.
  • 1987 "Henri Hubert, Racial Science and Political Myth", Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 23: 353-67.
  • 1985a "What Structural Mythology Owes to Henri Hubert", Journal of the History of Behavioral Sciences 21: 354-71.
  • 1984 "Ernst Cassirer's Mythical Thought in Weimar Culture," History of European Ideas 5: 363-83.
  • 1982c "Love and Anarchy in Romania: A Critical Review of Mircea Eliade's Autobiography, Volume I: 1907-37", Religion 12: 391- 403.