Explaining, Interpreting, and Theorizing Religion and Myth

Nickolas P. Roubekas, Ph.D. (Aristotle University, 2011), is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Vienna. He specializes in theories of religion and the Graeco-Roman world and has more recently edited Theorizing "Religion" in Antiquity (Equinox, 2019). Thomas Ryba, Ph.D. (Northwestern University, 1986), is Notre Dame Theologian for the Aquinas Educational Foundation/Purdue and Senior Lecturer and Director of Religious Studies and Philosophy at Purdue University. He has published numerous books and articles on religion, theology, and related subjects. Contributors are: Douglas Allen, Fiona Bowie, Dexter E. Callender, Jr., Laura Feldt, Jose Manuel Losada, William Hansen, Raya A. Jones, Roderick Main, Jon Mills, Henry Munson, Angus Nicholls, Daniel L. Pals, Lukas Pokorny, Bryan S. Rennie, Ivan Strenski, Steven F. Walker, Eric Ziolkowski, Nickolas P. Roubekas, Thomas Ryba.

Contents

Editors’ Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Introduction: Toward a Segalian Religiology
Thomas Ryba

Debating Religion



1 Reductionism in Retrospect: Assessing Robert Segal’s “In Defense of Reductionism” (1983) Almost Four Decades On
Daniel L. Pals

2 Understanding Religion: Interpretation and Explanation
Douglas Allen

3 Robert Segal: Philosopher of Religion, or: Ye’ll huvtae furgi’e oor Robert. He disnae ken his ane strength
Bryan S. Rennie

History, Theory, and Religion



4 Presocratic Theories of Religion
Nickolas P. Roubekas

5 An Episode in the History of the “Science of Religion”: C. P. Tiele’s Indecisive Scientific Practice
Ivan Strenski

6 Many-Titled One; Elephant and Blind Men; Hand and Fingers: Classic Metaphors of Religious Pluralism
Eric Ziolkowski

Reapproaching Religion



7 Re-visioning Religious Archetypes: Cognitive Schemas and Material Anchors in Biblical Criticism
Dexter E. Callender, Jr.

8 The Permeable Boundary between Christian Anti-Judaism and Secular Antisemitism
Henry L. Munson, Jr.

9 Experience and Ontology in the Study of Religion
Fiona Bowie

Debating Myth



10 Theory of Myth versus Meta-Theory of Myth: on the Political Implications of a Late Twentieth-Century Distinction
Angus Nicholls

11 Deconstructing Myth
Jon Mills

12 Myth, Synchronicity, and the Physical World
Roderick Main
Interrogating Myth



13 Mythic Aetiologies of Loss
William Hansen

14 Fictioning Myths and Mythic Fictions: the Standard-Babylonian Gilgameš Epic and Questions of Heroism, Myth, and Fiction
Laura Feldt

15 The Millenarian Myth Ethnocentrized: the Case of East Asian New Religious Movements
Lukas Pokorny

Myth Revisited



16 Métaphysique noire: the Dybbuk Myth and the Book of Job as Mythological Subtexts in the Coen Brothers’ Film A Serious Man
Steven F. Walker

17 Jung’s “Very Twentieth-Century” View of Mind: Implications for Theorizing about Myth
Raya A. Jones

18 Cultural Mythcriticism and Today’s Challenges to Myth
José Manuel Losada

Annex: Bibliography of Robert A. Segal, 1976–2019

Index