Alright folks, today I gotta share something different – my deep dive into Jonathan Z. Smith. Yeah, that religion professor guy. Honestly? His name kept popping up everywhere I poked around religion studies online. People arguing, agreeing, referencing him like crazy. Made me think, “Okay, gotta see what the fuss is about myself.” Didn’t just wanna take anyone’s word for it.
Figuring Out Where To Start
First hurdle? Knowing which Smith books were the real deal. “Top books” lists exist, sure, but they felt kinda generic. I needed the core stuff. The stuff people actually debate about. So, I started prowling:
- Hit academic forums and subreddits (quietly lurking, mostly).
- Scrolled through reviews on book sites, hunting for the ones called “essential” or “groundbreaking” over and over.
- Checked out college course syllabi posted online – seeing which Smith titles professors kept assigning.
The winners kept emerging:
- Map Is Not Territory
- Imagining Religion
- Drudgery Divine
- To Take Place
- Relating Religion
My Reading Order Strategy (aka Trial and Error)
Everyone said Map Is Not Territory was the absolute foundation. Good starting point, right? Grabbed that thick thing. Started reading essays… and felt like I’d slammed into a brick wall. His writing is DENSE. Arguments twisty. I kept re-reading paragraphs, getting lost. This wasn’t gonna work if I kept trying to swallow it whole.
Plan B:
- Started just skimming chapters, looking for the headlines, the main claims.
- Went online to find super simplified summaries of those key essays like “Map is not Territory” and “I Am a Parrot (Red).” Just needed the gist!
- Used that basic understanding as a foothold. Then, went BACK to the actual text, reading slower, focusing on one section at a time.
- Talked to myself a lot. “Okay, so he’s basically saying… X?” Trying to put it in my own dumb words.
This made a HUGE difference. Suddenly, his point about how we create comparisons between religions, instead of just finding them? Started to click. It was messy, slow progress, but it felt real.
Tackling Imagining Religion
Armed with a bit more confidence, I moved to Imagining Religion. Knew “Religion, Religions, Religious” was the big essay in there. Same approach:
- Found a quick summary of the main argument first.
- Then dove into the essay itself, armed with that outline in my head.
- Highlighted like crazy where he argued religion as a category is constructed by scholars, not something just sitting out there waiting to be labeled.
This one actually felt a bit more direct after Map. Like the pieces were connecting. The idea that we imagine what religion is, rather than just observe it? That stuck with me, started messing with my head.
The Others – Still Working On It!
I’ve got Drudgery Divine and To Take Place sitting on my desk now. Honestly? Relating Religion is still way down the list – folks say it’s even harder, more abstract. I’m pacing myself. After Map, Imagining feels like enough meat to chew on for a while.
The big thing I learned wasn’t just what he wrote, but how to read him: slowly, patiently, breaking it down, getting the basic argument first before swimming in the deep end. It’s work. But man, when that lightbulb goes off? Totally worth the headache.
