I'm sometimes frustrated that religious studies tends to be too theoretical and divorced from real-world concerns, especially when I myself see religion everywhere; but feel that tools of religious studies don't adequately address and understand those issues in a meaningful way. https://twitter.com/jolyonbt/status/1290002003314135040

Similarly, I'm sometimes frustrated with Asian studies in that it seems reluctant to contribute to conversations about the world at large, and is only really concerned with the category of "Asia"; but not what studying examples from Asia can tell us about the world in general.

That's why this article is so exciting and felt quite novel to me: it argues for bringing the methods of religious studies to bear on matters that are not normally thought to be the purview of religion, but are clearly able to be understood with the methods of religious studies.

Furthermore, it's exciting that the scholars who worked on this are using Asian cases studies to illustrate phenomena that are clearly found throughout the modern world.

Reading this article, it made me feel that it's as though what we're doing when we study Asian Religions is not merely some indulging in some pet interest about some exotic, foreign, other, but doing something that actually means something to the world we live in.

Thanks again; this one brightened my day!

Also, I am extremely happy that this was done as a collaborative project.

I think finding better ways to do collaborative work in humanities beyond simply "I write my bit, you write your bit, then we put them together" is essential to develop methods that enable us to refine our thinking and knowledge about humanistic subjects.