In the recent past, attempts to revitalize historico‐religious studies have challenged the charismatic appeal of some of the most celebrated scholars of the twentieth century. At the same time, the old and ideological frameworks that characterized the field have been critically analyzed and deconstructed. The disciplinary status quo, taken for granted for quite a long time, has been shaken to its foundation, paving the way for new approaches. However, the postmodern tenet of problematizing any authority has also become a convenient shortcut to blur the distinction between scientific signal (i.e., knowledge systematically obtained via rational inquiry) and nonepistemic noise (i.e., pseudoscience). Despite this troublesome feature, some scholars have deployed postmodern and poststructuralist tools to study the genealogy, reception, implementation, and diffusion of cultural representations within the aforementioned academic discipline. The present article briefly reviews one of the most recent and remarkable examples of such scholarship, that is, The Scientification of Religion: An Historical Study of Discursive Change, 1800–2000 (von Stuckrad 2014).
After summarizing Roger Griffin’s Fascism: An Introduction to Comparative Fascist Studies (2018), I describe the academic subfield of Comparative Fascist Studies (CFS). I argue that CFS could be strengthened by integrating it with cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, and religious studies. That biocultural integration would make it more effective as both a scholarly endeavour and an antifascist vaccine for democratic societies. I explain the role of traditional mass media and digital social media in the rise of dominance-style leadership and radical-right populism, construct a neurosociological revision of the CFS concept of fascism as a “political religion,” and characterize ultranationalism as a set of maladaptive supernormal stimuli. These revisions of CFS aim at providing a cross-disciplinary framework able to explain the spread of alt-right conspiracy theories online and offline.
The presence of fringe and debatable methods and theories is widespread in the academia, excluding practically no discipline. Since theoretical reliability, epistemic warrant and empirical support are contentious issues, the demarcation between science and pseudoscience remains highly controversial, especially in the Humanities. However, a renewed interest in the demarcation problem holds much promise to tackle the underlying methodological and epistemological questions. This review essay briefly deals with the historiographical resilience of pseudoscience and the fascination which psi phenomena in the academic history of religion in the light of Massimo Pigliucci and Maarten Boudry’s recently co-edited book, entitled Philosophy of Pseudoscience: Reconsidering the Demarcation Problem (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2013). A detailed review of Pigliucci and Boudry’s volume is also provided.
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