Russell T. McCutcheon

Technopedia Center

Faculty of Engineering and Computer Science
S1 Informatics S1 Information Systems S1 Information Technology S1 Computer Engineering S1 Electrical Engineering S1 Civil Engineering

faculty of Economics and Business
S1 Management S1 Accountancy

Faculty of Letters and Educational Sciences
S1 English literature S1 English language education S1 Mathematics education S1 Sports Education

Russell T. McCutcheon - Wikipedia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Russell T. McCutcheon
Born	Russell Tracey McCutcheon 1961 (age 62–63)
Nationality	Canadian

Academic background
Alma mater	Queen's University University of Toronto
Thesis	Manufacturing Religion^[1] (1995)
Doctoral advisor	Neil McMullin
Other advisors	Ernest Best Pamela Dickey Young
Academic work
Discipline	Religious studies
Institutions	Southwest Missouri State University University of Alabama

Russell Tracey McCutcheon (born 1961) is a Canadian religion scholar who earned a PhD in religious studies from the University of Toronto in 1995.^[2]

Biography

McCutcheon is a professor in the department of religious studies at the University of Alabama, and was department chair from 2001 to 2009, and again from 2013 to 2023. He was an editor of the quarterly periodical Method & Theory in the Study of Religion from 1997 to 2001. In 2005, McCutcheon was elected President of the Council of Societies for the Study of Religion, headquartered at Rice University. He is the founder and series editor for the anthology series, Critical Categories in the Study of Religion.^[3]

He has been noted for a controversy concerning methodology in the field of religious studies. This controversy centered on a rather polemical exchange between McCutcheon and Robert A. Orsi, who held a teaching position at Harvard University and Harvard Divinity School, with Orsi referring to McCutcheon's book, The Discipline of Religion, as "chilling". Orsi also made the comment, "the assumption appears to be that the scholar of religion by virtue of his or her normative epistemology, theoretical acuity, and political knowingness, has the authority and the right to make the lives of others the objects of his or her scrutiny. He or she theorizes them." McCutcheon responded with a paper included in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion entitled, "It's a Lie. There's No Truth in It! It's a Sin! On the Limits of the Humanistic Study of Religion and the Costs of Saving Others from Themselves".^[4]

Books

Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. Oxford University Press. 1997. ISBN 9780190282981.
with Willi Braun, Guide to the Study of Religion, London; New York: Continuum, 2000.
The Discipline of Religion: Structure, Meaning, Rhetoric, London; New York: Routledge, 2003.
Religion and the Domestication of Dissent: Or, How To Live in a Less Than Perfect Nation, Sheffield: Equinox, 2005.
Studying Religion: An Introduction, London; Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2007
with William E. Arnal, The Sacred is the Profane: The Political Nature of "Religion" . New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
A Modest Proposal on Method: Essaying the Study of Religion, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2015.

References

^ McCutcheon, Russell T. (1995). Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse of Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia (PhD thesis). Toronto: University of Toronto.
^ "Russell T. McCutcheon". Department of Religious Studies. 2017-03-30. Retrieved 2023-10-28.
^ Critical Categories in the Study of Religion accessed June 10, 2017.
^ McCutcheon, Russell T. (2006). ""It's a Lie. There's No Truth in It! It's a Sin!": On the Limits of the Humanistic Study of Religion and the Costs of Saving Others from Themselves". Journal of the American Academy of Religion. 74 (3): 720–751. doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfj090. ISSN 1477-4585.

This biography of a Canadian academic is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

This biographical article about a religious studies scholar is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

Categories:

Hidden categories:

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Czech Republic 2 Netherlands Korea Sweden Israel
People	DDB
Other	IdRef