When I teach my anthropology of religion course the first order of business is to define and disrupt “religion” as a category. I begin by having students identify everything they consider to be “religion.” Our list grows and all the usual suspects make their appearance. After the list has been compiled, we then ask what [...]
Tags:Ake Hultkrantz·Andrew McKinnon·Buddhism·category of religion·concept of religion·definition of religion·Japan·Jason Josephson·Shinto·Wittgenstein
In my last two posts (The “Sin” of Sodomy and “Natural Moral Law“), I have been considering the naturalness of sexual physiologies and preferences. By serendipitous accident, yesterday I read Bob Plant’s (2006) article, “The Confessing Animal in Foucault and Wittgenstein,” in which he observes that these famous philosophers are connected by their shared suspicion [...]
Tags:Bob Plant·dogma·expertise·Foucault·gender ambiguity·genealogy·history·homosexuality·human nature·moral law·natural·natural science·Naturalization·naturalizing·Nietzsche·opinions·sexual physiology·sexual preferences·sexuality·social construction·sodomy·the body·The Confessing Animal·Wittgenstein
