All Religion Is Inter-Religion: Engaging the Work of Steven M. Wasserstrom

By: Kambiz GhaneaBassiri and Paul Robertson

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Synopsis: All Religion Is Inter-Religion analyses the ways inter-religious relations have contributed both historically and philosophically to the constructions of the category of “religion” as a distinct subject of study. Regarded as contemporary classics, Steven M. Wasserstrom's Religion after Religion (1999) and Between Muslim and Jew (1995), provided a theoretical reorientation for the study of religion away from hierophanies and ultimacy, and toward lived history and deep pluralism. This book distills and systematizes this reorientation into “nine theses on the study of religion”.Drawing on these theses, as well as Wasserstrom's opus more generally, a distinguished group of colleagues and former students demonstrate that religions can and must be understood through encounters in real time and space and through the complex relations they create and maintain between people, as well as between people and their pasts. The book also features an afterword by Wasserstrom himself, which poses nine riddles to students of religion based on his personal experiences working on religion at the turn of the 21st century.