The first generation of the proper academic study of religion might be said to span the half century from 1963 to 2013. Supreme Court Justice Clark's 1963 opinion clarifying that any liberal "education is not complete without a study of comparative religion or the history of religion and its relationship to the advancement of civilization" allowed the legal teaching of religion in secular universities. The end of the first generation might be marked by the 2013 retirement of Professor Jonathan Z. Smith (1938-2017) from the University of Chicago where he had taught since 1968. Arguably no scholar has made a greater contribution than did Smith to establishing a proper academic study of religion. In The Proper Study of Religion, Sam Gill charts an innovative course of development for the academic study of religion by creatively engaging the legacy of Jonathan Z. Smith, Gill's teacher and mentor for fifty years. Their careers coincided with the explosive expansion of the study of religion in secular universities in the US that began in the mid-1960s. Using an engaging narrative style, Gill builds on Smith's work exploring an extensive range of absorbing and foundational topics including: comparison as essential to academic technique and to human knowledge itself; the important role of experience, richly understood, both to academic studies of religion and to religions as lived; play, philosophically understood, as a core dynamic of Smith's entire program; the relationship of academic document-based studies to the sensory-rich real world of religions; and self-moving as providing a biological and philosophical foundation on which to develop and expand upon a proper academic study of religion. The foregrounding of human self-movement, new to the study of religion, is informed by Gill's experience as a dancer and student of dancing in cultures around the world. This book honors the work of an unforgettable giant of a man while also offering critical assessments and innovative ideas in the effort to advance the remarkable legacy of Jonathan Z. Smith.

About the Author
Sam Gill, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, is the author of many books and articles, most recently: Dancing Culture Religion; Religion and Technology into the Future; and Creative Encounters, Appreciating Difference. Dancing, ritual, religion theory, moving and body, biology and philosophy of movement, gesture and posture, religion and senses are some of the fields of his active research. He has done field studies of Native Americans and cultures in Africa, Indonesia, Latin America, Southeast Asia and Australia. For years he operated a world dance and music school and studio.

Reviews
Sam Gill's work offers to the reader a very detailed, engaging, and stimulating discussion of Smith's work in the academic study of religion. Whether one agrees or disagrees with Smith's contributions to the study of religion, it is undeniable that he was and remains one of the most erudite, informed, and witty scholars of religion -- and Sam Gill is to be commended for making this shine in his book. * Nickolas P. Roubekas, University of Vienna, Austria, Religion *
In The Proper Study of Religion: Building on Jonathan Z. Smith, Sam Gill offers an engaging and accessible book that invites the reader to peer deeper into some of the most pivotal and yet often overlooked aspects of Smith's work. As the subtitle aptly suggests, Gill invites the reader to build on Smith's work by considering the significance of Smith's tendency towards jest and play, the centrality of incongruity to Smith's theories of religion, and how to academically evaluate the category of "experience." Part homage, part theoretical treatise, what Gill has offered to the scholarly community is a work of enduring value. * 2021 AAR Book Awards *
Recommended. Graduate students, researchers, faculty. * C. H. Lippy, CHOICE *
The book as a whole is accessible and provides an in-depth but not overwhelming survey of Smith's work, making it extremely teachable. * Jacob Barrett, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, JSRNC *


Awards
Winner of Winner of the Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion: Analytical-Descriptive Studies at the 2021 AAR Book Awards.



Book Information
ISBN 9780197527221
Author Sam Gill
Format Hardback
Page Count 282
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 544g
Dimensions(mm) 163mm * 236mm * 25mm