Sacrifice and Religion
A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 November 2018) | Viewed by 37345
Special Issue Editor
Interests: the development of early Christianity; the interaction between early Christian groups and traditional Mediterranean religions
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Sacrifice is one of the most analyzed, theorized, and debated practices in Religious Studies. It also looms large in the history and ideology of many of the world’s religious traditions, and this salience of ‘sacrifice’ (in all its elaborations) has strongly impacted the scholarly study of the ritual. Many of the classical theories of sacrifice have been soundly critiqued, and recent scholarship has attempted to cut through this historical and theological baggage by re-contextualizing and re-theorizing the ritual in a number of ways. At the same time, scholars have also recognized that the term ‘sacrifice’ (along with an array of related terms in various languages) has been metaphorically and discursively expanded to include concepts and practices that have little to do with the actual act of making physical offerings to imagined beings. This issue welcomes scholarship which brings new theoretical insights from the humanities and social sciences to bear on the practice of physical offerings and/or the discourses surrounding it. By distinguishing the act itself from discourse surrounding the act, we may see better the ways in which both are deployed strategically by actors in a variety of cultural and historical settings. How can an analysis of “sacrifice” (the practice and/or the discourse) still aid the study of religion past and present?
Focus: This issue is focused on critical redescriptive analysis of ritual practices and/or the creation of discourses surrounding “sacrifice.” “Sacrifice” is understood to be a contested category—a competitive nexus of practice and discourse.
Scope: The issue is not limited to any particular time period or cultural context. It is open to any critical analysis of practice and/or discourse.
Prof. Daniel Ullucci
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- Sacrifice
- Animal sacrifice
- Ritual
- Ritualization
- Offering
- Gift
- Reciprocity