Academic Religious Studies and the Study of Religion in Ukraine

Abstract

Abstract. This essay focuses on the encylopedically-broad textbook Academic Religious Studies (scientific editor - Professor Anatolii Kolodnyi) and examines the author’s own experience of learning the craft from its pages. Co-authored by a team of scholars of religion, philosophers, and historians, the author argues that Academic Religious Studies has been instrumental for young scholars in Ukraine learning how to study and understand the particularities of religious phenomena and religiosity, and how the various approaches to the study of religion function. The essay reflects on the deep way this textbook covers the following fundamental topics: principles of academic religious studies, disciplinary structure of religious studies, religion as a social phenomenon, religion as a socio-psychological phenomenon, political science of religion, functionality of religion, and more. The author reflects on how, despite its age, Academic Religious Studies has not become outdated and has been useful to her own work in studying contemporary religious phenomena, particularly religious communication in the context of information society.