Engaging the Deeper Shifts: Content Expansion and Scientific Engagement

Abstract

One way to think about change in the discipline is to consider the various "turns" it has taken. In a recent review of a potential "normative turn," Stausberg et al. ( 2023) listed many others, including the performative, spatial, aesthetical, material, queer, critical, and digital turns. These "turns," which are largely perspectival, are characteristic of humanities disciplines, where new theoretical perspectives provide one of the traditional means of offering something original. I would expect these turns to continue, each having a brief period of prominence and then fading as a new turn captures our scholarly attention. There are, however, deeper shifts that I have witnessed over the course of my career that I expect will persist and, in doing so, will have an enduring impact on the discipline. The two that stand out for me are (1) the expansion in the content of the discipline, that is, the expansion of what scholars find relevant to study under the rubric of "religious studies," and (2) the increased engagement with the sciences and the related efforts to promote greater consilience between the sciences and the humanities.