国产视频 hosted the launch of on Tuesday 29th April 2026 at the Aga Khan Centre, London. Six pioneering scholars shared their reflections on a methodological revolution sometimes known as 鈥淐ritical Religion,鈥 engaging in a panel discussion on how categories such as 鈥渞eligion鈥 and 鈥渢he secular鈥 shape public life, governance, and scholarship. A recording of the discussion will be available on the .
Edited by IIS faculty member Dr Alex Henley and published by Bloomsbury Academic Press, the volume brings together contributions from 12 scholars from across religious studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, modern history, and education. Designed as an accessible entry point into the growing transdisciplinary field of 鈥淐ritical Religion,鈥 the book asks a deceptively simple but far-reaching question: what happens when we stop treating 鈥渞eligion鈥 as an obvious, universal category and instead investigate how that label is constructed, used, and contested?
About the event
Opening the event, Dr Henley welcomed participants to a conversation that was both theoretically ambitious and practically grounded. He described the volume as an attempt to make critical theory on the concept of 鈥渞eligion鈥 more accessible, including to those who may be sceptical of ideas that can feel rather abstractly meta-theoretical. This practical guide is not so much a theory textbook as it is a guide to theory-informed practice 鈥 not only for specialists in religious studies but for anyone working with categories such as 鈥渞eligion鈥 or 鈥渇aith鈥 and their so-called 鈥渟ecular鈥 opposites, including 鈥減olitics鈥 and 鈥渃ulture.鈥
A central theme of his introductory presentation was that words do important work in the world. Categories such as 鈥渞eligion鈥 and 鈥渢he secular,鈥 he noted, often appear neutral, but in practice they classify people, traditions, and institutions in ways that can legitimise or de-legitimise, empower or marginalise. For that reason, Critical Religion scholars often place terms such as 鈥渞eligion鈥 in quotation marks as a reminder that these are historically produced and powerfully consequential categories rather than transparent descriptions of reality.
Speaking in the context of an institution devoted to Islamic studies, Dr Henley drew attention to a familiar saying in many Muslim settings: 鈥淚slam is not merely a religion, but a way of life.鈥 Taking that intuition seriously, he suggested, opens onto larger questions about whether the category 鈥渞eligion鈥 adequately captures Muslim traditions, practices, and forms of life in all their complexity. Such questions are especially relevant for students of Islam, for whom modern Western distinctions between 鈥渞eligious鈥 and 鈥渟ecular鈥 may obscure more than they reveal.
This concern with cross-cultural understanding lies at the heart of A Practical Guide to Critical Religion. The volume offers a window into a scholarly movement that challenges the assumption that religion is a discrete thing that can be straightforwardly identified across cultures and historical periods. It invites readers to examine the changing uses and effects of the terms through which social worlds are organised. The aim is not simply deconstruction for its own sake, but more careful, reflexive, and productive scholarship.
The event鈥檚 discussion resonated with IIS鈥 ethos of encouraging critical yet empathetic approaches to the study of Islam that are methodologically rigorous, transdisciplinary, and globally attentive to Muslims鈥 diverse and changing historical contexts. A Practical Guide to Critical Religion speaks directly to this commitment by asking students and scholars to think carefully about the conceptual tools through which societies, traditions, and histories are described, both in academic analysis and in public discourse.
Outline of the book
The book is organised in three parts.
Part I offers Dr Henley鈥檚 own introduction to 鈥淐ritical Religion,鈥 outlining what is at stake in questioning the category 鈥渞eligion鈥 and presenting a toolkit of potential approaches for readers new to the field.
Part II brings together reflections from three leading scholars associated with this intellectual shift 鈥 Aaron Hughes, Russell McCutcheon, and Timothy Fitzgerald 鈥 who give their own perspectives on what it means to be critical about categories and why it matters.
Part III presents seven case studies that show critical approaches in action. Drawn from diverse disciplines and fields of study, these cases range fromEast and West Asia to Europe and North America, and engage themes including governance, minority politics, indigeneity, education, gender, and public life. Together they demonstrate how critical theory can be applied to generate new insights in empirical research and in teaching.
Panel of authors
The launch event brought together six contributors and leading voices from universities around the UK and as far as Canada. Each speaker on the panel reflected on what 鈥淐ritical Religion鈥 means in their own work and fields.
Dr Alex Henley, the book鈥檚 editor, leads IIS鈥 flagship Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities. His research focuses on 鈥渞eligion鈥 as a changing category of practice and governance in the modern West Asia, especially in relation to leadership, institutionalisation, and sectarianisation.
, Research Associate at the Center for Critical Research on Religion and formerly Reader in Religion at the University of Stirling, is widely recognised for coining the term 鈥淐ritical Religion.鈥 His pioneering work has helped shape debates in the field for more than two decades, including a formative influence on Shahab Ahmed鈥檚 landmark book What is Islam? (2016).
, Professor at Shumei University and Principal of Chaucer College, is a sociologist whose work examines how modern categories of 鈥渞eligion鈥 and 鈥渢he secular鈥 have been constructed and normalised in the Japanese context and in the academic discipline of sociology.
, Associate Professor at Leeds Trinity University and Honorary Secretary of the British Association for the Study of Religions, has written extensively on contemporary Paganism, Druidry, and indigeneity, and contributed perspectives rooted in anthropological and pedagogical practice.
, Visiting Fellow at the Open University and formerly Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, studies the effects of category formation on public life and cultural production, including the governance of 鈥渇aith鈥 in UK state institutions.
, Professor at the University of Ottawa, is known for her influential feminist scholarship and for developing 鈥渧estigial state theory,鈥 which rethinks 鈥渞eligions鈥 as entities operating within the sphere of modern statecraft.
