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Religion and the Evidence of Experience

Thursday Lecture Series, Evidence

dateMarch 31, 2011 timeThursday, 12:15pm EDT location Columbia University, The Heyman Center

Experience—things that people undergo and report—is problematic as a source of evidence in religious studies and associated disciplines. Yet it seems impossible to do without this source altogether. Experience has been most closely associated with interpretive approaches to the study of human behavior, but approaches that focus on power have been critical of interpretation. An adequate account of experience will have to incorporate theories of both interpretation and of power.