Upcoming event at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan
Nichibunken Evening Seminar on Japanese Studies (209
th meeting), July 7, 2016 (Thursday), 4:30 P.M – 6:00 P.M.
Speaker: Christopher I. Lehrich
Title: Reconsidering Mircea Eliade: Politics of Religious Studies and the Morphology of Religion
Commentator: Jun’ichi Isomae, Professor, Nichibunken
Language: English
Place: Seminar Room 2, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, 3-2 Oeyama-cho, Goryo, Nishikyo-ku, Kyoto 610-1192
URL: <
http://www.nichibun.ac.jp/>
Abstract:
Mircea
Eliade’s scholarship has gone in and out of fashion, yet it continues
to influence current discourse on religion. This lecture will focus on
the context of Eliade’s reception and the principal criticisms of his
work. The speaker will also discuss the intellectual-historical origins
of Eliade’s project. Through an examination of the principles of
Goethe’s morphology, he will argue for the possibility of a rigorous
reconstruction of Eliade’s approach, and weigh some of its analytical
and synthetic potential. Professor Isomae will then present some
comments on the history of Eliade scholarship in Japan and its impact on
religious studies there.
About the speaker:
Christopher I. Lehrich is author of
The Occult Mind and
The Language of Demons and Angels, and editor of
On Teaching Religion: Essays by Jonathan Z. Smith. He is presently co-editing
Language and Religion for De Gruyter, and arranging the new translation of Claude Lévi-Strauss's
La pensée sauvage. His current research examines the religious semiotics of western art music in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.