Bruce Lincoln
After obtaining his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, studying the History of Religions under the direction of, among others, Mircea Eliade (who claimed Lincoln his most brilliant student), Bruce Lincoln held an appointment at the Center for Humanistic Studies at the University of Minnesota before returning to the University of Chicago where he is the Caroline E. Haskell Professor of the History of Religions. As with many classically trained Historians of Religions trained during the height of Chicago's influence in the field, Lincoln's work emphasizes the acquisition of ancient languages and a focus on texts to study myth and ritual; his data is derived from broad historical and cultural areas: from ancient Iran and India to Native American traditions, Norse mythology, the colonial era in Africa, and the Spanish revolution of the late-1930s. However, unlike many of his peers, he is interested in studying cultural practices as elements of systems in which power and privilege are being contested (rather than studying symbols, myths, and rituals as the phenomena that are merely public expressions of essential, deep meanings). As such, the influence of Marxist social theory is apparent in his work, as is the role played by discourse analysis (as associated with the field of semiotics).
Major Works
Religion, Rebellion, Revolution: An Inter-Disciplinary and Cross-Cultural
Collection of Essays (1985; editor)
Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction
(1986)
Death, War, and Sacrifice: Studies in Ideology and Practice (1991)
Emerging from the Chrysalis: Rituals of Women's Initiation (1991)
Discourse and the Construction of Society: Comparative Studies in Myth,
Ritual, and Classification (1992)
Authority: Construction and Corrosion (1994)
"Conflict," in Mark C. Taylor (ed.), Critical Terms for Religious
Studies (1998)
"Culture," in Willi Braun and Russell T. McCutcheon (eds.),
Guide to the Study of Religion (2000)
Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship (2000)
Holy Terrors: Thinking about Religion after September 11 (2002)
Quotation
"The same destabilizing and irreverent questions one might ask of
any speech act ought be posed of religious discourse. The first of these
is 'Who speaks here?', i.e., what person, group, or institution is responsible
for a text, whatever its putative or apparent author. Beyond that, 'To
what audience? In what immediate and broader context? Through what system
of mediations? With what interests?' And further, 'Of what would the speaker(s)
persuade the audience? What are the consequences if this project of persuasion
should happen to succeed? Who wins what, and how much? Who, conversely,
loses?'"
- from Bruce Lincoln, "Theses on Method" (1996)
Select Web Resources on Lincoln
University
of Chicago's faculty web page for Bruce Lincoln
"The
Rhetoric of Bush and bin Laden," excerpt from Holy Terrors,
by Bruce Lincoln (also available here)
"Words
Matter: How Bush Speaks in Religious Code," from The Boston Globe
newspaper, by Bruce Lincoln
"Theses
on Method," by Bruce Lincoln (Method & Theory in the Study
of Religion 8/3 [1996]: 225-7)
"Jesus
Done Wrong: Bush's Proclamation of Jesus Day," by Bruce Lincoln
"Dubya,
Defender of the Faith: What's Behind the Faith-Based Initiative?"
by Bruce Lincoln
"Mr.
Atta's Meditations, Sept. 10, 2001: A Close Reading of the Text," by Bruce
Lincoln (with responses by Mark Jurgensmeyer and Bruce Lawrence)
Secondary Literature on Lincoln and Religion
Charles Hallisey, "The Comparisons of Bruce Lincoln," Religious
Studies Review 14/1 (1988): 17-22.
Review symposium on the work of Bruce Lincoln, Method & Theory
in the Study of Religion 17/1 (2005): 1-67.