“Critical Terms for Religious Studies does not seek to police scholarship in the field. Instead, each chapter conjoins various discourses to help students imagine more interesting avenues of research and to help those lucky enough to be faculty create more diverse and appealing classes. Thanks to Hammerschlag’s shrewd editorial vision, the next twenty-five years of the study of religion should prove to be even more compelling than the last.”

Martin Kavka, Florida State University

“The critical terms assembled here are not a list of so many keywords that one needs to launch a study of religion (no such list exists). Rather, each of the essays, authored by some of the leading scholars of today and tomorrow, offers a new vantage point from which to consider religion by focusing on a seemingly ordinary concept—life, law, matter, etc. A welcome update on the broad scope of the scholarship on religion and its immediate promise.”

Tomoko Masuzawa, University of Michigan