Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. Readers encounter the first descriptions of inter-disciplinarity, begin to identify the characteristics of the interdisciplinary scholar in religious studies (the most widespread name used in both the field and the university to designate of the current academic study of religion). The book suggests and discusses in more depth interdisciplinarity is a style of performing the methodologies current in a field like religious studies. It argues that because of the nature of the activity that we study and where we study it that is, positionality in religious studies the foundation of personal assumptions and historical preunderstandings forming cultural context integrate in the question. Overall, the book presents a description of the location and situatedness of the scholar adopting an interdisciplinary positionality for knowledge production in religious studies.