Evolution eller fenomen? : En diskursanalys av nordisk religionsvetenskap under tidigt 1900-tal

Sammanfattning: The aim of this thesis is to analyse the transformation of the concepts of religion and history between historians of religion Rafael Karsten, Nathan Söderblom, and Geo Widengren. Through the lens of Michel Foucault’s discourse analysis, as interpreted by Gilles Deleuze, Widengrens critique of the Karsten and Söderblom reveals an epistemological rupture between an evolutionist and a phenomenological discourse of religion. Karsten and Söderblom understand religion as following a linear path of development through fixed stages; Widengren instead study it as a transhistorical phenomenon. In line with historian François Hartog’s concept of regimes of historicity, I locate this epistemological rupture within a larger shift from a futurist to a presentist understanding of history. In futurism history is understood as oriented towards a future goal, while in presentism history is part of a broad present and of constant actuality.