Religion for Religious Studies?

Abstract

The paper contributes to the polemics on the book by Sergey Shtyrkov and focuses on а genealogical analysis of the concept of religion. Anthropological research of the last decades made academic understanding of religion problematic. However, discussions of political semantics and the analytical use of the concept still are often avoided by social disciplines in Russia. The genealogy of present-day religious studies should be contextualized as related to the political dynamics of secular and post-secular societies that have a need to find a particular social frame for religion.