Otto BC (2017)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Journal article, Original article
Publication year: 2017
Book Volume: 9
Pages Range: 29-52
This article opens a new methodological pathway towards the persistent problem of so-called ‘critical categories’ in the (post)modern Study of Religion : How should scholars deal with versatile or polyvalent concepts that lack generally accepted conceptualizations and continuously evoke misunderstandings or even fierce debates about their proper usage ? Instead of arbitrarily reducing the semantic complexity of such categories by means of ‘definitions’, the article calls for acknowledging polysemantics as a core feature or inescapable quality of many, if not all, basic categories in the Study of Religion. Accordingly, the article introduces a new methodological strategy – here coined ‘polysemantic analysis’ –, which consists of two parts : first, through discourse analysis and conceptual reverse-engineering a disputed category is dissected into its components in the form of a semantic matrix, or ‘net of notions’, which may then, second, be applied to religious data. This procedure allows for applying a polysemantic concept to religious data without losing any of its potential analytical value, thus opening the floor for more nuanced and fine-grained analyses. In the article, said strategy is applied to the concept of ‘religious individualization’, a process category that has caught enhanced scholarly attention over the past years. ‘Polysemantic analysis’ reveals a matrix with no less than 26 different notions of the category, which are grouped in four basic domains. This ‘net of notions’ is then applied to the conceptual history of ‘magic’, both to polemical and affirmative discourses. The textual-ritual tradition of ‘Western learned magic’ triggers a wide range of notions ascribed to ‘religious individualization’ and might therefore be interpreted as a particularly noticeable example case of such dynamics, even though there remain some ambiguities to the matter.
APA:
Otto, B.-C. (2017). Magic and Religious Individualization: On the construction and deconstruction of analytical categories in the Study of Religion. Historia Religionum, 9, 29-52.
MLA:
Otto, Bernd-Christian. "Magic and Religious Individualization: On the construction and deconstruction of analytical categories in the Study of Religion." Historia Religionum 9 (2017): 29-52.
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