Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Specialness and the sacred: Ann Taves, Religious Experience Reconsidered
AU - Knott, Kim
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Ann Taves proposes an encompassing framework of ‘specialness’ in which both simple and complex ascriptions of things deemed significant – whether religious, spiritual, magical or ideological – may be contained. Her preference for ‘specialness’ over other terms is clearly argued, but does not adequately take into consideration recent, comparable research on the ‘sacred’, in particular the work of Anttonen. Whilst acknowledging the flawed nature of ‘sacred’ as a scholarly resource, I note that it may not be easily set aside. Unlike ‘special’, ‘sacred’ has deep and wide-ranging cultural resonances that not only attract and repel scholars in equal measure, but remain at the heart of popular and theological usage for signalling those things, places, values and issues that are non-negotiable, forbidden, or of deep and abiding significance.
AB - Ann Taves proposes an encompassing framework of ‘specialness’ in which both simple and complex ascriptions of things deemed significant – whether religious, spiritual, magical or ideological – may be contained. Her preference for ‘specialness’ over other terms is clearly argued, but does not adequately take into consideration recent, comparable research on the ‘sacred’, in particular the work of Anttonen. Whilst acknowledging the flawed nature of ‘sacred’ as a scholarly resource, I note that it may not be easily set aside. Unlike ‘special’, ‘sacred’ has deep and wide-ranging cultural resonances that not only attract and repel scholars in equal measure, but remain at the heart of popular and theological usage for signalling those things, places, values and issues that are non-negotiable, forbidden, or of deep and abiding significance.
U2 - 10.1016/j.religion.2010.09.007
DO - 10.1016/j.religion.2010.09.007
M3 - Journal article
VL - 40
SP - 305
EP - 307
JO - Religion
JF - Religion
SN - 0048-721X
IS - 4
ER -