Description: Carl Olson offers a compelling and provocative argument against the application of postmodern thought to Religious Studies, showing how such radically skeptical thinking undermines, subverts, and distorts the study of religion.
Review Quotes: "The Allure Decadent Thinking is something that has been crying out to be done. It contributes to new understanding. It makes important corrections to well-established views. It adds a new approach to the study of religion. In short, it makes a most valuable and original contribution to the ongoing formation of religious studies as a discipline in the modern university."--Sushil Mittal, Professor of Religion, James Madison University
"Postmodernism has had a tremendous impact on the study of religion. This impact has been bemoaned and celebrated alike. Many of us are as ambivalent as we are indebted, as resistant as we are convinced. What we have often lacked are systematic meditations on the power and problems of the approach across the field as a whole. Carl Olson's new book answers that need with his trademark insight, balance, and verve."--Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophical and Religious Thought, Rice University"In this learned work, Carl Olson meets head on and with admirable incisiveness the critical challenge facing religious belief and practice in our times. This is a major contribution to setting the academic study of religion on a constructive course once more."--Julius Lipner, FBA, Professor of Hinduism and the Comparative Study of Religion, University of Cambridge