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Vital New Matters: The Speculative Turn in the Study of Religion and Gender

Paul Reid-Bowen

Abstract
This article provides an introduction to a new trend in continental philosophy, the turn toward metaphysics, realism and speculative philosophy. This stands in sharp contrast with the antirealist and correlationist traditions that have held sway since Kant’s Copernican Revolution in 1781. It is claimed that the study of religion and gender has been shaped by the antirealist legacy of Kant, but there are good reasons for taking account of the new ‘speculative turn’. Two examples from the leading exponent of this turn, speculative realism, are introduced, and some provisional notes toward applying these to the gender-critical turn in the study of religion are considered. Research notes on the current state of the Goddess movement serve as a test case for the introduction of an object-oriented ontology into religious and gender studies.

Keywords
Antirealism, metaphysics, speculative realism, object-oriented, Goddess movement

Author affiliation
Paul Reid-Bowen is a senior lecturer in Philosophy and Ethics and Study of Religions at Bath Spa University, UK. His research and teaching interests