Laruelle, Deconstruction, and Human Religion

This paper takes the measure of Laruelle’s discontent with deconstruction and puts it in conversation with the larger field of religious studies—in part simply to sharpen understanding of Laruelle, but also because so much of religious studies still bears the imprint of postmodern and deconstructive methods. Laruelle’s work asks scholars of religion to confront realities like the inhumanity of critique (the way that it transits in authority and remains complicit in metaphysics) but also the emergence of new alternatives when we take up another stance. What are the risks of a still-deconstructive study of religion? If our task is not to identify the slippages that betray ideology’s unstable footings, or to highlight the incoherent justifications behind religious logics of oppression, what are we to do in their place?