The Desire for Utopia in the Critical Study of Religion

<p>This dissertation argues that the critical methods developed by and used within the field of religious studies can be reimagined as an expression of the modern desire for Utopia. It investigates how applications of critical social theory occlude the category of experience either deliberately or through methodological slight. Utopia addresses this problematic of representing the existential dimension of social life through its particular formulation of social contradiction. Analyzing Utopia's own representational situation within modernity affords scholars in religion a means to consider their investments in and desires for representing society as a totality that creates the conditions for and anticipates resolutions to these contradictions.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Religion

Year

2017

Author dc:creator

• White, Holly A.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Martha G. Hamner

• Fredric Jameson
• religious studies method
• religious studies theory
• social theory
• Arts and Humanities

Repository record dc:identifier

https://surface.syr.edu/etd/681

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:surface.syr.edu:etd-1681