Books by Paul-Francois Tremlett
Bloomsbury, 2020
This book argues that neither theories of secularization nor theories of lived religion offer sat... more This book argues that neither theories of secularization nor theories of lived religion offer satisfactory accounts of religion and social change. Drawing from Deleuze and Guattari's idea of the assemblage, Paul-Francois Tremlett outlines an alternative. Informed by classical and contemporary theories of religion as well as empirical studies and ethnography conducted in Manila and London, this book reframes religion as spatially organised flows. Foregrounding the agency of non-human actors, it offers a compelling and original account of religion and social change.
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Through revisiting and challenging what we think we know about the work of Edward Burnett Tylor, ... more Through revisiting and challenging what we think we know about the work of Edward Burnett Tylor, a founding figure of anthropology, this volume explores new connections and insights that link Tylor and his work to present concerns in new and important ways.
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Engaging with contemporary scholarship in the field, Tremlett argues that the study of religions ... more Engaging with contemporary scholarship in the field, Tremlett argues that the study of religions has always involved the conflation of facts and values and indeed has been structured in advance by the value-saturated discourse on disenchanted modernity. He argues that ...
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... ISBN: 1-84553-278-3, 978-1-84553-278-9. Academic Unit/Department: Arts > Religious Stu... more ... ISBN: 1-84553-278-3, 978-1-84553-278-9. Academic Unit/Department: Arts > Religious Studies. Item ID: 24789. Depositing User: Paul-Francois Tremlett. Date Deposited: 05 Dec 2010 09:52. Last Modified: 07 Dec 2010 11:51. URI: http://oro.open.ac.uk/id/eprint/24789. ...
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Papers by Paul-Francois Tremlett
Religions, 2023
Research methods and concepts in religious studies are conventionally understood as procedures an... more Research methods and concepts in religious studies are conventionally understood as procedures and rules for representing religious and social worlds. However, religious and social worlds are simultaneously messy, lively and elusive, and arguably transreligious ones are especially
so. In this essay I reflect on Panagiotopoulos and Roussou’s concept of “transreligiosity” as a means for re-thinking classical and contemporary methodological debates in religious studies, and for reflecting on methods as social practices.
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Religion in Five Minutes provides an accessible and lively introduction to the questions about re... more Religion in Five Minutes provides an accessible and lively introduction to the questions about religion and religious behaviour that interest most of us, whether or not we personally identify with -- or practice -- a religion. Suitable for beginning students and the general reader, the book offers more than 60 brief essays on a wide range of fascinating questions about religion and its study, such as: How did religion start? What religion is the oldest? Who are the Nones? Why do women seem to play lesser roles in many religions? What’s the difference between a religion and a cult? Is Europe less religious than North America? Is Buddhism a philosophy? How do we study religions of groups who no longer exist? Each essay is written by a leading authority and offers succinct, insightful answers along with suggestions for further reading, making the book an ideal starting point for classroom use or personal browsing
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Across the humanities and the social sciences, the terms “religion,” “ideology,” and “Marxism” ar... more Across the humanities and the social sciences, the terms “religion,” “ideology,” and “Marxism” are contested to such an extent that it is not always clear to what they refer. The first part of this entry explores these terms, their limits and their ambiguities.The second part is divided into three sections titled “ritual,” “cognition,” and “change.” These refer more broadly to religion and the question of society and processes of social reproduction, religion and modes of thought, and religion and social change, each of which refers to areas of inquiry in the classical and contemporary anthropology of religion.
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The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2018
Tristes tropiques was first published in 1955. A best seller in France, it secured the position o... more Tristes tropiques was first published in 1955. A best seller in France, it secured the position of Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908–2009) in French public intellectual life. Simultaneously ethnography and autobiography, Tristes tropiques is notable for its articulation of a powerful critique of Western notions of progress and civilization and problems of pollution and racism. The book merits attention not only for those interested in Lévi-Strauss, it also provides key insights into developments in structuralism and anthropology.
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Through revisiting and challenging what we think we know about the work of Edward Burnett Tylor, ... more Through revisiting and challenging what we think we know about the work of Edward Burnett Tylor, a founding figure of anthropology, this volume explores new connections and insights that link Tylor and his work to present concerns in new and important ways.
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This book argues that neither theories of secularisation nor theories lived religion offer satisf... more This book argues that neither theories of secularisation nor theories lived religion offer satisfactory accounts of religion and social change. Drawing from Deleuze and Gauttari's idea of the assemblage, this books outlines an alternative. Informed by classical and contemporary theories of religion and ethnography conducted in Manila and London, Tremlett re-frames religion as spatially organised flows and, foregrounding the agency of hon-human actors, offers a compelling and original account of religion and social change.
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The traditions of Marxism and Critical Theory stretch from the mid-nineteenth century writings of... more The traditions of Marxism and Critical Theory stretch from the mid-nineteenth century writings of Marx and Engels through to contemporary thinkers such as Jurgen Habermas and Ernesto Laclau. These traditions have conventionally been understood to be foreign to the concerns of Religious Studies. Nevertheless, impressive and important scholarship by the likes of Talal Asad (1993), Richard King (1999) and Kim Knott (2005) established a series of conversations albeit at the margins of Religious Studies, and introduced the writings of Michel de Certeau, Michel Foucault, Henri Lefebvre, Doreen Massey and Edward Said (among others) to the World Religions Paradigm (WRP) In doing so, they raised a number of questions that could be said to be, ‘in debt to Marx’. Those questions addressed problems of power and knowledge, of social reproduction, the fabrication of legitimacy, the transmission of knowledge into minds and bodies and indeed the very constitution of minds and bodies as experiencing...
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Anthropology Matters, 1970
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Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints, 2014
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Religion and Society: Advances in Research, 2012
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Sociology, 2016
Hong Kong has been represented as a politically indifferent, capitalist utopia. This representati... more Hong Kong has been represented as a politically indifferent, capitalist utopia. This representation was first deployed by British colonial elites and has since been embroidered by Hong Kong’s new political masters in Beijing. Yet, on 15 October 2011, anti-capitalist activists identifying with the global Occupy movement assembled in Hong Kong Central and occupied a space under the HSBC bank. Occupy Hong Kong proved to be the longest occupation of all that was initiated by the global Occupy movement. Situated in a space notable for previously having been the haunt of Filipina domestic workers, the occupation conjured a community into the purified spaces of Hong Kong’s financial district. I describe this in terms of an eruption of the sacred that placed conventional norms of Hong Kong city life under erasure, releasing powerful emotions into spaces once thought to be immune to the ritual effervescences of the transgressive.
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Soundings, 2014
T oday we occupy a curious vantage point when it comes to the question of religion. The great thi... more T oday we occupy a curious vantage point when it comes to the question of religion. The great thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries predicted its inevitable demise. And in the twenty-first, self-styled ‘new’ atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris have vociferously spoken out against its allegedly malign influence on politics, education and knowledge. Yet religion shows no signs of decline.
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Implicit Religion, 2013
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Culture and Religion, 2012
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Culture and Religion, 2012
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Books by Paul-Francois Tremlett
Papers by Paul-Francois Tremlett
so. In this essay I reflect on Panagiotopoulos and Roussou’s concept of “transreligiosity” as a means for re-thinking classical and contemporary methodological debates in religious studies, and for reflecting on methods as social practices.
so. In this essay I reflect on Panagiotopoulos and Roussou’s concept of “transreligiosity” as a means for re-thinking classical and contemporary methodological debates in religious studies, and for reflecting on methods as social practices.
• Lévi-Strauss’ approach to myth entwines linguistics and dynamic systems theory, pointing ‘back’ to formalism and ‘forward’ to post-structuralism.
• Lévi-Strauss’ critique of evolutionist and functionalist accounts of ‘primitive’ religion undermine notions of progress and accounts of the regulatory role of religion in the closed social system described by functionalism.
• Derrida’s account of language and deconstruction privileges the idea of the open system and has significant implications for textual, historical, and sociological studies of religion.
the debate about religion ‘out of the scholarly journals and academic conferences and into the public domain’ (2). Jones pitches this book to these same publics, to critically evaluate cognitive explanations of religion, the evidence base they draw upon and what can be learnt from
cognitive approaches.
that surrounds religious practice? ‘Being “secular,”’ she speculates, ‘might not only be a matter of being without religion but also a matter of being with something else’ (p. 5). But what?
companion to the writings of the four horsemen of the new atheism, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett and Christopher Hitchens. The remarkable interest in the writings and pronouncements of these new atheists certainly requires interrogation, and the essays in this excellent book offer a range of perspectives for reflecting on, among other things, the substance of the new atheist critique of religion, the links between atheism and science, sociological explanations for the sudden and unexpected surge of interest in atheism, theological engagements with secular critiques and the epistemological links
between the new atheism and religious fundamentalism. Ably put together by the editor Amarnath Amarasingam with the support of Warren Goldstein, series editor for Studies in Critical Research on Religion for Brill, I expect this volume to become essential reading for scholars and students, whether from theological, philosophical, sociological or religious studies disciplinary backgrounds. In what
follows, I will outline the contents of the book before selecting, perhaps
arbitrarily, two of the essays for more sustained reflection.
religion should supplant, as the text book of choice for undergraduate level
courses on phenomenology, the older introductory volumes by the likes of Eric Sharpe and Ninian Smart.
By looking at emotional landscapes we wish to bring attention to the affective and material turns in eco-criticism and cultural theory. These are pointing to a recognition of what we might call ‘feeling signs’ in a revised biosemiotics: a neglected ontological dimension which can elucidate how cognition and emotion are co-shaped by – and in turn shape – physical place. Thus, the conference brings into focus ‘emotional landscapes’ aiming to go beyond more disincarnate and anthropocentric – albeit important – understandings of cultural, social or historical content, such as Raymond Williams’ ‘structure of feelings’.
We invite creative incursions into past, present and future geographies of disappointment, regret, hope, despair, anxiety, love, empathy, grief, joy, fatigue, shame, anger, sorrow, resignation, resilience, romanticism, sympathy, tragedy, trauma, vulnerability, detachment – and many more. By illuminating both historical and contemporary emotional landscapes we will explore new embodied and artistic approaches to the emotions of the climate and ecological crises, not only as affects, or ‘feelings that have found the right match in words’ (Brennan, 2004: 5), but also landscapes, bodies, and material culture.
Papers and panels can respond to (but are not limited to) the ways in which the arts are mapping:
Urban and rural landscapes
Oceans and waterways
Storms, extreme weather and floods
Burnt land and desertification
Walking across landscapes and pilgrimages
Liminal landscapes and protest
New technologies changing landscapes
Post-human landscapes
Landscapes of waste and plastic