So, what do I want to do with my degree?
There are several ways to answer this question. In this post, I’ll begin by what drew me to religion.
I have no family history.
Well that’s not entirely true, but it certainly felt that way. As a child, I recognized that family consisted of my mother, my 2 brothers, myself, and I vaguely connected with the idea that my father was mysteriously “out there” somewhere. We had no other family in Canada, and lived in an isolated small town a 14-hour drive from the nearest major city. I was completely unaware of any ethnic or cultural traits, and unfamiliar with even the concept of group identity. When asked by adults who my grandparents were, I would tell them, “I don’t have any.” To my young self, I did not.
When I began to visit other children’s houses – saw how they lived, who they were related too, how they behaved, what was expected of them – there was often a stark contrast between their families’ sense of legacy, and my own family’s detachment from filial influence. My mother, in order to mimic her emotional desire for distance from her family and childhood, physically transported herself as far away as she could manage. Her past was a murky and unimportant aspect. Far more pressing matters concerned me, such as food, books, playing, clothing, bicycles, and how I could convince my mother to accommodate me as soon as possible on these pivotal issues.
As children, we could wear what we wanted, sleep, play, speak, behave, bathe, and attend school whenever we felt like it. We got told “no” a lot, but only in regards to financial feasibility. If economically she could provide, she would. But that did not happen often. Quite literally, us children virtually had no rules, no expectations, no script on how to conduct our lives.
And that, dear reader, is the crux of my interest in religion.
Before you get all hokey and dreamy eyed around the notion that I was searching for god or spirituality, let me state that I am fundamentally, irrevocably, and unapologetically an atheist. What I am searching for is a sense of history. Not mere facts and incidents, but answering questions about the nature of humanity and my own history. Religion functions partly as an answer to these questions.
Religion, and the utility of religious behaviour, has held a longstanding fascination in my academic pursuits. Although omnivorous when absorbing various religions, ancient or modern, I have a special interest in New Religious Movements. In examining the social, political, historical, and geographical circumstances in which NRMs are born, we gain insight into past religious movements, as well as new understandings for future evolutions of religious behaviour.
Within dynamic religious movements, my focus is on how people act in meaningful ways, specifically with their rituals, both secular and religious. Ritual studies, or performance theory, seeks to rectify the bifurcation between theory and practice by exploring religious activity as a method that constructs meaning, where the ostensible separation between belief and practice is rejected, and a new, organic, and ever-evolving template is applied. That is, they function as a method to understand, and reinforce, notions of the universe, physically, philosophically, or religiously. I am interested in religion in action.
How people act directly reflect their history and circumstances. My degree, and future academic endeavors, is an exploration of the reasons why. I have found that the more I learn about others, the more I learn about my own behaviours.
Don’t let them fool you, all academics are studying themselves, and I am no exception.
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