This article was accepted into the corpus but its outbound wikilinks were never NER-processed — typical at the deepest BFS hop or when the run's entity cap was reached. No expansion funnel to show.
| History of Religions (journal) | |
|---|---|
| Title | History of Religions |
| Discipline | Religious studies |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press |
| Country | United States |
| Frequency | Quarterly |
| History | 1961–present |
History of Religions (journal) is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the historical study of religion. Founded in 1961, it has published scholarship on comparative religion, ritual, myth, and transmission across periods and regions. The journal has been associated with prominent scholars and institutions and appears in major bibliographic indexes.
The journal was established in 1961 amid debates involving Mircea Eliade, Friedrich Max Müller, Wilhelm Schmidt, Edward Burnett Tylor, and scholars influenced by Émile Durkheim, reflecting the rise of comparative approaches linked to institutions such as the University of Chicago, Harvard University, Yale University, Columbia University, and Princeton University. Early editorial leadership included figures connected to the American Academy of Religion, the Society for Biblical Literature, and the International Association for the History of Religions. Over successive decades the journal published work engaging with methods associated with Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, and Paul Tillich, while responding to critiques from proponents of Feminist theology, Postcolonial studies, and scholars influenced by Michel Foucault and Edward Said. Institutional shifts involved collaborations with the University of Chicago Press and contributions from faculty at University of California, Berkeley, University of Oxford, Cambridge University, Leiden University, and the University of Toronto.
The journal aims to foster historical and comparative analyses that bring into conversation case studies from traditions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Shinto, Taoism, Zoroastrianism, Sikhism, Jainism, and indigenous traditions of Africa, Oceania, Mesoamerica, and South America. It emphasizes work drawing on primary sources like the Mahābhārata, Bhagavad Gītā, Qurʾān, Hebrew Bible, New Testament, Tripiṭaka, Analects, Tao Te Ching, and mythic corpora such as the Epic of Gilgamesh and Popol Vuh. The journal encourages interdisciplinary engagement with scholarship by names including Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, Ninian Smart, Rudolf Otto, Alan Dundes, Jonathan Z. Smith, and A. K. Coomaraswamy while situating work in contexts tied to events like the Reformation, the Crusades, the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Meiji Restoration, and the French Revolution.
Editors and board members have historically been drawn from departments and centers such as the Divinity School, University of Chicago, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University, School of Oriental and African Studies, and the Department of South Asian Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Editorial policies reflect standards associated with the Modern Language Association, the American Council of Learned Societies, and funding bodies like the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Publication is managed by the University of Chicago Press in collaboration with academic societies including the American Academy of Religion and the International Association for the History of Religions. The journal appears quarterly and accepts submissions undergoing double-blind peer review by reviewers affiliated with institutions such as University of Michigan, Duke University, Brown University, Cornell University, and University of Chicago.
The journal is abstracted and indexed in major services such as JSTOR, Project MUSE, Scopus, Web of Science, ATLA Religion Database, EBSCOhost, and the MLA International Bibliography. It is catalogued in library systems maintained by the Library of Congress, the British Library, and national libraries of France, Germany, Japan, and India. Citation tracking registers entries in databases like Google Scholar and institutional repositories at Harvard Library, Bodleian Library, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
Noteworthy articles have engaged topics including ritual theory linked to Victor Turner and Arnold van Gennep, comparative myth studies referencing Joseph Campbell and James Frazer, and historical readings of scripture informed by scholars such as John Dominic Crossan and Elaine Pagels. Special issues have focused on themes like religion and empire with contributions referencing the British Empire, Ottoman Empire, Mughal Empire, and the Spanish colonization of the Americas; studies of conversion citing casework from the Great Awakenings, Taiping Rebellion, and Taizé Community; and methodological debates touching on Phenomenology of religion and Historical-critical method. Guest editors have included scholars affiliated with University of Chicago, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, University of Cambridge, and National University of Singapore.
Scholarly reception has been shaped by engagement from reviewers in venues such as the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Religious Studies Review, Theologische Literaturzeitung, and Numen. The journal's influence is visible in citation networks within programs at Princeton Theological Seminary, Union Theological Seminary, King's College London, and in monographs from presses like Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Routledge. Debates arising in its pages have intersected with movements such as Liberation theology, Process theology, Postcolonial theology, and academic responses to events including the 1967 Arab–Israeli War, the Partition of India, and the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Back issues are available through archival services like JSTOR and digital platforms administered by the University of Chicago Press. Institutional access is provided to subscribers at universities such as Yale University, Stanford University, Columbia University, and University of Melbourne; public access is mediated through libraries including the New York Public Library, British Library, and state libraries of Australia and Canada. Individual articles are discoverable via catalogues maintained by WorldCat and aggregated in citation services like CrossRef.
Category:Religious studies journals