Introduction Theory in a Time of Excess Aaron W. Hughes PART ONE 1. Establishing a Beachhead: NAASR, Twenty Years Later Luther H. Martin, University of Virginia, and Donald Wiebe, University of Toronto PART TWO 2. On the Restraint of Theory Jason N. Blum, Davidson College 3. It's Hard Out There for a Theorist Michael J. Altman, University of Alabama 4.

Signifying "Theory": Toward a Method of Mutually Assured Deconstruction Richard Newton, Elizabethtown College 5. On the Restraint of Consciousness Tara Baldrick-Morrone, Florida State University 6. A Reply Jason N. Blum PART THREE 7. The High Stakes of Identifying (with) One's Object of Study K. Merinda Simmons, University of Alabama 8. New Materialism and the Objects of Religious Studies Martha Smith Roberts, University of California, Santa Barbara 9. Killing The Scholar: Critical Theory, Relevance, and Objects of Study Thomas J.

Whitley, Florida State University 10. The Rhetoric of Disinterest for Authorizing our Critical Position: Historicizing Critical-Theory in Religious Studies Stephen L. Young, Brown University 11. A Reply K. Merinda Simmons PART FOUR 12. What the Cognitive Science of Religion Is (and is not) Claire White, California State University, Northridge 13. "Show me the Money": Big-Money Donors and the Cognitive Science of Religion Brad Stoddard, McDaniel College 14. Of Elephants and Riders: Cognition, Reason and Will in the Study of Religion Matt Sheedy, University of Manitoba 15.

A Reply Claire White PART FIVE 16. The Study of Religion, Bricolage, and Brandom Matthew C. Bagger, University of Alabama 17. Precision and Excess: Doing the Discipline of Religious Studies Rebekka King, Middle State Tennessee University 18. On Druids, The Dude, and Doing Excessive Theory James Dennis Lorusso, Princeton University 19. Reliabilism and the Limits of Pragmatism Robyn Faith Walsh, University of Miami 20. A Reply Matthew C. Bagger PART SIX 21.

Theory is the Best Accessory: Branding and the Power of Scholarly Compartmentalization Leslie Dorrough Smith, University of Alabama Afterword Feast and Famine in the Study of Religion Russell T. McCutcheon, University of Alabama.