"The issues discussed in the first edition have not gone away; they are here now with a vengeance. This second edition rises to the occasion with new provocative chapter introductions that are not to be missed. But what is most remarkable is how the old and new come together in a way that will have us read the field-its history, its challenges, and its potential--with fresh perspective and the vigor to make it better."
Richard Newton, The University of Alabama, U.S.A.
"Russell T. McCutcheon's Critics Not Caretakers was one of a small handful of key works from the last thirty years that helped to bring about a paradigm shift in the academic study of religion, a shift that opened up space
for all-new avenues of research on the political history of the concept of religion. The material new to this second edition helps readers-both old and new-situate the book in relation to the history of the discipline, the debates that were taking place at the time of its publication, and the scholarship since that has participated in the book's trajectory; along the way, McCutcheon points to where his hopes for the discipline remained as yet unfulfilled.
Critics is now essential reading for any scholar writing on the contested history of "religion.""
Craig Martin,
St. Thomas Aquinas College, U.S.A."What McCutcheon does so masterfully in this work is to provide clarity on what religious studies as a discipline has the power to do so well: to analyze how people both create and respond to ideas of unquestionable authority, the driving concept behind so many movements we call "religion" today. However, this book's longevity and relevance lies in its central claim that scholars of religion also have these unquestionable authorities with which they must grapple. This is a must-read for anyone who takes seriously the social and political dynamics that define the academic study of religion."
Leslie Smith,
Avila University, U.S.A."In
Critics Not Caretakers, McCutcheon offers a way of writing about and teaching contentious topics, not only in the study of religion but also in the wider humanities and social sciences since it is not really about 'religion' but the critical study of a category that has been taken for granted. This augmented second edition is a reminder of what it is a scholar of religion is studying: the ways in which humans categorise, classify, divide the world around them into sacred/secular, insider/outsider and so on, bringing to our attention the scholarly assumptions privileging the 'sacred' and the 'insider' in these bifurcations. McCutcheon gives attention to both theoretical concerns and pedagogy, and thus this book has a practical application for those researching and teaching the study of religion."
Suzanne Owen,
Leeds Trinity University, UK.
