Category talk:Religious scholars

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[edit] Perhaps "Religion scholars" is a better name?

I don't like the name of this category; nor of its subcategory Category:Vedic scholars. In my ears, a "religious scholar" is a scholar who is religious, especially if his/her religiosity is directly related to the scholarly views put forward by the scholar. This should apply to christian fundamentalists with an academic education in biology who defend the intelligent design theory - and yes, there is a small number of people actually combining these features. However, it would not apply to e.g. an atheist theologian. A possible term could be "religion scholars", which is used in the List of religion scholars.

Likewise, a Vedic scholar should be a scholar from long ago, actually living and working in a "Vedic" environment. Possibly Panini could qualify in such a category; he undoubtedly was an important scholar, whose ideas about grammar were much more advanced than the classic western grammarians, and who actually has had tangible influence even on modern grammatics. The prefix "Vedic" is not as obvious, since "by definition" he ended the Vedic period. (The next phase in the development of Sanscrit, the classic Sanscrit, is defined by Panini's Sanscrit grammar.)

Am I right, or am I misunderstanding some nuances of attributes in the English language? JoergenB 11:37, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

No, you're right; there's a problem here. The problem is larger than this one category but perhaps particularly acute here because it refers to people. "Religious" is used generally as a modifier to describe someone's personal beliefs, attitude, or approach; to use it for people engaged in the study of religion is confusing. The article religious studies states up-front that it's the secular study of religion, but that simply doesn't translate well in category names. One approach might be to create Category:Academics and scholars of religion and leave "religious X" to denote scholars from within a particular religious tradition. That doesn't wholly resolve the ambiguity, to my mind. Thoughts? --Lquilter (talk) 19:37, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean that there are similar problems with category names for persons studying other fields? Hmmm... if so, you may be right. I just looked at the subcategories of Category:Scholars by subject, and I do notice that the conventions vary a bit. E.g., (happily!!) not "Antisemitic scolars" but Scholars of antisemitism; not "Marxistic scolars" but Scholars of Marxism; but, on the other hand, Islamic scolars and Middle East scholars. In all these cases, the attribute mainly intends to signify the subject of study. However, Feminist scholars probably doesn't. (If I'm right, actually this category should be retained, but not as a subcategory of Scolars by subject. Instead, most of the persons in the category might be put into a new category, e.g. Category:Scholars of social gender. However, you could study other subject from a feministic point of view, or study gender from a non-feministic one, I think.)

So, if the problem is more general, should we move all this to Category talk:Scholars by subject?--JoergenB (talk) 20:06, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

I've been banging this drum for a while there and elsewhere! The most conversation that's happened has been at Category talk:Journalism academics, following a WP:CFD. Please do check out the discussion & weigh in. Your participation would be welcome -- could help to get the conversation started again, and could raise issues (like the religious scholars one) that haven't been thought of. --Lquilter (talk) 01:40, 28 December 2007 (UTC)