Front cover of Graham Harvey's Food, Sex and Strangers
Now and again, academics need to ponder the use of the words that appear to define their disciplines. Anthropologists have worried about “culture”, while “literature” has been debated in English. It isn’t that we claim ownership of particular topics, or that we think we have privileged access to phenomena that interest us. Usually the opposite is true. It’s possible to discuss everything as “culture” or “literature”. Scholars often revel in fertile debates when different disciplines say something provocative or fresh. Scholars of religion have been vigorously debating the meaning of the term “religion” recently. We’ve been considering where the boundaries lie between religion and whatever is “not religion”. Perhaps there are no boundaries. Those who are “not religious” (whether because they define themselves as “spiritual but not religious” or as atheists or secular humanists) often say or do things that clarify what it is that the study of religions focuses on.