UNCORRECTED PROOF Review article Hans Penner, Horatio and the Terminator: a review essay of Radical Interpretation in ReligionM Ivan Strenski* Department of Religious Studies, University of California, Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521, USA Abstract This is an intense, high-powered and intellectually fulfilling anthology of remarkably well integrated essays. It features the main concerns of one of religious studies’ better regarded critics of method and theory, Hans Penner. While this anthology generously salutes Penner’s contributions to the field, it is no collection of honorific ‘puff pieces’. Instead, a concerted attempt is made to carry forward what Penner has stood for these many years. Nothing is perfect. And this anthology could have been much stronger had it systematically included more dissent and had it adequately engaged the major dissent contained in (at least) one of the contributions to the volume. The anthology consists of ten individual essays divided into three thematic sections: pragmatics, culture and cognition, and semantics. Each section is in turn introduced by editor Nancy Frankenberry’s pithy summaries of the main arguments of each individual paper and to the conception of the section as a whole. The title refers to Penner’s attempt to adopt the meta-methodological principle of ‘radical interpretation’ associated with the philosopher Donald Davidson.  2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Common themes Whatever the merits of the substance of the individual articles and collection as a whole, the work of the editor, Nancy Frankenberry, needs to be singled out for special praise. She has provided helpful introductory guidance to Davidson’s ‘radical interpretation’ and welds what might otherwise have been an unwieldy and incoherent set of essays into what actually makes for something a great deal better. Her accomplishment is all the more remarkable considering the stellar cast with whom she had to work: Jeffrey Stout, Richard Rorty, Wayne L. Proudfoot, M Nancy K. Frankenberry. Radical Interpretation in Religion. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002. xvi+ 231pp., $65.00 (hardback) ISBN 0 521 81686 6, $24.00 (paperback) ISBN 0 521 01705 X. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +1-310-397-4664; fax: +1-310-397-6997 E-mail address: ivan.strenski@ucr.edu (I. Strenski). @nt_ws3/hling/CLS_journals/GRP_elsevier/JOB_155/DIV_00480 December 8, 2003 14:34:11 ARTICLE IN PRESS Religion 00 (2003) 1–11 R ELIGION www.elsevier.com/locate/religion 0048-721X/03/$ - see front matter  2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.religion.2003.11.012 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30