James L. Cox is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies, University of Edinburgh, UK and Adjunct Professor in the Religion and Society Research Cluster, Western Sydney University, Australia.

'In less capable hands, the biographies of leading scholars may show us how Religious Studies has evolved, but in this book Cox offers something far more exciting and important. He shows us what it has meant, what it means and what it might yet mean to study religion. In this accessible and engaging book he challenges students of religion to be clear about what we study and how we might study it better. This book should be part of every course in the Study of Religions.' Graham Harvey, Lecturer in Religious Studies, The Open University

• Introduction Part One: Formative Influences Chapter 1: Edmund Husserl and Philosophical Phenomenology From Descartes to Kant The Significance of Hegel Husserl and the Transformation to Idealism Husserl's Phenomenological Method Chapter 2: Theological Influences: The School of Albrecht Ritschl The Theological Climate at the Time of Ritschl Ritschl's Theology of Religions Wilhelm Herrmann and Religion as Communion with God Ernst Troeltsch: A Bridge to the Social Sciences Chapter 3: Reductionism and the Social Sciences Evolutionary Assumptions in the Study of Primitive Religions Projectionist Theories as Explaining Religion Classic Cases in Social Scientific Reductionism: Durkheim and Freud Part Two: Key Phenomenological Schools Chapter 4: Foundational Figures in the Dutch School of Phenomenology Background to the Study of Religions in the Netherlands C P Tiele and P D Chantepie de la Saussaye: Christianity as a World Theology W Brede Kristensen as Advocate of the Believer Gerardus van der Leeuw and the Formation of Phenomenological Typologies C J Bleeker's Universal Structure of Religion Chapter 5: Phenomenology in the United Kingdom The African Connection: Parrinder, McKenzie, Walls and Harold Turner E O James and Ninian Smart: From Comparative Religion to Phenomenology Frank Whaling and the Study of Religions in Edinburgh Chapter 6: North American Phenomenology: Wach, Eliade and W C Smith History of Religions as Diachronic Phenomenology Joachim Wach's Empathetic Sociology Mircea Eliade: Religon as a Longing for the Sacred Wilfred Cantwell Smith's Meaning and End of Religion Part Three: Subsequent Debates Chapter 7: The Reductionist-Religionist Debate Current Polarities The Reductionists: Segal, Wiebe and Strenski The Anti-Religionists: Fitzgerald and Platvoet Chapter 8: Alternatives to Phenomenology Dialogical Approaches: Panikkar, Krieger and Flood Religion as Cultural Studies The Cognitive Science of Religion Hervieu-Leger and Religion as a Chain of Memory Chapter 9: A New Phenomenology of Religion Self-Reflexivity and the Phenomenological Tradition Knowing the 'Other' within Oneself Converting to the 'Other' as Phenomenological Empathy Bibliography Index