
Redeeming Anthropology Lifts A Veil On Anthropology As A Modern Academic Discipline, Constituted By Its Secular Sovereign Reason And Membership In The Enlightenment-bequeathed University. Mining Anthropology's Biographical Corpus, Khaled Furani Reveals Ways Theology Has Always Existed In Its Recesses, Despite Perpetual Efforts At Immuring Encroachment By This Banished Other. Anthropologists Have Alternatively Spurned, Disregarded, And Followed Forms Of Religiosity, Transmuting Their Theistic Engagement In Their Professional Work. Centrally, If Unwittingly, Theology Remains In Anthropology's Consummate Rite Of Ethnographic Immersion, Defying Precepts On The Autonomy Of Reason And Knowledge Production By Immersing The Seeker In The Sought-after. Nevertheless, Anthropology Ultimately Commits Idolatry By Largely Adoring The Concept Of Culture, And Its Constructs, And Upholding Itself As Pre-eminently An Ethical Triumph. Furthermore, By Limiting Its Horizons To Finite Categories Of Human Andnatural, Anthropology Entangles Itself In Worship Of The State And Conclusively Of The Sovereignty Principle That Powers Modern Reason. Recovery From Idolatry Might Arrive Should Anthropological Reason Become Attuned To Its Fragility, Cease To Fear Theistic Reason, And Open Pathways Toward Revitalization Through Revelation.
Can the discipline of anthropology reconcile its secular foundations with the persistent, often unacknowledged, presence of theological inquiry within its methodology? Khaled Furani, an anthropologist, examines the historical and intellectual development of the field within the modern university system. He argues that despite a self-conscious commitment to secular reason, anthropology remains deeply entangled with theological concepts, particularly through the practice of ethnographic immersion. The work posits that the discipline's elevation of 'culture' to a central, almost sacred status constitutes a form of idolatry that limits its capacity to engage with broader human and divine realities.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars in the fields of anthropology and religious studies frequently note the dense, philosophical nature of Furani's prose. Experts highlight this work as a significant contribution to the ongoing debate regarding the secularization of the social sciences and the potential for a post-secular anthropology.
Page Count:
224
Publication Date:
2019-01-01
Publisher:
Oxford University Press
ISBN-10:
019251637X
ISBN-13:
9780192516374
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