Religion, Science, and Empire

Gottschalk, Peter:
Religion, Science, and Empire : Classifying Hinduism and Islam in British India / Peter Gottschalk. - New York : Oxford University Press, 2012. - ca. 416 S.
ISBN 978-0-19-539301-9
US$ 65,00 / £ 40,00
DDC: 306.60954
-- Angekündigt für Oktober 2012 --

Beschreibung
Peter Gottschalk offers a compelling study of how, through the British implementation of scientific taxonomy in the subcontinent, Britons and Indians identified an inherent divide between mutually antagonistic religious communities.
   England's ascent to power coincided with the rise of empirical science as an authoritative way of knowing not only the natural world, but the human one as well. The British scientific passion for classification, combined with the Christian impulse to differentiate people according to religion, led to a designation of Indians as either Hindu or Muslim according to rigidly defined criteria that paralleled classification in botanical and zoological taxonomies.
   Through an historical and ethnographic study of the north Indian village of Chainpur, Gottschalk shows that the Britons' presumed categories did not necessarily reflect the Indians' concepts of their own identities, though many Indians came to embrace this scientism and gradually accepted the categories the British instituted through projects like the Census of India, the Archaeological Survey of India, and the India Museum. Today's propogators of Hindu-Muslim violence often cite scientistic formulations of difference that descend directly from the categories introduced by imperial Britain. [Verlagsinformation]

Inhalt
Acknowledgements. xi
List of Illustrations. xv
Term Glossary. xvii
Place Glossary. xix
Introduction. 3
1. Religion, Science, and Scientism. 20
2. Cartography, the Ideal of Science, and the Place of Religion. 54
   First Interlude: The Dynamics of Comparison and Classification. 88
3. Christocentric Travel Writing: Dynamics of Comparison and Classification. 96
   Second Interlude: The Five Modes of Comparison. 132
4. Humanist Travel Writing: Ascent of Empiricism and the On the Spot. 136
   Third Interlude: Classification in the Natural Sciences. 174
5. Categories to Count On: Religion and Caste in the Census. 182
6. A Raja, a Ghost, and a Tribe: Studies in Folklore, Ethnology, and Religion. 225
7. Popularizing Chainpur's Past: Archaeology in Place and in Museums. 266
8. Chainpur Today. 295
Conclusion. 331
Appendices. 339
Notes. 346
Bibliography. 377
Index. 401

Autor

PETER GOTTSCHALK, Professor and Chair, Department of Religion, Wesleyan University. Profile page.

Quellen: Oxford University Press (USA); Oxford University Press (UK); WorldCat; Library of Congress; Amazon
Bildquellen: Oxford University Press (UK); Wesleyan University
Bibliographie: [1]

References