Difference, Reflexivity, and the Making of Comparison: Introducing Dissertia Research Reviews
Editorial Foreword
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65394/dissertia2025.1.1.drciKeywords:
Comparison, Religion, Society, ResearchAbstract
This editorial introduces the inaugural issue of Dissertia Research Reviews, which foregrounds comparative, cross-regional, and cross-cultural inquiry as essential for understanding religion, culture, and society beyond the limitations of WEIRD-centered knowledge production. Drawing on recent methodological debates, it highlights comparison as a reflexive scholarly craft that holds similarity and difference in productive tension, following the insights of Jonathan Z. Smith, Robert A. Segal, and others. The Special Issue on Comparative Religion exemplifies this approach through contributions spanning cosmology, metaphysics, theology, gender, interreligious encounter, cultural policy, and spirituality, employing diverse theoretical and methodological frameworks. Emphasizing research rooted in Iranian, Turkish, and wider West Asian contexts, the issue amplifies local cultures of understanding religion and spirituality that remain underrepresented in global academic discourse. Together, these studies advance a multi-voiced, critically attentive comparative practice and inaugurate the journal’s commitment to epistemic inclusivity, methodological rigor, and global scholarly dialogue.
References
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Henrich, Joseph, Steven J. Heine, and Ara Norenzayan. 2010. “Beyond WEIRD: Towards a Broad-Based Behavioral Science.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 33 (2–3): 111–35. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000725.
McCaffree, Kevin. 2024. “Interview with Alan Fiske for Theory and Society.” Theory and Society 53 (6): 1473–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-024-09579-y.
McClymond, Kathryn. 2018. “Comparison as Conversation and Craft.” Religions 9 (2): 39. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel9020039.
Segal, Robert A. 2005. Review of Classification and Comparison in the Study of Religion: The Work of Jonathan Z. Smith, by Jonathan Z. Smith. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 73 (4): 1175–88. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4139771.
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1987. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226763613.
Smith, Jonathan Z. 1990. Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226763637.
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