Challenges and Possibilities in Interdisciplinary Encounters

Abstract

Walsh argues for the ethical and sociological importance of lived religion studies of violent trauma, culture, and power for our turbulent times, while provocatively and playfully challenging classic Western academic mind/body dualism. She begins to develop an embodied metaphorical correlational approach for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary cross-cultural encounters with truth claims. In this, she centralizes feminist and critical race studies of philosophy, theology, and sociology in juxtaposition with metaphor, narrative, and trauma studies. Lived religion case studies of popular religious and spiritual practices, particularly in the aftermath of global crises such as violent trauma or climate change, become important contributions for challenging the classic Western mind/body dualism institutionalized in academic power centers by giving normative priority instead to the lived experiences and language of trauma survivors.