Critical Approaches to Science and Religion

This book offers a new direction for scholarship on science and religion that centers social, political, and ecological concerns. Featuring a diverse array of contributors, it draws on three vital schools of thought: critical race theory, feminist and queer theory, and postcolonial theory.

Myrna Perez Sheldon is associate professor of gender and American religion, jointly appointed in the Department of Classics and Religious Studies and the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, at Ohio University.

Ahmed Ragab is an associate professor in the Department of the History of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Terence Keel is an associate professor with a joint appointment in the Department of African American Studies and the Institute for Society and Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Randall Styers, author of Making Magic: Religion, Magic, and Science in the Modern World:
With its inclusion of vital perspectives from critical race theory, feminist and queer theory, and postcolonial and Indigenous studies, this volume transforms the conversation about religion and science by making issues of difference central to these discussions. These essays are invaluable.

Kim TallBear, author of Native American DNA: Tribal Belonging and the False Promise of Genetic Science:
I will return repeatedly to this volume to think with these diverse authors. Their disciplinary languages are not mine although they attentively converse with my discipline of Critical Indigenous Studies, among others. I am eager for vital conversations that I and others will have with these ideas that feed my radical hope for the implosion of the white and settler supremacist world view. In order to live better with one another in this world, we need this conversation.

Sylvester A. Johnson, coeditor of Religion and US Empire: Critical New Histories:
Critical Approaches to Science and Religion is a marvelous advance of interdisciplinary scholarship that charts foundational themes for interpreting the cultural dimensions of science and religion. The authors elucidate epistemological tensions and methodological resonances to inform future scholarship. This is essential reading for scholars across multiple disciplines.