Discourses on Research Freedom in the Academic Study of Religion. An Overview

Abstract

The present essay aims at exploring the issue of the freedom of research in the Academic Study of Religion. This essay brings together questions, arguments, and narratives in the framework of which the issue has been addressed and expressed. By adopting the approach of the 'discursive research', I seek to trace the production of the meaning of 'freedom' that is legitimated and shared in the Academic Study of Religion. I shall give a breakdown of this process of meaning-production along the following lines: the authority, the rights, and the impartiality of science particularly with regard to both the concept of '(Religious)Value-Free' and the program of the 'academic freedom from religion'. Besides I describe a counter-narrative based on what I may call 'Non-Religious-Value'-Free and the academic program of the 'autonomy of religion'. Eventually, I acknowledge a complementarity between the two narratives, as well as between the notions of facts-given and god/church-given freedom. The central takeaway of the essay is the recognition of a binary opposition between the senses of freedom along these lines.