“Now you know”: Reception of the religious studies scholar

Abstract

This article interrogates the premises of the question “Does the scholar of religion have a particular role in promoting public and political knowledge and understanding of religion(s)?” by first asking, “In what contexts is the scholar of religion asked to have a role in promoting public and political knowledge and understanding of religion(s)?” Rebekka King argues that there are two hidden assumptions underlying the question. First is the idea that somewhere buried in the request for scholarly input is a public perception of scholars as receptacles of knowledge (i.e. they are the ones who know). Second, this special issue’s larger question betrays assumptions about scholars’ abilities and (perhaps more interestingly) what scholars think about their colleagues’ abilities to promote public and political knowledge and understanding of religion(s). In both cases, it is possible to learn a lot about the role religious studies scholars might play by first considering the roles they are expected to play. In this vein, one might ask how the scholar of religion is classified and categorized in the minds of those who might invite them to play a role in public and political discourses, and how this classification resembles and departs from how scholars of religion classify themselves.