Bøger af Michel Despland

The history of the concept of "religion" in Western tradition has intrigued scholars for years. This important collection of eighteen essays brings further light to the ongoing debate. Three of the invited participants, W.C. Smith, M. Despland and E. Feil, has each previously written impressive books treating this subject; the last two acknowledged the impact and continuing influence of Smith's work, The Meaning and End of Religion. An introduction and a recapitulation of Smith's contribution as a scholar set the stage for a retrospective look at the published literature. Contributors then examine the transformation of words (the classical religio to the modern religion), particularities of religion in nineteenth-century France, Troeltsch's concept of religion, the study of religion from an Asian point of view and the categorization of "World Religions." The concluding essays elaborate contemporary anthropological, cross-disciplinary, semiological, deconstructive and psychoanalytical methodological approaches to the concept and study of "religion." Exploring critically different aspects of the concept and study of religion, these provocative essays typically reflect the methodological pluralism currently existing in the field of Religious Studies. Of interest to scholars and students alike, this collection also contains a complete bibliography of W.C. Smith's publications.

The end of the eighteenth century, an age of political and cultural crisis particularly in France, saw a shift in the meaning of belief. Simply put, a break in continuity occurred between the old, religious and a new, literary reading of Scripture. Michel Despland selects five writers who were caught up in this new reading of the old religious text and who came to write about religion in innovative ways: Jean-Jacques Roussean, Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand, Charles Nodier, Alfred de Vigny, and Gerard de Nerval. Their use of the autobiographical voice, and of a range of literary devices that encouraged the distanciation of readers from what they read, brought about a profound transmutation of religious writing. The old code of orthodoxy -- what was traditionally believed and socially confirmed -- was replaced with a more readable, personal text. The five writers treated by Despland helped shape a broader definition of belief, on that included individual sensibility. The works they produced are, in a sense, new religious texts. They did not just restate or reinterpret the code, but achieved a new kind of narrative, which has become dominant in the modern era and has shaped individual relationships to all codes.

Reliée aux rapides et profondes transformations socio-culturelles de la société québécoise des années soxiante, l'éclatement de l'hégémonie théologique dans le domaine de l'étude de la religion était déjà un fait accompli en 1972. La présent étude cherche à décrire et à comprendre l'évolution subséquente du nouveau champ des sciences religieuses québécoises tel que mis en oeuvre depuis lor par les enseignants et chercheurs qui animent les programmes des CEGEP et des universités. La situation québécoise se caractérise par la présence des traditions francophones et anglophones et celle des démarches théologique et de sciences humaines de la religion dans l'enseignement post-secondaire. Adoptant le point de vue d'une analyse des processus sociaux qui institutionalisent le savoir, cette rétrospective examine la morphologie des spécialisations mises en oeuvre, la composition et l'évoluation des programmes chargés de reproduire le savoir, les domaines de recherche privilégiés, les réseaux d'échanges savants utilisés pour la diffusion de nouvelles connaissances ainsi que l'organisation de la régulation et du contrôle de la circulation des produits intellectuels. Au terme il devient possible d'établir un bilan de santé de ce domaine du savoir permettant à ses acteurs d'en cerner les forces et les faiblesses afin de mieux entrevoir les stratégies de développement qui s'imposent.

Locates Roger Bastide (1898-1974) in the general context of sociology as it developed in the generation following that of Emile Durkheim. This biography shows how he helped broaden the original agenda by taking interest in historical factors and paying attention to the work of ethnologists on so-called primitive societies.