Studying the Religious Mind | Methodology in the Cognitive Science of Religion. This item is unavailable.Studying the Religious Mind | Methodology in the Cognitive Science of Religion

The cognitive science of religion does not have its own methodology, and yet from the very beginnings of the discipline, methodology has defined it not only in relation to the general study of religion in the humanities but also to the sciences interested in the mind. Scholars of the cognitive science of religion are using a range of methodologies, borrowing mostly from the cognitive sciences and experimental psychology, but also from biology, archaeology, history, philosophy, linguistics, the social and statistical sciences, neurosciences, and anthropology. In fact, this multi-disciplinarity defines the cognitive science of religion. Such multi-disciplinarity requires hard work and truly interdisciplinary teams, but also continual reflections on and debates about the methodologies being used. In fact, no study of the cognitive science of religion worth its name can rely on only one methodology. Triangulation is standard, but often even more approaches are used. This book consists of selected papers from the Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion and the Journal of Cognitive Historiography. Each chapter demonstrates a particular method or group of methods and how those methods advance our knowledge of the religious mind from the ancient past up to today.

Armin W. Geertz is Emeritus Professor in the History of Religions at the Department of the Study of Religion, Aarhus University, Denmark. Leonardo Ambasciano completed his Ph.D. on the cognitive and deep-historical re-evaluation of the ancient Roman cult of Bona Dea at the Department of Historical Studies, Universita degli Studi di Torino, Italy. In 2016, he was Visiting Lecturer of Religious Studies at Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. Esther Eidinow is Professor of Ancient History in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Bristol. Luther H. Martin is Professor Emeritus of Religion, University of Vermont. Kristoffer L. Nielbo is a researcher and infrastructure manager at the Center for Humanities Computing, Aarhus University. Nickolas P. Roubekas is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria. Valerie van Mulukom is Research Associate in the Brain, Belief, and Behaviour group at CABS, Coventry University. Dimitris Xygalatas holds a joint position between the Interacting Minds Centre at Aarhus University and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut, where he is directing the Experimental Anthropology Lab.