pemKey Categories in the Study of Religion emexplores the symbiotic relationship between context and critique. This volume centers on four key contextual categories that stand at the heart of the academic study of religion citizenship and politics, class and economy, gender and sexuality, and race and ethnicity. The contributors to this volume investigate the ways that method, theory, and data are mobilized via context as a primary impetus for critical analysis.ppbrppUsing these key categories, this volume brings together diverse data domains to explore the similarities and differences that emerge when one theoretical framework moves from domain to domain. In the same way that scholars have argued against an essentialist understanding of religion, these categories of analysis should be employed within the matrix of their social, cultural, and ideological contexts.ppbrppEach of the four parts begins with an orienting essay that investigates a category, analyzing the construction of cate