Continuing from my last blog it has to be said
that in contrast with Theology the situation regarding plagiarism
is quite different in
Religious Studies. In Religious Studies plagiarism is comparatively
common.
For
example, one well known Religious Studies scholar misquotes an Indian religious
text in exactly the way described in the previous blog. And he does so in at least five of his books. Yet no one has
even commented on the “typographical error” in these citations. Nor, have they
pointed out that his “translation” comes from another scholar’s work where it
is publish, along with the faulty reference. To make matters worse the
preceding and subsequent passages in these works also come from the work where the original
translation is given along with the flawed reference.
In another instance a Religious Studies scholar
wrote a long description of a specific type of Indian philosophy that continued
for at least three pages that were a direct quotation, without quotation marks,
from a book by an Indian writer. Similarly another well know Religious Studies
scholar produced a book discussing the views of one of the early founders of
“comparative religion.” This book reads well until one checks the footnotes and
compares the text against the work of the scholar whose views are being
expounded.
Once this is done it soon becomes apparent that the entire book is a
continuous paraphrase of the earlier scholar’s work. While this is not direct
plagiarism it is nevertheless a form of plagiarism because it presents the
paraphrase as original scholarship without the addition of new insights or
significant criticisms needed to interpret the original work.
The
sad fact is that unlike in Theology and other well established
disciplines, the field of Religious Studies, possibly because of its
interdisciplinary nature, appears to suffer from a high level of
outright plagiarism. This is an intolerable situation that must change
if the field is to survive as a serious area of academic study.
To be continued ...
