Talking About Cults: Abuse and the Study of New Religious Movements - Couverture souple

Gleig, Ann

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0820377902 ISBN 13 : 9780820377902

Editeur : University of Georgia Press, 2026

Synopsis

Talking About Cults explores a series of questions: Why have scholars of minority religion rejected the term cult and the wider field of cultic studies? How have they responded to allegations of abuse in minority religion? Why do so many survivors of abuse find cult discourse helpful? What new directions are emerging and should be encouraged in the study of abuse in NRMs that are more attuned to survivors’ experience? The academic subfield of new religious movements (NRMs) developed in reaction to cultic studies and the two fields became polarized in the “Cult Wars,” a charged intellectual and legal battle that has raged on since the 1970s. In this context, a disciplinary consensus formed in the study of NRMs that minimized allegations of abuse within NRMs and discredited the reliability of ex-members who made them. While feminist scholars of religion attempted to draw attention to gendered forms of abuse in these groups, they were largely ignored in consensus NRM scholarship. Inspired by a feminist survivor-centered approach, Ann Gleig argues that rather than automatically rejecting cult discourse, scholars need to ask what its function and value is for survivors of abuse. Through interviews with survivors of abuse in Buddhist contexts, she discovered that they drew on cult discourse selectively and critically to identify, understand, and heal from the dynamics that had caused them harm in their former communities as well as to prevent future abuse in Buddhist communities.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

ANN GLEIG is professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida. Her research specialties include Buddhism in North America and American spiritualities that draw on Buddhism and Hinduism. She is the author of American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity. Gleig is also the coeditor, with Scott A. Mitchell, of The Oxford Handbook of American Buddhism and coeditor, with Lola Williamson, of Homegrown Gurus: From Hinduism in America to American Hinduism. She lives and writes in Orlando, Florida.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Georgia Press
• Date d'édition: 2026
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0820377902
• ISBN 13: 9780820377902
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 156
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible