History of religion Books
Cornell University Press Oneida Utopia
Book SynopsisOneida Utopia is a fresh and holistic treatment of a long-standing social experiment born of revival fervor and communitarian enthusiasm. The Oneida Community of upstate New York was dedicated to living as one family and to the sharing of all property, work, and love. Anthony Wonderley is a sensitive guide to the things and settings of Oneida life from its basis in John H. Noyes's complicated theology, through experiments in free love and gender equality, to the moment when the commune transformed itself into an industrial enterprise based on the production of silverware. Rather than drawing a sharp boundary between spiritual concerns and worldly matters, Wonderley argues that commune and company together comprise a century-long narrative of economic success, innovative thinking, and abiding concern for the welfare of others. Oneida Utopia seamlessly combines the evidence of social life and intellectual endeavor with the testimony of built environment and materiTrade ReviewThe most thoroughly researched and insightful study yet published about the development of the controversial Oneida Community.... Striking new insights abound.... Oneida Utopia is a remarkable scholarly achievement, a model community study.... Wonderley genuinely breaks new ground in this skillfully written and broad-ranging study. It is now the first book I would recommend to anyone seeking to gain a nuanced understanding of how the Oneida Community functioned and how it changed over time. * Communal Societies *Why do readers need another book on the Oneida Community when so many have already been published? Wonderley quickly addresses this question, arguing convincingly for his distinctive contribution, with evidence provided in carefully written and well-documented chapters followed by an extensive bibliography.... Because Wonderley is the former curator of the Oneida Community's historical collections, he is in a unique position to provide such an account. Fascinating reading! * Choice *Anthony Wonderley re-tells the [Oneida] community's history, stressing the collective dynamics of the group over its leader and effectively contextualizing it in nineteenth-century American culture. * The Journal of American History *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Perfectionism 2. Putney 3. Oneida Birthed and Left Behind 4. Creating a Community 5. Gender and Sex 6. Buildings, Landscapes, and Traps 7. Industrialization 8. Breakup 9. A Silverware Company 10. Welfare Capitalism Conclusion Notes Bibliography
£27.54
Cornell University Press A Peoples Church
Book SynopsisA People''s Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and institutions in medieval Italy. Each essay treats a single theme as broadly as possible, highlighting both the unique aspects of medieval Christianity on the Italian peninsula and the beliefs and practices it shared with other Christian societies. Because of its long tradition of communal self-governance, Christianity in medieval Italy, perhaps more than anywhere else, was truly a people''s church. At the same time, its exceptional urban wealth and literacy rates, along with its rich and varied intellectual and artistic culture, led to diverse forms of religious devotion and institutions.Contributors: Maria Pia Alberzoni on heresy; Frances Andrews on urban religion; Cécile Caby on monasticism; Giovanna Casagrande on mendicants; George Dameron on Florence; Antonella Degl''Innocenti on saints; Marina GazziniTable of Contents1. A View of the Historiography 2. The Papacy and Italian Politics 3. Bishops 4. Pievi and the Care of Souls 5. Monasticism 6. Lay Confraternities 7. Clerical Confraternities 8. Mendicants 9. Saints 10. Heresy 11. Urban Religion 12. Case Study I: Florence 13. Case Study 2: Naples
£97.20
Cornell University Press A Peoples Church
Book SynopsisA People''s Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and institutions in medieval Italy. Each essay treats a single theme as broadly as possible, highlighting both the unique aspects of medieval Christianity on the Italian peninsula and the beliefs and practices it shared with other Christian societies. Because of its long tradition of communal self-governance, Christianity in medieval Italy, perhaps more than anywhere else, was truly a people''s church. At the same time, its exceptional urban wealth and literacy rates, along with its rich and varied intellectual and artistic culture, led to diverse forms of religious devotion and institutions.Contributors: Maria Pia Alberzoni on heresy; Frances Andrews on urban religion; Cécile Caby on monasticism; Giovanna Casagrande on mendicants; George Dameron on Florence; Antonella Degl''Innocenti on saints; Marina GazziniTable of Contents1. A View of the Historiography 2. The Papacy and Italian Politics 3. Bishops 4. Pievi and the Care of Souls 5. Monasticism 6. Lay Confraternities 7. Clerical Confraternities 8. Mendicants 9. Saints 10. Heresy 11. Urban Religion 12. Case Study I: Florence 13. Case Study 2: Naples
£29.45
Cornell University Press Visions of Deliverance
Book SynopsisIn Visions of Deliverance, Mayte Green-Mercado traces the circulation of Muslim and crypto-Muslim apocalyptic texts known as joferes through formal and informal networks of merchants, Sufis, and other channels of diffusion among Muslims and Christians across the Mediterranean from Constantinople and Venice to Morisco towns in eastern Spain. The movement of these prophecies from the eastern to the western edges of the Mediterranean illuminates strategies of Morisco cultural and political resistance, reconstructing both productive and oppositional interactions and exchanges between Muslims and Christians in the early modern Mediterranean.Challenging a historiography that has primarily understood Morisco apocalyptic thought as the expression of a defeated group that was conscious of the loss of their culture and identity, Green-Mercado depicts Moriscos not simply as helpless victims of Christian oppression but as political actors whose use of end-times discourse heTrade ReviewThis work adds a crucial perspective to the growing body of scholarship that challenges the conception of a fixed, monolithic Morisco identity and the perception that Moriscos were a beleaguered group in need of rescue. Visions of Deliverance offers readers a fresh perspective on Morisco social, religious, and political beliefs and practices. * Comitatus *Moriscos stand tall in this book as historical agents (both individually and collectively), actors on a political world stage, some with dreams of an Ottoman Last World Emperor, others of a French; some with dreams of a return of Islam to Al-Andalus, others with the hope of being able to live peacefully 'under their own law.' With Visions of Deliverance, Mayte Green-Mercado has made a significant contribution to Mediterranean history. There is much in this excellent book that will be new to both experts and students alike * SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNAL *This excellent book should find a ready audience in readers interested in Morisco history and culture, and in prophetic and political discourse in early modern Islam, Iberia, and the Mediterranean as a whole. * Visions of Deliverance *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Note on Transliterations and Citations Introduction 1. Christian Visionary or Muslim Prophet? Re-Creating Identities in Late Spanish Islam 2. The Return of Muslim Granada: Prophecy and Martyrdom in the Alpujarras Revolt (1568-1570) 3. Ottoman Rome: Apocalyptic Prophecies in the Mediterranean (1570-1580) 4. "The Grand Morisco Conspiracy": Prophecy and Rebellion Plots in Valencia and Aragon (1570-1582) 5. Prophetic Fabrications of a Morisco Informant: Gil Pérez and the Moriscos of Valencia 6. Prophecy as Diplomacy: The Moriscos and Henry IV of France Epilogue Appendix A: First Prognostication of the War of Granada Appendix B: Second Prognostication of the War of Granada Appendix C: Third Prognostication of the War of Granada Appendix D: Prophecy of Fr. Juan de Rokasiya Appendix E: Account of the Scandals That Will Take Place at the End of Times in the Island of Spain Appendix F: Prophecy of St. Isidore Appendix G: Plaint of Spain Appendix H: Muhammad's Prophecy about Spain Bibliography Index
£45.90
Cornell University Press The Imperial Church
Book SynopsisThrough a fascinating discussion of religion''s role in the rhetoric of American civilizing empire, The Imperial Church undertakes an exploration of how Catholic mission histories served as a useful reference for Americans narrating US settler colonialism on the North American continent and seeking to extend military, political, and cultural power around the world. Katherine D. Moran traces historical celebrations of Catholic missionary histories in the upper Midwest, Southern California, and the US colonial Philippines to demonstrate the improbable centrality of the Catholic missions to ostensibly Protestant imperial endeavors.Moran shows that, as the United States built its continental and global dominion and an empire of production and commerce in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Protestant and Catholic Americans began to celebrate Catholic imperial pasts. She demonstrates that American Protestants joined their Catholic compatriots in speaking with admiration aboTrade ReviewMoran takes up a task under which other historians of American Catholicism have long labored: turning American historical memory away from East Coast Colonial hegemony and, instead, calling attention to other parts of North America that came to have a formative influence on the American national psyche before and during the American Revolution. She argues that "many American Protestants and Catholics turned to idealized visions of Catholic imperial pasts in order to talk about the past and future of U.S. empire" (p. 20). Succeeding brilliantly in illustrating this sorely needed contribution to the field, Moran's landmark text is a must read for scholarly audiences. * Choice *Katherine Moran has written a landmark book that opens a new era in the historiography of American religion and empir. To a field that long has been eager for new frames and methods of integrating Catholicism into American history—in such a way as to show Catholics as a constituent component of that history, rather than a community of individuals simply living within a Protestant civil society—The Imerial Church is a gift. * US Catholic Historian *Katherine Moran moves beyond examining United States Catholicism through the lens of what has been called the 'immigrant church,' as well the anti-Catholicism connected with this history, by focusing instead on what she calls the 'Imperial Church,' which is also an essential part of the American Catholic story. The Imperial Church should be read by all those engaged in the study of US Catholicism, even if their own scholarly interests have focused on the immigrant church. * Review for Religious *Moran has posed and answered an important historical question. In doing so, she not only demonstrates the plasticity of ideas about Catholicism in a truly revelatory fashion, but she also shows how empire drove religious changes in the American Midwest and elsewhere. This book will surprise readers and it will pique questions that strike at the core of our interpretations of the modern United States and American Catholic history. * The Annals of Iowa *As Katharine Moran reveals in her insightful and captivating new book, American Protestants not only thought about Catholics, they also thought with Catholicism as they sought to extend America's own power and influence across the continent and throughout the globe. * Church History *Beyond national Catholic narratives, The Imperial Church expands American Catholic history alongside American empire to the Philippines in the aftermath of the Spanish-Cuban-American War. Moran challenges historians to rethink how American empire and religion are assumed to interact in this era. * American Catholic Studies *The Imperial Church challenges the notion of the 'Immigrant Church' because, as Moran explains, Catholicism was central to the American concept of empire at that time. By positing the centrality of Catholicism in US imperial rhetoric, Moran shows that Americans did not completely disavow their imperial predecessors (i.e., the Spanish) but rather saw themselves as sharing similar racial and civilizational projects diametrically opposite to the savagery of their imperial subjects (i.e., the Filipinos). * Philippine Studies *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Thinking with Catholicism, Empire, and History Part I: Jacques Marquette in the Upper Midwest 1. Making a Founding Father out of a French Jesuit 2. Imagining Peaceful Conquest Part II: Franciscans in Southern California 3. Making Parallel Histories out of Spanish Missions 4. Embodying Hospitality and Paternalism Part III: Friars in the Philippines 5. Revising and Rejecting Antifriarism 6. Envisioning Catholic Colonial Order Conclusion: Imperial Church Stories
£38.70
Cornell University Press The Greek Orthodox Church in America
Book SynopsisIn this sweeping history, Alexander Kitroeff shows how the Greek Orthodox Church in America has functioned as much more than a religious institution, becoming the focal point in the lives of the country''s million-plus Greek immigrants and their descendants. Assuming the responsibility of running Greek-language schools and encouraging local parishes to engage in cultural and social activities, the church became the most important Greek American institution and shaped the identity of Greeks in the United States. Kitroeff digs into these traditional activities, highlighting the American church''s dependency on the mother church, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople, and the use of Greek language in the Sunday liturgy. Today, as this rich biography of the church shows us, Greek Orthodoxy remains in between the Old World and the New, both Greek and American.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Greek Orthodoxy Arrives in America 2. Americanization and the Immigrant Church in the 1920s 3. Greek Orthodoxy versus Protestant Congregationalism 4. The Greek Orthodox Church in between Greece and America 5. Assimilation and Respectability in the 1950s 6. The Challenges of the 1960s 7. Greek Orthodoxy and the Ethnic Revival 8. Church and Homeland 9. Toward an American Greek Orthodoxy 10. The Challenges for an American Greek Orthodoxy 11. Church and Patriarchate and the Limits of Americanization 12. Greek Orthodoxy in America Enters the Twenty-First Century
£97.20
Cornell University Press Polymaths of Islam Power and Networks of
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAnyone interested in the implications of the Russian absorption of a cosmopolitan civilization undergoing significant structural change in its political, intellectual, and social life should keep a copy of Polymaths of Islam by their bedside. This work sets the agenda for the study of Central Asia's intellectual and social history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and will remain the reference text on the subject for a long time. * Russian Review *[The book is] a masterwork of scholarship. Pickett's book is a tour de force of history and cultural sensitivity. * New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences *Pickett provides an important foundation for a future study of the gradations of prestige among less elite Islamic scholars, and their interactions with more popular religious figures. * Canadian-American Slavic Studies *James Pickett's Polymaths of Islam is another great contribution in line with recent works of scholars on the history of Bukhara and its role in Eurasian history. The book is a great contribution to Central Asian history and will serve the needs of a diverse readership. * Ab Imperio *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Islamic Scholars and the Central Asian Backdrop 1. Defamiliarizing the Familiar: Conceptualizing Religion and Culture in Turko-Persia 2. Centering Bukhara: The Reconstruction and Mythologization of an Abode of Knowledge 3. Bukhara Center: Islamic Scholars as a Network of Human Exchange 4. Patricians of Bukhara: Turkic Nobility, Persianate Pedagogy, and Islamic Society 5. High Persianate Intellectuals: The Many, Many Guises of the Ulama 6. Between Sharia and the Beloved: Culture and Contradiction in Persianate Sunnism 7. Opportunity from Upheaval: Scholarly Dynasties between Nadir Shah and the Bolshevik Revolution 8. The Sovereign and the Sage: The Precarious, Paradoxical Relationship between the Ulama and Temporal Power Conclusion: United in Eclecticism Epilogue: Efflorescence before the Eclipse
£43.20
Cornell University Press AntiChristian Violence in India
Book SynopsisDoes religion cause violent conflict, asks Chad M. Bauman, and if so, does it cause conflict more than other social identities? Through an extended history of Christian-Hindu relations, with particular attention to the 20072008 riots in Kandhamal, Odisha, Anti-Christian Violence in India examines religious violence and how it pertains to broader aspects of humanity. Is religious conflict sui generis, or is it merely one species of intergroup conflict? Why and how might violence become an attractive option for religious actors? What explains the increase in religious violence over the last twenty to thirty years?Integrating theories of anti-Christian violence focused on politics, economics, and proselytization, Anti-Christian Violence in India additionally weaves in recent theory about globalization and, in particular, the forms of resistance against Western secular modernity that globalization periodically helps to provoke. With such theories in mind, Bauman expTrade ReviewBauman enters deeply into the thinking of Hindu nationalists to show that their acts of violence against Christians are motivated not by disputes over doctrine but by an even more basic clash over the role of religion. * Foreign Affairs *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Anti-Christian Violence in Global Context1. A Socio-cosmological Approach to Anti-Christian Violence2. A Prehistory of Hindu-Christian Conflict3. "Everyday" Anti-Christian Violence4. "Darkness, Loneliness, Loud Noises, and Men": The Riots of Kandhamal, Odisha, 2007–20085. The Social Construction of Kandhamal's ViolenceConclusion: A Geography of Anger
£25.19
Cornell University Press Bernard of Clairvaux
Book SynopsisIn this intimate portrait of one of the Middle Ages'' most consequential men, Brian Patrick McGuire delves into the life of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux to offer a refreshing interpretation that finds within this grand historical figure a deeply spiritual human being who longed for the reflective quietude of the monastery even as he helped shape the destiny of a church and a continent. Heresy and crusade, politics and papacies, theology and disputation shaped this astonishing man''s life, and McGuire presents it all in a deeply informed and clear-eyed biography.Following Bernard from his birth in 1090 to his death in 1153 at the abbey he had founded four decades earlier, Bernard of Clairvaux reveals a life teeming with momentous events and spiritual contemplation, from Bernard''s central roles in the first great medieval reformation of the Church and the Second Crusade, which he came to regret, to the crafting of his books, sermons, and letters. We see what brought BernaTrade ReviewBased on the earliest lives of Bernard and his numerous extant letters, this book provides an excellent, carefully structured chronological narrative of "a human being, not a saint." * Choice *Brian McGuire is to be congratulated on producing this volume which will provide a clear exposition of the traditional view of Bernard's career along with insight into the many concerns that attracted his attention. The author is also to be praised for openly and honestly confronting the hard questions that contemporary readers might have in reading about Bernard, and for giving direct answers to their questions. * Cistercian Studies Quarterly *Based on an unrivaled knowledge of the relevant sources and a deep understanding of the Cistercian way of life. [T]his will undoubtedly be the definitive biography of this monumental figure for many years to come. * Times Literary Supplement *McGuire is to be commended for continuing to try to fulfill his own teacher's command, but it makes one wonder whether Bernard's original biographers felt similarly compelled. It also raises important questions about the way in which religious communities depend on biographies of their founders for their own institutional identity. * The Journal of Religion *Bernard of Clairvaux is a welcome and needed contribution to Cistercian scholarship and look into the motivations, ideals, and activities of a complex man who many have called the most influential individual in the first half of twelfth-century Europe. Thanks to Brian Patrick McGuire, the picture of this elusive saint becomes a bit clearer. * Church History *Table of ContentsIntroduction: In Pursuit of a Difficult Saint 1. A Time of Hope and Change 2. A Saint's Origins 3. From the New Monastery to the Valley of Light, 1115–1124 4. Monastic Commitment and Church Politics, 1124–1129 5. Toward Reformation of Church and Monastery 6. Healing a Divided Church, 1130–1135 7. Victory and Defeat: A Conflicted Church, 1136–1140 8. The World after the Schism: One Thing after Another, 1140–1145 9. Preaching a Crusade and Leaving Miracles Behind, 1146–1150 10. Business as Usual in Preparing for Death
£25.19
Cornell University Press God Tsar and People
Book SynopsisGod, Tsar, and People brings together in one volume essays written over a period of fifty years, using a wide variety of evidencetexts, icons, architecture, and ritualto reveal how early modern Russians (14501700) imagined their rapidly changing political world.This volume presents a more nuanced picture of Russian political thought during the two centuries before Peter the Great came to power than is typically available. The state was expanding at a dizzying rate, and atop Russia''s traditional political structure sat a ruler who supposedly reflected God''s will. The problem facing Russians was that actual rulers seldomor neverexhibited the required perfection. Daniel Rowland argues that this contradictory set of ideas was far less autocratic in both theory and practice than modern stereotypes would have us believe. In comparing and contrasting Russian history with that of Western European states, Rowland is also questioning the notion that Russia has always been, andTrade ReviewOver his career Daniel Rowland has given us a complex, source-based, new paradigm of Muscovite political thought. Throughout these essays his basic humanity is on display, particularly in generous recognition of fellow scholars. But do not let these warm acknowledgments lull you into missing how original, how erudite, and how path-breaking his work is. * The Russian Review *Rowland's examination of sources as diverse as saint's lives, throne room frescos, icons, architecture and ritual is a tour de force * Kritika *Table of ContentsThe Literature: Breaking the Code 1. Kurbskii and the Historians 2. Toward an Understanding of the Political Ideas in Ivan Timofeev's Vremennik 3. The Problem of Advice in Muscovite Tales about the Time of Troubles 4. Did Muscovite Literary Ideology Place Limits on the Power of the Tsar (1540s–1660s)? 5. The Memory of Saint Sergius in Sixteenth-Century Russia The Visual: Investigating Art and Architecture 6. Biblical Military Imagery in the Political Culture of Early Modern Russia: The Blessed Host of the Heavenly Tsar 7. Moscow—The Third Rome or the New Israel? 8. Architecture and Dynasty: Boris Godunov's Uses of Architecture, 1584–1606 9. Two Cultures, One Throne Room: Secular Courtiers and Orthodox Culture in the Golden Hall of the Moscow Kremlin 10. Architecture, Image, and Ritual in the Throne Rooms of Muscovite Russia 11. Advice, Advisers, and Courtiers: Decision-Making and Advice in the Royal Book Volume of the Illustrated Chronicle Compilation Summing Up: What Our Work Means 12. Ivan the Terrible as a Carolingian Renaissance Prince 13. Autocracy 14. Muscovy 15. God, Tsar, and People: Some Further Thoughts
£97.20
Cornell University Press St. Maximus the Confessors Questions and Doubts
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewIt is the first English translation of the text and is, therefore, a welcome addition to the literature on Maximus. Prassas has rendered us a great service by striving so vigorously with Maximus's difficult Greek. The collection of Quaestiones et Dubia itself is an excellent text for beginning a study of Maximus. Prassas' work is, therefore, definitely to be recommended. * Journal of Early Christian Studies *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction - Historical and Cultural Context - Maximus and the Quaestiones et dubia - Translator's Note St. Maximus the Confessor's Quaestiones et dubia Translation Abbreviations and References Notes Bibliography Index
£18.89
Cornell University Press Julian and Christianity
Book SynopsisThe Roman emperor Julian is a figure of ongoing interest and the subject of David Neal Greenwood''s Julian and Christianity. This unique examination of Julian as the last pagan emperor and anti-Christian polemicist revolves around his drive and status as a ruler. Greenwood adeptly outlines the dramatic impact of Julian''s short-lived regime on the course of history, with a particular emphasis on his relationship with Christianity.Julian has experienced a wide-ranging reception throughout history, shaped by both adulation and vitriol, along with controversies and rumors that question his sanity and passive ruling. His connections to Christianity, however, are rooted in his regime''s open hostility, which Greenwood shows is outlined explicitly in Oration 7: To the Cynic Heracleios. Greenwood''s close reading of Oration 7 highlights not only Julian''s extensive anti-Christian religious program and decided rejection of Christianity but also his brilliaTrade ReviewJulian and Christianity is an insightful work. * The NYMAS Review *This book seeks to overcome a traditional and popular chronological reconstruction of the fourth-century Roman Emperor Julian's policies and writings, which assumed an initial phase of religious tolerance followed by increasing hostility toward Christianity. [S]everal of his observations and arguments will surely extend and enrich the debate over one of Rome's most controversial emperors. * Choice *[H]is study should be viewed as a major new contribution to Julianic studies and, more broadly, to the study of religion in the fourth century. * Church History Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Opening of Hostilities Part I: Co-opting a Framework 1. The Problem of Constantius II 2. The Problem of Constantine Part II: Crafting a Religious Metanarrative 3. Mocking the False Savior 4. Crafting the Salvific Heracles 5. Crafting the Salvific Asclepius Part III: Constructing a Legacy to Reflect the Narrative 6. Constructing the Spatial Narrative in Constantinople 7. Creating a Robust Religious Structure 8. Constructing the Spatial Narrative in Antioch and Jerusalem Conclusion: Endgame
£43.20
Cornell University Press Republicanism Communism Islam Cosmopolitan
Book SynopsisIn Republicanism, Communism, Islam, John T. Sidel provides an alternate vantage point for understanding the variegated forms and trajectories of revolution across the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam, a perspective that is de-nationalized, internationalized, and transnationalized. Sidel positions this new vantage point against the conventional framing of revolutions in modern Southeast Asian history in terms of a nationalist template, on the one hand, and distinctive local cultures and forms of consciousness, on the other. Sidel's comparative analysis shows howin very different, decisive, and often surprising waysthe Philippine, Indonesian, and Vietnamese revolutions were informed, enabled, and impelled by diverse cosmopolitan connections and international conjunctures. Sidel addresses the role of Freemasonry in the making of the Philippine revolution, the importance of Communism and Islam in Indonesia's Revolusi, and the influence that shifting political currents in China and anticolonial movements in Africa had on Vietnamese revolutionaries. Through this assessment, Republicanism, Communism, and Islam tracks how these forces, rather than nationalism per se, shaped the forms of these revolutions, the ways in which they unfolded, and the legacies which they left in their wakes.Trade ReviewJohn T. Sidel's Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia provides an incisive account of the most prominent anticolonial revolutions in Southeast Asia - the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam - from a rigorous comparative perspective. This book is an invaluable addition to the existing scholarship on Southeast Asian history. * The London School of Economics and Political Science *John Sidel succeeds in making us rethink nationalism itself. In fact, he achieves even more than what he explicitly attempts; he's moved us a quantum leap forward in out understanding of the international drivers of Southeast Asia's nationailst revolutions. * SOJOURN - Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Beyond Nationalism and Revolution in Southeast Asia 1. From Bohemia to Balintawak: Cosmopolitan Origins of the Philippine Revolution 2. Masonería, Cofradía, Katipunan: Revolutionary Brotherhoods in the Philippines, 1896–1901 3. From Baku to Bandung: Cosmopolitan Origins of the Indonesian Revolution 4. From Cultuurstelsel to Komedie Stamboel: The Long Nineteenth Century in the Indies 5. Newspapers, Rallies, Strikes: The Rise and Fall of Sarekat Islam (SI), 1912–1926 6. Soekarno and the Promise of NASAKOM: From Rust en Orde through the Pacific War, 1926–1945 7. Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Revolusi, 1945–1949 8. From Guangzhou, Porto Novo, and Antananarivo toward Đin Biên Ph 9. From Cn Vng to Viêt-Nam Duy-Tân Hi to Thanh Niên 10. From Thanh Niên to the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) and the Vit Minh Conclusion: Commonalities, Comparisons, Conclusions
£32.30
Cornell University Press The Nature of the Religious Right
Book SynopsisIn The Nature of the Religious Right, Neall W. Pogue examines how white conservative evangelical Christians became a political force known for hostility toward environmental legislation. Before the 1990s, this group used ideas of nature to help construct the religious right movement while developing theologically based, eco-friendly philosophies that can be described as Christian environmental stewardship. On the twentieth anniversary of Earth Day in 1990, members of this conservative evangelical community tried to turn their eco-friendly philosophies into action. Yet this attempt was overwhelmed by a growing number in the leadership who made anti-environmentalism the accepted position through public ridicule, conspiracy theories, and cherry-picked science.Through analysis of rhetoric, political expediency, and theological imperatives, The Nature of the Religious Right explains how ideas of nature played a role in constructing the conservatiTrade ReviewPogue carefully delineates the backtracking of many conservative evangelicals on environmentalism, even as he presents the valiant but unsuccessful efforts of the Evangelical Environmental Network's Ron Sider and climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, among other evangelicals, to forestall this abandonment of environmental stewardship. * The Chrisitan Century *This book offers an important, persuasive corrective to the history of religious conservatism. Pogue argues that Evangelicals' dogmatic opposition of environmentalism is historically contingent rather than an inevitable result of theology and political ideology. Using a variety of primary and secondary sources, Pogue documents a doctrine of "Christian environmental stewardship" that was clearly articulated among prominent Evangelicals beginning in the late 1960s and shows how this environmentalism was purged from the religious Right only in the early 1990s. Though the book's accounting of evangelical theology, particularly the analysis of "the natural" and a land-based nationalism, will not particularly surprise scholars, Pogue successfully shows how these ideas might have been compatible with early conceptions of stewardship long before being deployed to oppose actions protecting the environment. The book also offers lessons for the environmental movement, noting that the first Earth Day activists' critique of Christianity helped lay the groundwork for Evangelicals' eventual rejection of environmentalism. Required reading for historians and analysts of the conservative movement, the religious Right, and/or the environmental movement. * Choice *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. Conservative Evangelicals Respond to the Founding of Earth Day 2. Humanity's Proper Place Between God and Nature 3. Nature in a Religious Right Perspective 4. The Moral Majority Finds Favor in the Republican Party 5. The Struggle Between Christian Environmental Stewardship and Anti-Environmentalism in the Religious Right 6. The National Association of Evangelicals Turn Against the Environment 7. "It Could Have Taken a Very Different Path" Conclusion
£34.20
Cornell University Press The Keys to Bread and Wine
Book SynopsisHow did medieval people think about the environments in which they lived? In a world shaped by God, how did they treat environments marked by religious difference? The Keys to Bread and Wine explores the answers to these questions in Valencia in the later Middle Ages. When Christians conquered the city in 1238, it was already one of the richest agricultural areas in the Mediterranean thanks to a network of irrigation canals constructed under Muslim rule. Despite this constructed environment, drought, flooding, plagues, and other natural disasters continued to confront civic leaders in the later medieval period. Abigail Agresta argues that the city''s Christian rulers took a technocratic approach to environmental challenges in the fourteenth century but by the mid-fifteenth century relied increasingly on religious ritual, reflecting a dramatic transformation in the city''s religious identity. Using the records of Valencia''s municipal council, she traces the counTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Works and Arts of Men: Irrigation and Environment 2. Waters Dedicated to Some Purposes: New Infrastructure 3. For the Beautification of the City: Christian Urban Reform 4. Divine Mercy and Help: Natural Disaster and the Rise of Rogation Processions 5. Seeking the Dew of His Grace: Droughts 6. From Purification to Protection: Plague 7. That for Which the King of Kings Sent the Flood? Floods and Locusts Conclusion
£45.00
Cornell University Press The Wolf King
Book SynopsisWinner of the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize Winner of the Dionisius A. Agius Book Prize The Wolf King explores how political power was conceptualized, constructed, and wielded in twelfth-century al-Andalus, focusing on the eventful reign of Muhammad ibn Sad ibn Ahmad ibn Mardanish (r. 11471172). Celebrated in Castilian and Latin sources as el rey lobo/rex lupus and denigrated by Almohad and later Arabic sources as irreligious and disloyal to fellow Muslims because he fought the Almohads and served as vassal to the Castilians, Ibn Mardanish ruled a kingdom that at its peak constituted nearly half of al-Andalus and served as an important buffer between the Almohads and the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. Through a close examination of contemporary sources across the region, Abigail Krasner Balbale shows that Ibn Mardanish's short-lived dynasty was actually an attempt to integrate al-Andalus more closely with the Islamic Eastparticularly the Abbasid caliphate. At stake in his battles against the Almohads was the very idea of the caliphate in this period, as well as who could define righteous religious authority. The Wolf King makes effective use of chronicles, chancery documents, poetry, architecture, coinage, and artifacts to uncover how Ibn Mardanish adapted language and cultural forms from around the Islamic world to assert and consolidate powerand then tracks how these strategies, and the memory of Ibn Mardanish more generally, influenced expressions of kingship in subsequent periods. Open access edition funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities.Trade ReviewThe Wolf King is an important work of interdisciplinary and comparative history that employs an array of textual, visual, and material evidence to reincorporate al-Andalus into the broader world of the medieval Mediterranean. * Mediterranean Historical Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction: Ibn Mardanish as Historical Figure and Historiographic Subject 1. Caliph and Madhi: The Battle over Power in the Islamic Middle Period 2. Rebel against the Truth: Almohad Visions of Ibn Mardanish 3. Filiative Networks: Lineage and Legitimacy in Sharq al-Andalus 4. Material Genealogies and the Construction of Power 5. Vassals, Traders, and Kings: Economic and Political Networks in the Western Mediterranean 6. Renaissance and Assimilation after the Almohad Conquest 7. The Reconquista, a Lost Paradise, and Other Teleologies
£88.33
Cornell University Press Religious Appeals in Power Politics
Book SynopsisReligious Appeals in Power Politics examines how states use, or attempt to use, confessional appeals to religious belief and conscience to advance political strategies and objectives. Through case studies of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Russia, Peter S. Henne demonstrates that religion, although not as high profile or well-funded a tool as economic sanctions or threats of military force, remains a potent weapon in international relations. Public policy analysis often minimizes the role of religion, favoring military or economic matters as the important arenas of policy debate. As Henne shows, however, at transformative moments in political history, states turn to faith-based appeals to integrate or fragment international coalitions. Henne highlights Saudi Arabia''s 1960s rivalry with Egypt, the United States''s post-9/11 leadership in the global war on terrorism, and the Russian Federation''s contemporary expansionism both to reveal the presence a
£97.20
Cornell University Press New Yorks Burnedover District
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Settlement 1. Treaty with the Six Nations 2. A General View of New York 3. New York Population Growth 4. New York's Environmental Transformation Part II: Missionaries 5. Timothy Mather Cooley's Missionary Journal 6. Rev. Jacob Cram's Mission 7. Sagoyewatha's Reply to Rev. Jacob Cram 8. Constitution of the Waterloo Missionary Society 9. Reports of Episcopal Missionaries 10. Missionaries to Sailors and Canal Workers Part III: Revivals 11. Charles Finney's Argument for Religious Revivals 12. Revivals at Marcellus and Amber 13. Report of New York Revivals 14. Bradford King's Conversion 15. Nancy Alexander Tracy's Conversion 16. A Convention to Regulate Revivals 17. Theodore Weld on a Revival's Aftermath 18. Theodore Weld on Revivals and Women's Rights 19. The Grimké Sisters on the Limits of Revivalism and Reform Part IV: Church Development 20. Brothertown and Religious Autonomy 21. A Baptist Constitution 22. Baptist Trustee Minutes 23. Methodist Population Report 24. Proposal for a Methodist College 25. Building the First Wesleyan Methodist Church of Seneca Falls 26. The Growth of Presbyterianism in the Synod of Geneva 27. A Presbyterian Congregation's Confession of Faith and Covenant 28. Race and Ministry in Wayne County Part V: Kingdoms of God 29. Joseph Smith's Visions 30. Mormonism's Early Critics 31. Parley P. Pratt Encounters the Book of Mormon 32. William Miller's Biblical Calculations 33. William Miller Defends His Prediction 34. A Historical Rebuttal of Millerism 35. Matthias the Prophet Part VI: Intentional Communities 36. Shaker Charity 37. The Church Family at Watervliet 38. Account of the Shaker Settlement of Sodus Bay 39. Indenture of Susan Remer to the Shakers of Watervliet 40. Shakers and the Education of Children 41. A Shaker Hymn 42. Complex Marriage 43. John Humphrey Noyes's Home Talks 44. A Rebuttal of Noyes and Perfectionism Part VII: Religion and New York Politics 45. Abijah Beckwith's Reflections on a Political Career 46. Selections from New York's 1821 Constitution 47. An Anti-Masonic Declaration of Independence 48. Report of the Cayuga County Temperance Society 49. A Sabbatarian Convention 50. The Anti-rent Wars 51. Selections from New York's 1846 Constitution 52. Abijah Beckwith's Consideration of Civil Rights for Women Part VIII: Abolitionism and Ultraism in the Burned-over District 53. Rev. Thomas James on Antislavery Activism 54. New York Governor William L. Marcy Denounces Abolitionism 55. New York Methodists on Abolitionism 56. Establishing an Antislavery Newspaper 57. Resolutions of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society 58. Creating Antislavery Petitions 59. How to Be an Abolitionist 60. Gerrit Smith's Critique of the Clergy on Abolitionism 61. The Jerry Rescue Conclusion: The Legacy of the Burned-over District
£97.20
Cornell University Press New Yorks Burnedover District
Book SynopsisTable of ContentsIntroduction Part I: Settlement 1. Treaty with the Six Nations 2. A General View of New York 3. New York Population Growth 4. New York's Environmental Transformation Part II: Missionaries 5. Timothy Mather Cooley's Missionary Journal 6. Rev. Jacob Cram's Mission 7. Sagoyewatha's Reply to Rev. Jacob Cram 8. Constitution of the Waterloo Missionary Society 9. Reports of Episcopal Missionaries 10. Missionaries to Sailors and Canal Workers Part III: Revivals 11. Charles Finney's Argument for Religious Revivals 12. Revivals at Marcellus and Amber 13. Report of New York Revivals 14. Bradford King's Conversion 15. Nancy Alexander Tracy's Conversion 16. A Convention to Regulate Revivals 17. Theodore Weld on a Revival's Aftermath 18. Theodore Weld on Revivals and Women's Rights 19. The Grimké Sisters on the Limits of Revivalism and Reform Part IV: Church Development 20. Brothertown and Religious Autonomy 21. A Baptist Constitution 22. Baptist Trustee Minutes 23. Methodist Population Report 24. Proposal for a Methodist College 25. Building the First Wesleyan Methodist Church of Seneca Falls 26. The Growth of Presbyterianism in the Synod of Geneva 27. A Presbyterian Congregation's Confession of Faith and Covenant 28. Race and Ministry in Wayne County Part V: Kingdoms of God 29. Joseph Smith's Visions 30. Mormonism's Early Critics 31. Parley P. Pratt Encounters the Book of Mormon 32. William Miller's Biblical Calculations 33. William Miller Defends His Prediction 34. A Historical Rebuttal of Millerism 35. Matthias the Prophet Part VI: Intentional Communities 36. Shaker Charity 37. The Church Family at Watervliet 38. Account of the Shaker Settlement of Sodus Bay 39. Indenture of Susan Remer to the Shakers of Watervliet 40. Shakers and the Education of Children 41. A Shaker Hymn 42. Complex Marriage 43. John Humphrey Noyes's Home Talks 44. A Rebuttal of Noyes and Perfectionism Part VII: Religion and New York Politics 45. Abijah Beckwith's Reflections on a Political Career 46. Selections from New York's 1821 Constitution 47. An Anti-Masonic Declaration of Independence 48. Report of the Cayuga County Temperance Society 49. A Sabbatarian Convention 50. The Anti-rent Wars 51. Selections from New York's 1846 Constitution 52. Abijah Beckwith's Consideration of Civil Rights for Women Part VIII: Abolitionism and Ultraism in the Burned-over District 53. Rev. Thomas James on Antislavery Activism 54. New York Governor William L. Marcy Denounces Abolitionism 55. New York Methodists on Abolitionism 56. Establishing an Antislavery Newspaper 57. Resolutions of the New York State Anti-Slavery Society 58. Creating Antislavery Petitions 59. How to Be an Abolitionist 60. Gerrit Smith's Critique of the Clergy on Abolitionism 61. The Jerry Rescue Conclusion: The Legacy of the Burned-over District
£24.29
Cornell University Press Walking Corpses Leprosy in Byzantium and the
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA very readable introduction to a fascinating subject and a valuable example of the importance of studying the Byzantine origins of medieval institutions. * Church History *This is a compact, accessible study, which delivers on its promise to bring the insights provided by studies of late antique Greek leprosy to bear on medieval Latin ones. * History of Religions *A welcome resource for the teaching of medieval leprosy, a fraught and fascinating topic in undergraduate classrooms. Walking Corpses both expands the field of study and shows directions in which this necessary endeavor can be continued. * Comitatus *
£21.59
Stanford University Press Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money
Book SynopsisThis book shows how early economic ideas structured Christian thought and society, giving crucial insight into why money holds such power in the West. Examining the religious and theological sources of money's power, it shows how early Christian thinkers borrowed ancient notions of money and economic exchange from the Roman Empire as a basis for their new theological arguments. Monetary metaphors and images, including the minting of coins and debt slavery, provided frameworks for theologians to explain what happens in salvation. God became an economic administrator, for instance, and Christ functioned as a currency to purchase humanity's freedom. Such ideas, in turn, provided models for pastors and Christian emperors as they oversaw both resources and people, which led to new economic conceptions of state administration of populations and conferred a godly aura on the use of money. Divine Currency argues that this longstanding association of money with divine activity has contributed over the centuries to money's ever increasing significance, justifying various forms of politics that manage citizens along the way. Devin Singh's account sheds unexpected light on why we live in a world where nothing seems immune from the price mechanism.Trade Review"Ground-breaking, erudite, and a pleasure to read, Devin Singh's book prompts us to view the history of Christianity in a new and wholly unexpected way, and in so doing sheds fresh light on the modern world and our contemporary situation. It is also scandalous in the best and most productive of ways."—Adam Kotsko, North Central CollegeDivine Currency offers an incisive contribution to the debate about neoliberalism's Christian origins. Devin Singh's bold reading of the sources challenges us to reconsider the relations between theology, politics, and economics."—Philip Goodchild, University of Nottingham"Devin Singh probes the true meaning of divine economy, revealing the centrality of economic thinking to the formation of Christian theology. His book is a welcome and timely addition to recent scholarship in religious as well as finance studies, and with far-reaching consequences."—Susanna Elm, University of California, Berkeley"Singh's illuminating study shows the power of economic discourse to shape theology, while also demonstrating that one of the reasons theology is able to alter economic practice is precisely that it does not stand outside economic thinking.Clearly written and modestly argued, Singh's work should be taken up by those who would seek to keep economics and theology at arm's length, and by those who would see theology as an artifice which simply hides the "real" power of money."—Myles Werntz, Reading Religion"Divine Currency is an intriguing work in religious and cultural studies that challenges much of the work done in theology and economics suggesting that it failed to attend to how the two central mysteries of the Christian faith, the Trinity and incarnation, are implicated both in ancient and modern Western economic dominance....The strength of Singh's work is his historical attention to the use of economic metaphors in the development of Christian doctrine."—Stephen Long, Marginalia: Los Angeles Review of Books"[To] read Devin Singh's Divine Currency is to be transported from our commonplace assumptions about the nexus between Christianity and economics into a world, that of late Antiquity, both wonderfully unfamiliar and uncannily resonant with our own....Whilst Divine Currency is a conceptually assured and sophisticated book, it is also grounded in the patient deployment of historical knowledge and philological method."—Alberto Toscano, Syndicate"Devin Singh's profoundly important book, Divine Currency, provides readers with invaluable tools to help us understand why it's so hard to talk about God without talking about money, and why it's so hard to talk about money without talking about God."—Roberto Sirvent, Syndicate"Singh performs the much-needed task of establishing a vocabulary for the conceptual-historical connections between Christian theology and monetary economy in the West....[The] theoretical blueprint Singh provides us with will no doubt become a guide for future scholarship on Christianity and monetary economy."—Danube Johnson, Syndicate"Singh offers a crucial critique of problems contained within Christian thought itself that prop up capitalist systems that undermine human dignity."—Nichole M. Flores, Modern Theology"Singh's very simple and yet forceful argument—that a ransom theory cannot but be about money—is compelling. I truly doubt that I will ever be able to think about or to teach [Gregory of Nyssa's] imagery again without taking Singh's explanation into account."—John E. Thiel, Modern Theology"Singh's work may enable us to rethink what Christian theology is....Far from accepting a pure theological origin for authorisation and legitimation of doctrine, practice and conduct, Singh charts the messy involvement of Patristic theology with the power practices and techniques of exploitation conducted by the Roman Empire."—Philip Goodchild, Modern Theology"Devin Singh presents his readers with a thought-provoking close reading of the deep homology between the concept of oikonomia as it developed in ancient Greek philosophy and early Christian articulations of God's immanence and transcendence....One of the most admirable traits of this book is that it avoids the trap of simplistic or predictable deconstructive critique. Instead, it enacts intellectual humility in light of historical complexity and is satisfied with providing a rich reconstruction of conceptual evolution."—Alex Holznienkemper, Journal of the American Academy of ReligionTable of ContentsIntroduction One: Incarnation and Imperial Economy Two: The Divine Economist Three: The Emperor's Righteous Money Four: The Coin of God Five: Redemptive Commerce Six: Of Payment, Debt, and Conquest Conclusion: Conclusion
£79.20
Stanford University Press Divine Currency: The Theological Power of Money
Book SynopsisThis book shows how early economic ideas structured Christian thought and society, giving crucial insight into why money holds such power in the West. Examining the religious and theological sources of money's power, it shows how early Christian thinkers borrowed ancient notions of money and economic exchange from the Roman Empire as a basis for their new theological arguments. Monetary metaphors and images, including the minting of coins and debt slavery, provided frameworks for theologians to explain what happens in salvation. God became an economic administrator, for instance, and Christ functioned as a currency to purchase humanity's freedom. Such ideas, in turn, provided models for pastors and Christian emperors as they oversaw both resources and people, which led to new economic conceptions of state administration of populations and conferred a godly aura on the use of money. Divine Currency argues that this longstanding association of money with divine activity has contributed over the centuries to money's ever increasing significance, justifying various forms of politics that manage citizens along the way. Devin Singh's account sheds unexpected light on why we live in a world where nothing seems immune from the price mechanism.Trade Review"Ground-breaking, erudite, and a pleasure to read, Devin Singh's book prompts us to view the history of Christianity in a new and wholly unexpected way, and in so doing sheds fresh light on the modern world and our contemporary situation. It is also scandalous in the best and most productive of ways."—Adam Kotsko, North Central CollegeDivine Currency offers an incisive contribution to the debate about neoliberalism's Christian origins. Devin Singh's bold reading of the sources challenges us to reconsider the relations between theology, politics, and economics."—Philip Goodchild, University of Nottingham"Devin Singh probes the true meaning of divine economy, revealing the centrality of economic thinking to the formation of Christian theology. His book is a welcome and timely addition to recent scholarship in religious as well as finance studies, and with far-reaching consequences."—Susanna Elm, University of California, Berkeley"Singh's illuminating study shows the power of economic discourse to shape theology, while also demonstrating that one of the reasons theology is able to alter economic practice is precisely that it does not stand outside economic thinking.Clearly written and modestly argued, Singh's work should be taken up by those who would seek to keep economics and theology at arm's length, and by those who would see theology as an artifice which simply hides the "real" power of money."—Myles Werntz, Reading Religion"Divine Currency is an intriguing work in religious and cultural studies that challenges much of the work done in theology and economics suggesting that it failed to attend to how the two central mysteries of the Christian faith, the Trinity and incarnation, are implicated both in ancient and modern Western economic dominance....The strength of Singh's work is his historical attention to the use of economic metaphors in the development of Christian doctrine."—Stephen Long, Marginalia: Los Angeles Review of Books"[To] read Devin Singh's Divine Currency is to be transported from our commonplace assumptions about the nexus between Christianity and economics into a world, that of late Antiquity, both wonderfully unfamiliar and uncannily resonant with our own....Whilst Divine Currency is a conceptually assured and sophisticated book, it is also grounded in the patient deployment of historical knowledge and philological method."—Alberto Toscano, Syndicate"Devin Singh's profoundly important book, Divine Currency, provides readers with invaluable tools to help us understand why it's so hard to talk about God without talking about money, and why it's so hard to talk about money without talking about God."—Roberto Sirvent, Syndicate"Singh performs the much-needed task of establishing a vocabulary for the conceptual-historical connections between Christian theology and monetary economy in the West....[The] theoretical blueprint Singh provides us with will no doubt become a guide for future scholarship on Christianity and monetary economy."—Danube Johnson, Syndicate"Singh offers a crucial critique of problems contained within Christian thought itself that prop up capitalist systems that undermine human dignity."—Nichole M. Flores, Modern Theology"Singh's very simple and yet forceful argument—that a ransom theory cannot but be about money—is compelling. I truly doubt that I will ever be able to think about or to teach [Gregory of Nyssa's] imagery again without taking Singh's explanation into account."—John E. Thiel, Modern Theology"Singh's work may enable us to rethink what Christian theology is....Far from accepting a pure theological origin for authorisation and legitimation of doctrine, practice and conduct, Singh charts the messy involvement of Patristic theology with the power practices and techniques of exploitation conducted by the Roman Empire."—Philip Goodchild, Modern Theology"Devin Singh presents his readers with a thought-provoking close reading of the deep homology between the concept of oikonomia as it developed in ancient Greek philosophy and early Christian articulations of God's immanence and transcendence....One of the most admirable traits of this book is that it avoids the trap of simplistic or predictable deconstructive critique. Instead, it enacts intellectual humility in light of historical complexity and is satisfied with providing a rich reconstruction of conceptual evolution."—Alex Holznienkemper, Journal of the American Academy of ReligionTable of ContentsIntroduction One: Incarnation and Imperial Economy Two: The Divine Economist Three: The Emperor's Righteous Money Four: The Coin of God Five: Redemptive Commerce Six: Of Payment, Debt, and Conquest Conclusion: Conclusion
£21.59
Stanford University Press German as a Jewish Problem: The Language Politics
Book SynopsisThe German language holds an ambivalent and controversial place in the modern history of European Jews, representing different—often conflicting—historical currents. It was the language of the German classics, of German Jewish writers and scientists, of Central European Jewish culture, and of Herzl and the Zionist movement. But it was also the language of Hitler, Goebbels, and the German guards in Nazi concentration camps. The crucial role of German in the formation of Jewish national culture and politics in the late nineteenth century has been largely overshadowed by the catastrophic events that befell Jews under Nazi rule. German as a Jewish Problem tells the Jewish history of the German language, focusing on Jewish national movements in Central and Eastern Europe and Palestine/Israel. Marc Volovici considers key writers and activists whose work reflected the multilingual nature of the Jewish national sphere and the centrality of the German language within it, and argues that it is impossible to understand the histories of modern Hebrew and Yiddish without situating them in relation to German. This book offers a new understanding of the language problem in modern Jewish history, turning to German to illuminate the questions and dilemmas that largely defined the experience of European Jews in the age of nationalism.Trade Review"In this sparkling and original account, Marc Volovici unpacks the various meanings of German in modern Jewish history. A language of transcendence as well as tragedy, German transformed Jews in myriad ways and in so doing, blurred the traditional distinction between Jewish and non-Jewish languages. A fascinating, superbly told story." -- John M. Efron * University of California, Berkeley *"Training his eye on the omnipresence of German in European Jewish nationalist discourse, Marc Volovici reveals the profound significance of the language not only in the lives of those Jews who spoke it but also in the evolution of a much wider, transnational, multilingual community of Jews who read in German, wrote in German, and shaped their thinking about Jewish modernity and nationalism in, through, and against it. A major contribution to the fields of modern European Jewish history, the history of Zionism, and the study of national language politics in modern times." -- Liora R. Halperin * University of Washington *"Volovici's insightful and elegantly crafted study makes an important contribution to our understanding of Jewish language politics in general and Jewish nationalism's ambivalent relationship with German in particular." -- Kalman Weiser * Journal of Jewish Languages *"It is notable for a piece of historical, rather than linguistic, scholarship to take a language as its central object of study. Volovici does so elegantly, tracing the shifting symbolic and functional role of the German language in the development of Jewish nationalism over the past two centuries." -- Lea Greenberg * In geveb *"Crucially, in this fascinating book, Volovici captures more broadly how Jews' attitude to German—in the language and against it—came to crystallize the various tensions withinmodern European Jewry as it struggled to articulate and assert itself." -- Audrey Borowski * Times Literary Supplement *"A short review can hardly encompass the breadth of Volovici's undertaking... The book is a fine example of cultural/intellectual history, which is useful not only to students of Jewish history, but also to scholars of German and European history, and those who study antisemitism, nationalism, and group identity." -- Gil Ribak * Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism *"Volovici provides a complex picture of the language of Heine and Hitler, of Goethe and Goebbels. German was not always a Jewish problem, but it was a language without which modern Jewish history, in its best and in its worst times, cannot be imagined. Thus, this book provides important keys of understanding both to modern Jewish history and to modern German culture." -- Michael Brenner * Association for Jewish Studies Review *
£53.60
Stanford University Press Azusa Reimagined: A Radical Vision of Religious
Book SynopsisIn Azusa Reimagined, Keri Day explores how the Azusa Street Revival of 1906, out of which U.S. Pentecostalism emerged, directly critiqued America's distorted capitalist values and practices at the start of the twentieth century. Employing historical research, theological analysis, and critical theory, Day demonstrates that Azusa's religious rituals and traditions rejected the racial norms and profit-driven practices that many white Christian communities gladly embraced. Through its sermons and social practices, the Azusa community critiqued racialized conceptions of citizenship that guided early capitalist endeavors such as world fairs and expositions. Azusa also envisioned deeper democratic practices of human belonging and care than the white nationalist loyalties early U.S. capitalism encouraged. In this lucid work, Day makes Azusa's challenge to this warped economic ecology visible, showing how Azusa not only offered a radical critique of racial capitalism but also offers a way for contemporary religious communities to cultivate democratic practices of belonging against the backdrop of late capitalism's deep racial divisions and material inequalities.Trade Review"Day's account of the democratic possibilities of life unleashed by the feminist and womanist founding of black Pentecostalism is groundbreaking. This book will redirect moral philosophy and political theology for generations."—Willie James Jennings, Yale University"Azusa Reimagined offers a pathway out of racial capitalism and a radical religious means to advance democracy, all based on Day's analysis of early Pentecostalism. This is a stunning, theoretically groundbreaking book."—David D. Daniels III, McCormick Theological Seminary"Cogent and revelatory in its analysis, this is the book for which we have been waiting! Day seamlessly ties the origins of black Pentecostalism to a progressive politics that challenged America's status quo."—Marla Frederick, Emory University"In this lucid work, Day makes Azusa's challenge to this warped economic ecology visible, showing how Azusa not only offered a radical critique of racial capitalism but also offers a way for contemporary religious communities to cultivate democratic practices of belonging against the backdrop of late capitalism's deep racial divisions and material inequalities."—C. Christopher Smith, Englewood Review of Books"Day is nuanced and thoughtful enough to acknowledge variegated legacies of the Azusa Revival; she considers both the potentials and limitations of Azusa even while lauding the former. Day elegantly weaves together diverse historical, philosophical, and theological literatures to vividly depict some crucial moments of the early Pentecostal movement and to reveal its egalitarian and inclusive nature."—Keunwoo Kwon, Reading Religion"If despair increasingly marks our individual lives, collectively we struggle to face the fraying of democracy as we reckon with the systemic sins at its foundation. In Azusa Reimagined, Keri Day shows how the founding of the Pentecostal movement provides a critique that can function as a corrective to the present moment."—Jason Micheli, The Christian Century"Azusa Reimagined is a creative and well-told story about the response of those from America's underside who found social, religious, and political meaning in an unorthodox expression of early-twentieth-century American Christianity. Day's meticulous use of theory, history, and theology makes the text uniquely convincing and captivating."—Dara Coleby Delgado, American Religion"Day's thoughtful work adds to that of a small cadre of scholars of color, Pentecostal and otherwise, who have attempted to resurrect and highlight the Azusa Street Revival's significance within American religious history. She goes further, however, placing the 1906 event within the context of the historical interrelationship between White evangelical Christianity, American capitalism, and racism."—Estrelda Y. Alexander, The Christian Century"In Azusa Reimagined, Keri Day offers a vital consideration of the intersectionality of race and gender with theological and economic concerns. However, what truly sets this work apart is the centering of the 1906 Azusa Revival, an event critical to the growth of Pentecostalism in the United States, as a revolutionary example of Black religion, and an authentic explication of Pentecost, both interpretive postures rarely taken by white or Black religious scholars."—David Latimore, Homiletic"Azusa Reimagined makes an important contribution to African American religious studies from the perspective of political theology and philosophy. With the publication of this text, Day establishes her own prominence among the scholars of African American Pentecostalism whose work she engages critically in her interpretation of Azusa."—Cheryl J. Sanders, PneumaTable of ContentsIntroduction: Subversive Beginnings 1. Capitalist Visions of Pentecost 2. Toppling White Evangelical and Market Orthodoxies 3. Black Female Genius 4. Azusa's Erotic Life 5. Lawlessness: A Critique of American Democracy 6. A Democracy to Come: Embracing Azusa's Political Moodiness
£92.80
Stanford University Press Green Mass: The Ecological Theology of St.
Book SynopsisGreen Mass is a meditation on—and with—twelfth-century Christian mystic and polymath Saint Hildegard of Bingen. Attending to Hildegard's vegetal vision, which greens theological tradition and imbues plant life with spirit, philosopher Michael Marder uncovers a verdant mode of thinking. The book stages a fresh encounter between present-day and premodern concerns, ecology and theology, philosophy and mysticism, the material and the spiritual, in word and sound. Hildegard's lush notion of viriditas, the vegetal power of creation, is emblematic of her deeply entwined understanding of physical reality and spiritual elevation. From blossoming flora to burning desert, Marder plays with the symphonic multiplicity of meanings in her thought, listening to the resonances between the ardency of holy fire and the aridity of a world aflame. Across Hildegard's cosmos, we hear the anarchic proliferation of her ecological theology, in which both God and greening are circular, without beginning or end. Introduced with a foreword by philosopher Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback and accompanied by cellist Peter Schuback's musical movements, which echo both Hildegard's own compositions and key themes in each chapter of the book, this multifaceted work creates a resonance chamber, in which to discover the living world anew. The original compositions accompanying each chapter are available free for streaming and for download at www.sup.org/greenmassTrade Review"Michael Marder brings Hildegard's creativity to light and to life, highlighting what is unique about her and, especially, what makes her such a needed voice that should be heard today."—Willemien Otten, University of Chicago Divinity School"A brilliant meditation on viriditas, where materiality and spirituality meet, and truly a 'resonance chamber' of themes that explore the full range of Hildegard's thinking, from roots to flowers."—Charles M. Stang, Harvard Divinity School"The wordviriditas is important to understand here. The author explains that it literally means 'the greening green,' and figuratively it means 'a self-refreshing vegetal power of creation ingrained in all finite things.' That's a mouthful, but it's also rich and beautiful. Take a moment to ponder such a world. This is St. Hildegard of Bingen's vision of what we inhabit, whether we realize it yet or not... Michael Marder points to the transformational quality of such teachings, for Christians and everyone who seeks to integrate the physical and the spiritual in their lives."—Jon M. Sweeney, Spirituality & Practice"I consider this to be one of the—if not the—most significant books of ecotheology to have appeared in recent years... Rather than attempt to explain Hildegard's many-layered analogies between divine spirit and vegetal mattering, Marder seeks to narrate the conditions under which those analogies could be true. The result is a book that is at once faithful to Hildegard's words (Green Mass is a close reading that cites source texts in detail, and dispenses with footnotes) and promiscuous in hermeneutic."—Simone Kotva, Worldviews: Global Religions, Culture, and Ecology"This is an extraordinary work of ecotheology. Not only is it a book, it is also a meditation at the meeting point of materiality and spirituality, a resonance chamber of Peter Schuback's musical compositions, and an invitation to encounter the present world through medieval mindsets."—Luke Penkett, The WayTable of ContentsPrelude Verges Analogies Resonances Missives Ardencies Anarchies Kisses Postlude
£72.00
Stanford University Press Love against Substitution: Seventeenth-Century
Book SynopsisAre we unique as individuals, or are we replaceable? Seventeenth-century English literature pursues these questions through depictions of marriage. The writings studied in this book elevate a love between two individuals who deem each other to be unique to the point of being irreplaceable, and this vocabulary allows writers to put affective pressure on the meaning of marriage as Pauline theology defines it. Stubbornly individual, love threatens to short-circuit marriage's function in directing intimate feelings toward a communal experience of Christ's love. The literary project of testing the meaning of marriage proved to be urgent work throughout the seventeenth century. Monarchy itself was put on trial in this century, and so was the usefulness of marriage in linking Christian belief with the legitimacy of hereditary succession. Starting at the end of the sixteenth century with Edmund Spenser, and then exploring works by William Shakespeare, William Davenant, John Milton, Lucy Hutchinson, and Aphra Behn, Eric Song offers a new account of how notions of unique personhood became embedded in a literary way of thinking and feeling about marriage.Trade Review"Love Against Substitution ranks among the most thoughtful and thorough works on the meaning of marriage. It's beautifully written and a joy to read."—Will Stockton, Clemson University"Eric Song's excellent new book reveals the central ideologeme of modern love to be 'Embrace me, my irreplaceable you,' a grasping for unique attachment in a world where all else is fungible. Deftly interweaving gender studies, political theology, and affect theory, Love against Substitution elegantly explores the fraught relationship between the individual and communal identities of the liberal subject."—Feisal Mohamed, Yale UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. "Beguiling Love in the Amoretti and the 1590 Faerie Queene" 2. Jealousy against Substitution in Othello and The Winter's Tale 3. "Gondibert and the Biopolitics of Marriage" 4. "Love against Succession in Paradise Lost" 5. "Lucy Hutchinson and the Imperfection of Christian Marriage" 6. "From Remarriage to Tragic Fungibility: Behn's The Forc'd Marriage and Oroonoko" Epilogue
£86.40
Stanford University Press Love against Substitution: Seventeenth-Century
Book SynopsisAre we unique as individuals, or are we replaceable? Seventeenth-century English literature pursues these questions through depictions of marriage. The writings studied in this book elevate a love between two individuals who deem each other to be unique to the point of being irreplaceable, and this vocabulary allows writers to put affective pressure on the meaning of marriage as Pauline theology defines it. Stubbornly individual, love threatens to short-circuit marriage's function in directing intimate feelings toward a communal experience of Christ's love. The literary project of testing the meaning of marriage proved to be urgent work throughout the seventeenth century. Monarchy itself was put on trial in this century, and so was the usefulness of marriage in linking Christian belief with the legitimacy of hereditary succession. Starting at the end of the sixteenth century with Edmund Spenser, and then exploring works by William Shakespeare, William Davenant, John Milton, Lucy Hutchinson, and Aphra Behn, Eric Song offers a new account of how notions of unique personhood became embedded in a literary way of thinking and feeling about marriage.Trade Review"Love Against Substitution ranks among the most thoughtful and thorough works on the meaning of marriage. It's beautifully written and a joy to read."—Will Stockton, Clemson University"Eric Song's excellent new book reveals the central ideologeme of modern love to be 'Embrace me, my irreplaceable you,' a grasping for unique attachment in a world where all else is fungible. Deftly interweaving gender studies, political theology, and affect theory, Love against Substitution elegantly explores the fraught relationship between the individual and communal identities of the liberal subject."—Feisal Mohamed, Yale UniversityTable of ContentsIntroduction 1. "Beguiling Love in the Amoretti and the 1590 Faerie Queene" 2. Jealousy against Substitution in Othello and The Winter's Tale 3. "Gondibert and the Biopolitics of Marriage" 4. "Love against Succession in Paradise Lost" 5. "Lucy Hutchinson and the Imperfection of Christian Marriage" 6. "From Remarriage to Tragic Fungibility: Behn's The Forc'd Marriage and Oroonoko" Epilogue
£23.39
Stanford University Press Azusa Reimagined: A Radical Vision of Religious
Book SynopsisIn Azusa Reimagined, Keri Day explores how the Azusa Street Revival of 1906, out of which U.S. Pentecostalism emerged, directly critiqued America's distorted capitalist values and practices at the start of the twentieth century. Employing historical research, theological analysis, and critical theory, Day demonstrates that Azusa's religious rituals and traditions rejected the racial norms and profit-driven practices that many white Christian communities gladly embraced. Through its sermons and social practices, the Azusa community critiqued racialized conceptions of citizenship that guided early capitalist endeavors such as world fairs and expositions. Azusa also envisioned deeper democratic practices of human belonging and care than the white nationalist loyalties early U.S. capitalism encouraged. In this lucid work, Day makes Azusa's challenge to this warped economic ecology visible, showing how Azusa not only offered a radical critique of racial capitalism but also offers a way for contemporary religious communities to cultivate democratic practices of belonging against the backdrop of late capitalism's deep racial divisions and material inequalities.Trade Review"Day's account of the democratic possibilities of life unleashed by the feminist and womanist founding of black Pentecostalism is groundbreaking. This book will redirect moral philosophy and political theology for generations."—Willie James Jennings, Yale University"Azusa Reimagined offers a pathway out of racial capitalism and a radical religious means to advance democracy, all based on Day's analysis of early Pentecostalism. This is a stunning, theoretically groundbreaking book."—David D. Daniels III, McCormick Theological Seminary"Cogent and revelatory in its analysis, this is the book for which we have been waiting! Day seamlessly ties the origins of black Pentecostalism to a progressive politics that challenged America's status quo."—Marla Frederick, Emory University"In this lucid work, Day makes Azusa's challenge to this warped economic ecology visible, showing how Azusa not only offered a radical critique of racial capitalism but also offers a way for contemporary religious communities to cultivate democratic practices of belonging against the backdrop of late capitalism's deep racial divisions and material inequalities."—C. Christopher Smith, Englewood Review of Books"Day is nuanced and thoughtful enough to acknowledge variegated legacies of the Azusa Revival; she considers both the potentials and limitations of Azusa even while lauding the former. Day elegantly weaves together diverse historical, philosophical, and theological literatures to vividly depict some crucial moments of the early Pentecostal movement and to reveal its egalitarian and inclusive nature."—Keunwoo Kwon, Reading Religion"If despair increasingly marks our individual lives, collectively we struggle to face the fraying of democracy as we reckon with the systemic sins at its foundation. In Azusa Reimagined, Keri Day shows how the founding of the Pentecostal movement provides a critique that can function as a corrective to the present moment."—Jason Micheli, The Christian Century"Azusa Reimagined is a creative and well-told story about the response of those from America's underside who found social, religious, and political meaning in an unorthodox expression of early-twentieth-century American Christianity. Day's meticulous use of theory, history, and theology makes the text uniquely convincing and captivating."—Dara Coleby Delgado, American Religion"Day's thoughtful work adds to that of a small cadre of scholars of color, Pentecostal and otherwise, who have attempted to resurrect and highlight the Azusa Street Revival's significance within American religious history. She goes further, however, placing the 1906 event within the context of the historical interrelationship between White evangelical Christianity, American capitalism, and racism."—Estrelda Y. Alexander, The Christian Century"In Azusa Reimagined, Keri Day offers a vital consideration of the intersectionality of race and gender with theological and economic concerns. However, what truly sets this work apart is the centering of the 1906 Azusa Revival, an event critical to the growth of Pentecostalism in the United States, as a revolutionary example of Black religion, and an authentic explication of Pentecost, both interpretive postures rarely taken by white or Black religious scholars."—David Latimore, Homiletic"Azusa Reimagined makes an important contribution to African American religious studies from the perspective of political theology and philosophy. With the publication of this text, Day establishes her own prominence among the scholars of African American Pentecostalism whose work she engages critically in her interpretation of Azusa."—Cheryl J. Sanders, PneumaTable of ContentsIntroduction: Subversive Beginnings 1. Capitalist Visions of Pentecost 2. Toppling White Evangelical and Market Orthodoxies 3. Black Female Genius 4. Azusa's Erotic Life 5. Lawlessness: A Critique of American Democracy 6. A Democracy to Come: Embracing Azusa's Political Moodiness
£23.79
Stanford University Press Jewish Culture between Canon and Heresy
Book SynopsisThis career-spanning anthology from prominent Jewish historian David Biale brings over a dozen of his key essays together for the first time. These pieces, written between 1974 and 2016, are all representative of a method Biale calls "counter-history": "the discovery of vital forces precisely in what others considered marginal, disreputable and irrational." The themes that have preoccupied Biale throughout the course of his distinguished career—in particular power, sexuality, blood, and secular Jewish thought—span the periods of the Bible, late antiquity, and the Middle Ages to the twentieth century. Exemplary essays in this volume argue for the dialectical relationship between modernity and its precursors in the older tradition, working together to "brush history against the grain" in order to provide a sweeping look at the history of the Jewish people. This volume of work by one of the boldest and most intellectually omnivorous Jewish thinkers of our time will be essential reading for scholars and students of Jewish studies.Trade Review"Over the course of his career, David Biale has distinguished himself for both his critical acumen and his capacious interests. Written in the contrarian spirit of "counter-history," these essays exemplify his singular passion for unsettling conventional ideas concerning the norms and boundaries of the Jewish past. A superb, thought-provoking collection."—Peter E. Gordon, author of Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization"David Biale has always been a trailblazer. This collection highlights the many ingenious roads he has opened for scholars of the Jewish past. Rigorous in method, delicate in touch, Biale sheds light on corners of history that others deemed marginal or taboo, inviting us to engage in an exploration of "counter-history" that remains directly at the field's heart."—Sarah Abrevaya Stein, co-editor of Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History 1934-1950"Intellectually exciting and apleasure to read, the essays in this collection are a fine introduction to many important thinkers in the Jewish tradition."—Bob Goldfarb, Jewish Book Council"Taking a constructivist approach, Biale'sexamination of historical contexts includes the Tanakh, the midrash, myth, politics, and more to arrive at a complex exploration of radicalism embedded within Jewish traditions. His genealogical methodology traces critical topics from their historical or textual origins to present understandings, exploring and connecting diverging exegeses along the way.... Recommended."—A. Lieberman, CHOICE"Throughout the essays in this compilation, Biale traces diverse voices that some might call counter-canonical or even 'heretical,' or as Biale puts it, 'feature inversions of convention or hidden traditions that challenge the canon.' ...For those familiar with Jewish history, these essays provide interesting perspectives and alternative views."—David Tesler, Association of Jewish Libraries ReviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction: Between Canon and Counterhistory 1. The God with Breasts: El Shaddai in the Bible 2. Korah in the Midrash: The Hairless Heretic as Hero 3. Counterhistory and Jewish Polemics against Christianity: The Sefer Toldot Yeshu and the Sefer Zerubavel 4. "The Torah Speaks the Language of Human Beings": Abraham Ibn Ezra's Radical Interpretation of the Bible 5. Between Melancholy and a Broken Heart: A Note on Rabbi Nahman of Bratslav's Depression 6. The Kabbalah in Nachman Krochmal's Philosophy of History 7. Masochism and Philosemitism: The Strange Case of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch 8. Historical Heresies and Modern Jewish Identity 9. Shabbtai Zvi and the Seductions of Jewish Orientalism 10. Leo Strauss: The Philosopher as Weimar Jew 11. Arendt in Jerusalem: Hannah Arendt on the Eichmann Trial 12. Gershom Scholem's "Ten Unhistorical Aphorisms on the Kabbalah": Text and Commentary 13. The Threat of Messianism: An Interview with Gershom Scholem (August 14, 1980) 14. Mysticism and Politics in Modern Israel: The Messianic Ideology of Abraham Isaac Ha-Cohen Kook 15. The End of Enlightenment? Epilogue: By the Waters of San Francisco: A Partial Autobiography
£68.85
Stanford University Press The Invention of a Tradition: The Messianic
Book SynopsisThe Gaon of Vilna was the foremost intellectual leader of non-Hasidic Jewry in eighteenth-century Europe; his legacy is claimed by religious Jews, both Zionist and not. In the mid-twentieth century, Shlomo Zalman Rivlin wrote several books advancing the myth that the Gaon was an early progenitor of Zionism. Following the 1967 War in Israel, messianic sentiments spread in some circles of the national-religious public in Israel, who embraced this myth and made it a central component of the historical narrative they advanced. For those who identified with the religious Zionist enterprise, the myth of the Gaon and his disciples as the first Zionists was seen as proof of the righteousness of their path. In this book, Israeli scholar Immanuel Etkes explores how what he calls the "Rivlinian myth" took hold, and demonstrates that it has no basis in historical reality. Etkes argues that proponents of the Rivlinian myth seek to blur the distinction between Zionism as a modern national movement and traditional messianic phenomenon—a distinction that underlies many of the central conflicts of contemporary Israeli politics. As historian David Biale suggests in his brief foreword to this English translation, "what is at stake here is not only historical truth but also the very identity of Zionism as a nationalist movement."Trade Review"Immanuel Etkes's meticulously learned study demolishes the revisionist history of the origins of Zionism. Not only has Etkes set the historical record straight, but he has also exposed the falsifications of history that serve the pernicious political turn towards messianic and antidemocratic religious fundamentalism in Israel today. An exceptional work of sober historical scholarship that makes a real difference in our understanding of the contemporary world."—Allan Nadler, Drew UniversityTable of ContentsForeword by David Biale Acknowledgments Introduction PART I The books Hazon Zion and Kol ha-Tor and the Rivlinian myth 1. Hazon Zion, a Messianic Zionist movement 2. The main ideas of Kol ha-Tor 3. Does Kol ha-Tor express a Messianic Zionist doctrine held by the Vilna Gaon PART II The Vilna Gaon and his disciples as the first Zionists: The evolution of a myth 4. Why did the disciples of the Vilna Gaon immigrate to the Land of Israel? 5. How did the Rivlinian myth take form? 6. Rabbi Menachem Mendel Kasher's Ha-Tkufah ha-Gdolah 7. The academic version of the Rivlinian myth 8. Did Shlomo Zalman Rivlin receive the text of Kol ha-Tor from Yitzhak Zvi Rivlin? PART III Additional writings by Shlomo Zalman Rivlin 9. Mossad ha-Yesod: The Old Yishuv recast as the beginnings of Zionism 10. Midrash Shlomo and the Department for Training Young Orators 11. Ha-Maggid Doresh Zion: Rabbi Moshe Rivlin as a "Zionist" leader 12. Sefer ha-Pizmonim: Yosef Yosha Rivlin as a "Messianic Zionist visionary PART IV The creation of Kol ha-Tor 13. Who was the author of Kol ha-Tor? 14. Shlomo Zalman Rivlin: The man and his literary motives 15. The embrace of the Rivlinian myth and Kol ha-Tor in Religious Zionist circles Conclusion Appendix: Rivlin family members Notes Bibliography Index
£49.30
Stanford University Press Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in
Book SynopsisReceived wisdom has it that Buddhism disappeared from India, the land of its birth, between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, long forgotten until British colonial scholars re-discovered it in the early 1800s. Its full-fledged revival, so the story goes, only occurred in 1956, when the Indian civil rights pioneer Dr. B.R. Ambedkar converted to Buddhism along with half a million of his Dalit (formerly "untouchable") followers. This, however, is only part of the story. Dust on the Throne reframes discussions about the place of Buddhism in the subcontinent from the early nineteenth century onwards, uncovering the integral, yet unacknowledged, role that Indians played in the making of modern global Buddhism in the century prior to Ambedkar's conversion, and the numerous ways that Buddhism gave powerful shape to modern Indian history. Through an extensive examination of disparate materials held at archives and temples across South Asia, Douglas Ober explores Buddhist religious dynamics in an age of expanding colonial empires, intra-Asian connectivity, and the histories of Buddhism produced by nineteenth and twentieth century Indian thinkers. While Buddhism in contemporary India is often disparaged as being little more than tattered manuscripts and crumbling ruins, this book opens new avenues for understanding its substantial socio-political impact and intellectual legacy.Trade Review"This is the first comprehensive study in any language of the revival of interest in Buddhism in nineteenth and twentieth-century India. It transforms the way we view modern Indian religious and political life. Through careful archival investigation, Douglas Ober uncovers numerous sources and topics that have been ignored or dealt with in piecemeal fashion. He uses this array of materials to create a compelling argument for the vital of importance of Buddhism in modern Indian religious life, politics, intellectual history, and culture. By highlighting the contributions of Indian scholars, advocates, and practitioners to the revival of Buddhism in twentieth-century India, Ober gives us a much more accurate picture of modern global Buddhism. This is a major, foundational contribution to religious and Buddhist history."—Richard Jaffe, author of Seeking Sakyamuni: South Asia in the Formation of Modern Japanese Buddhism"This is a book I've been waiting for—a powerful account of the contestations and challenges that marked the return of Buddhism to the public sphere. It forces us to think of the role of human agency in shaping the present and future in India—perhaps even in the world."—Uma Chakravarti, author of The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism"It is a fantastic read, almost like a detective novel in parts, and you turn the page wondering how Buddhism was discovered, how it fared in various contexts. Douglas Ober's mastery of sources, his adept linking of various geographies, ideas, and events are so effortlessly done that they belie the immense labor and reading and writing that have no doubt gone into the making of this book."—V Geetha, author of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism in India "This splendid book overturns the standard but faulty story of Buddhism's supposed disappearance from India by the thirteenth century. It completely recasts our understanding of modern Buddhism and its role in nineteenth and twentieth-century India. A marvelous combination of history, philosophy, and story-telling, Dust on the Throne is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand Buddhism in our world today."—Evan Thompson, author ofWaking, Dreaming, Being andWhy I Am Not a Buddhist"An engrossing and lively account of how modern India 'rediscovered' and re-engaged with Buddhism in the last two centuries, featuring a cast of compelling historical characters.Going far beyond standard assumptions and understandings about the decline and revival of Buddhism in India,Dust on the Throne is a must-read for all who are interested in south Asian history, both recent and ancient."—Tony Joseph, author of Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From"Dust on the Throne offers a new perspective on the history of Buddhism in India during the colonial period and early years of Independence. Marshalling an array of evidence that foregrounds the role of individuals and institutions (some known, some forgotten) in the context of subcontinental and global networks, it dispels many long-cherished notions about Buddhism's decline and revival in its homeland, offering a convincing alternative narrative."—Upinder Singh, author of History of Ancient and Early Medieval India"Douglas Ober's Dust on the Throne weaves a fascinating history of individuals, institutions, and events that animated modern Buddhism. The book provides rare insights into a range offorgotten Indianswhose contributions were as impressive as those of better-known colonials.Its exploration of the footprint of Buddhist discourses among the masses is equally captivating. This will remain a definitive study on the many streams that constituted the quest for Buddhism inModern India."—Nayanjot Lahiri, author of Ashoka in Ancient India"[Dust on the Throne] is vast and dense, shining light on many of the Indian historians, scholars, translators, ethnographers, and laborers whose engagement with ancient and modern Buddhism galvanized 19th- and 20th-century public discourse. Rather than fragmented, however, the confluence of geographies, perspectives, and demographics demonstrate how dynamic and complex local expertise and agency in the resurgence of Buddhism within India have been."—Liesl Schwabe, Los Angeles Review of Books"Ober's exhaustive survey assembles Buddhism's disparate histories from different regions of modern India and contextualizes the formation of its multiple stands. He effectively dismantles the idea of European discovery of Buddhism and challenges the overemphasis on the contribution of Dharmapala and Ambedkar's scholarship."—Abishek Singh Amar, Tricycle"Dust on the Throne: The Search for Buddhism in Modern India, an erudite study by the historian Douglas Ober, is an exception to the brahmin-centric trend, and an outstanding intervention for many reasons. Right from its thoughtful title – which captures the deep history and 'revival' of the region's Buddhist past – the book tells us a different story than the brahmin-centric narratives of so much other scholarship. Ober shows how the widespread notion that Buddhism in the Subcontinent had died by the thirteenth century or earlier, and showed no trace of life into the modern period, is at most a 'useful fiction', if not a foolish conclusion outright."—Gajendran Ayyathurai, Himal SouthasianTable of Contents0. Introduction 1. The Agony of Memory 2. Dispelling Darkness 3. Banyan Tree Buddhism 4. Brahmanizing Buddhism 5. The Snake and the Mongoose 6. When the Buddha met Marx 7. The Buddha Nation Conclusion: Conclusion
£68.00
University of Pennsylvania Press Ceremonial Splendor: Performing Priesthood in
Book SynopsisBy the end of France’s long seventeenth century, the seminary-trained, reform-minded Catholic priest had crystalized into a type recognizable by his clothing, gestures, and ceremonial skill. Although critics denounced these priests as hypocrites or models for Molière’s Tartuffe, seminaries associated the features of this priestly identity with the idea of the vray ecclésiastique, or true churchman. Ceremonial Splendor examines the way France’s early seminaries promoted the emergence and construction of the true churchman as a mode of embodiment and ecclesiastical ideal between approximately 1630 and 1730. Based on an analysis of sources that regulated priestly training in France, such as seminary rules and manuals, liturgical handbooks, ecclesiastical pamphlets and conferences, and episcopal edicts, the book uses theories of performance to reconstruct the way clergymen learned to conduct liturgical ceremonies, abide by clerical norms, and aspire to perfection. Joy Palacios shows how the process of crafting a priestly identity involved a wide range of performances, including improvisation, role-playing, and the display of skills. In isolation, any one of these performance obligations, if executed in a way that drew attention to the self, could undermine a clergyman’s priestly persona and threaten the institution of the priesthood more broadly. Seminaries counteracted the ever-present threat of theatricality by ceremonializing the clergyman’s daily life, rendering his body and gestures contiguous with the mass. Through its focus on priestly identity, Ceremonial Splendor reconsiders the relationship between Church and theater in early modern France and uncovers ritual strategies that continue to shape religious authority today.Table of ContentsNote on Translations Introduction: Priestly Performance, 1640–1730 Chapter 1. Clothing Chapter 2. Gestures Chapter 3. Ceremonies Chapter 4. Publics Chapter 5. Rivals Conclusion: Ceremonial Specialization and the Divergence of Performance RepertoiresNotes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments
£41.65
University of Pennsylvania Press Reimagining Christendom: Writing Iceland's
Book SynopsisWith its expanding legal system and its burgeoning throngs of lawyers, legates, and documents, the papacy of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has often been credited with spearheading a governmental revolution that molded the high medieval church into an increasingly disciplined, uniform, and machine-like institution. Reimagining Christendom offers a fresh appraisal of these developments from a surprising and distinctive vantage point. Tracing the web of textual ties that connected the northern fringes of Europe to the Roman see, Joel D. Anderson explores the ways in which Norse writers recruited, refashioned, and repurposed the legal principles and official documents of the Roman church for their own ends. Drawing on little-known vernacular sagas, Reimagining Christendom is populated with tales of married bishops, fictitious and forged papal bulls, and imagined canon law proceedings. These narratives, Anderson argues, demonstrate how Norse writers adapted and reconfigured the institutional power of the church in order to legitimize some of the thoroughly abnormal practices of their native bishops. In the process, Icelandic clerics constructed their own visions of ecclesiastical order—visions that underscore the thoroughly malleable character of the Roman church’s text-based government and that articulate diverse ways of belonging to the far-flung imagined community of high medieval Christendom.Trade Review"A first-rate piece of scholarship, this outstanding and engaging book explores how Norse sources represent the relationship between the Norse clerical elite and the papal Christian church at large." * Jonas Wellendorf, University of California, Berkeley *"Reimagining Christendom makes an important contribution to the history of medieval Iceland and its relationship to the papal monarchy. But it does much more than that. It prompts us to reimagine Christendom as a dynamic public realm of exchange, debate, and self-fashioning rather than a top-down papal project." * Brett Whalen, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill *
£41.65
University of Pennsylvania Press Jewish Blues: A History of a Color in Judaism
Book SynopsisJewish Blues presents a broad cultural, social, and intellectual history of the color blue in Jewish life between the sixteenth and twenty-first centuries. Bridging diverse domains such as religious law, mysticism, eschatology, as well as clothing and literature, this book contends that, by way of a protracted process, the color blue has constituted a means through which Jews have understood themselves. In ancient Jewish texts, the term for blue, tekhelet, denotes a dye that serves Jewish ritual purposes. Since medieval times, however, Jews gradually ceased to use tekhelet in their ritual life. In the nineteenth century, however, interest in restoring ancient dyes increased among European scholars. In the Jewish case, rabbis and scientists attempted to reproduce the ancient tekhelet dye. The resulting dyes were gradually accepted in the ritual life of many Orthodox Jews. In addition to being a dye playing a role in Jewish ritual, blue features prominently in the Jewish mystical tradition, in Jewish magic and popular custom, and in Jewish eschatology. Blue is also representative of the Zionist movement, and it is the only chromatic color in the national flag of the State of Israel. Through the study of the changing roles and meanings attributed to the color blue in Judaism, Jewish Blues sheds new light on the power of a visual symbol in shaping the imagination of Jews throughout history. The use of the color blue continues to reflect pressing issues for Jews in our present era, as it has become a symbol of Jewish modernity.Trade Review"Gadi Sagiv’s Jewish Blues masterfully unravels the history of tekhelet, a biblically mandated blue pigment that was lost in antiquity, discussed by legalists, exegetes, and mystics for millennia, and rediscovered with messianic verve in recent decades. Sagiv has created a deeply polychrome and compelling narrative that stretches the blue thread of Jewish tradition to the very heart of contemporary culture studies." * Steven Fine, Yeshiva University *
£41.65
University of Pennsylvania Press Faith in Exposure: Privacy and Secularism in the
Book SynopsisRecent legal history in the United States reveals a hardening tendency to treat religious freedom and sexual and reproductive freedom as competing, even opposing, claims on public life. They are united, though, by the fact that both are rooted in our culture’s understanding of privacy. Faith in Exposure shows how, over the course of the nineteenth century, privacy came to encompass such contradictions—both underpinning the right to sexual and reproductive rights but also undermining them in the name of religious freedom. Drawing on the interdisciplinary field of secular studies, Faith in Exposure brings a postsecular orientation to the historical emergence of modern privacy. The book explains this emergence through two interlocking stories. The first examines the legal and cultural connection of religion with the private sphere, showing how privacy became a moral concept that informs how we debate the right to be shielded from state interference, as well as who will be afforded or denied this protection. This conflation of religion with privacy gave rise, the book argues, to a “secular sensibility” that was especially invested in authenticity and the exposure of hypocrisy in others. The second story examines the development of this “secular sensibility” of privacy through nineteenth-century novels. The preoccupation of the novel form with private life, and especially its dependence on revelations of private desire and sexual secrets, made it the perfect vehicle for suggesting that exposure might be synonymous with morality itself. Each chapter places key authors into wider contexts of popular fiction and periodical press debates. From fears over religious infidelity to controversies over what constituted a modern marriage and conspiracy theories about abolitionists, these were the contests, Justine S. Murison argues, that helped privacy emerge as both a sensibility and a right in modern, secular America.Trade Review"Murison’s book is not just relevant but urgent...Faith in Exposure is an accomplished work of literary history. But perhaps its most striking payoff for an American reader right now is its account of how the conceptualization of privacy in the nineteenth-century United States shaped religious freedom and reproductive freedom into equal and opposite claims. " * Transatlantica *"Faith in Exposure is an all-too-timely study of how Americans have both valorized and violated privacy. It drives home the point that the right to privacy is not absolute or even all that comprehensive; it is now and always has been subject to public scrutiny and limitation....Americans have a long history of delightedly peering into other people’s private lives and denouncing and delimiting what they find there. This privacy-breaching habit does not make them voyeurs according to this cultural logic, but rather, as Faith in Exposure explicates so well, the preservers of national morality." * The New England Quarterly *"Murison's compelling study of 'secular sensibility of privacy' is a major and original contribution to literary studies...Faith in Exposure is both theoretically and historically informed. It will help to reframe future studies of the relation between novels and private life, the relation of marriage norms to nineteenth-century culture, and women's writing about private and domestic spaces." * Legacy *"[W]hat Murison accomplishes in this book, linking the latest scholarship in secular studies to a critical genealogy of privacy in American literature, all while nodding toward (but never fixating on) the 'method wars' that have preoccupied literary criticism over the past decade, places it among the most innovative and important contributions to the study of religion in American literature in recent memory." * Early American Literature *"What is a secular sensibility? And what has it to do with the ecologies of publicity and privacy that govern American modernity? In a series of bravura readings, Justine S. Murison returns us to the tumult of the American nineteenth century, where disestablishment, abolition, and a welter of renegade faith-practices together made a complex virtue of the intimate self’s artful, authentic disclosure. Faith in Exposure is a wonderful addition to the burgeoning archive of Americanist postsecular critique." * Peter Coviello, author of Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism *"Spanning from Thomas Paine to Henry James, Faith in Exposure unearths a rich archive of late eighteenth and nineteenth-century materials and examines the shift of moral life from the public sphere of organized, state-sponsored religion to the private sphere. Beautifully written, intensively researched, and immensely important, Faith in Exposure changes how we understand secularity and offers a major contribution to nineteenth-century American religious and literary studies." * Claudia Stokes, author of The Altar at Home: Sentimental Literature and Nineteenth-Century American Religion *"Nineteenth-century Americans worried that morality would suffer when religion was made private. Faith in Exposure identifies the solution that appeased this worry—that privacy would always be made public—and the irresolvable tensions resulting from this solution. The always collapsing binaries that result, especially those of privacy/publicity and faith/proof, show why privacy is such a fragile ground for protecting rights and imagining subjectivity." * Gretchen Murphy, author of New England Women Writers, Secularity, and the Federalist Politics of Church and State *Table of ContentsIntroduction. Our Faith in Exposure Chapter 1. Infidelity Chapter 2. Matrimony Chapter 3. Nudity Chapter 4. Conspiracy Chapter 5. Hypocrisy Chapter 6. Secrecy Epilogue. The Ends of Privacy Notes Index Acknowledgments
£41.65
University of Pennsylvania Press A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity
Book SynopsisThe Bible shaped nearly every aspect of Jewish life in the ancient world, from activities as obvious as attending synagogue to those which have lost their scriptural resonance in modernity, such as drinking water and uttering one’s last words. And within a scriptural universe, no work exerted more force than the Psalter, the most cherished text among all the books of the Hebrew Bible. A Life of Psalms in Jewish Late Antiquity clarifies the world of late ancient Judaism through the versatile and powerful lens of the Psalter. It asks a simple set of questions: Where did late ancient Jews encounter the Psalms? How did they engage with the work? And what meanings did they produce? A. J. Berkovitz answers these queries by reconstructing and contextualizing a diverse set of religious practices performed with and on the Psalter, such as handling a physical copy, reading from it, interpreting it exegetically, singing it as liturgy, invoking it as magic and reciting it as an act of piety. His book draws from and contributes to the fields of ancient Judaism, biblical reception, book history and the history of reading.Trade Review"An erudite and wide-ranging, but easy to read, exploration of the variety of uses of Psalms in Late Antiquity, highlighting their use in scrolls, art, inscriptions, and amulets—and more." * Marc Z. Brettler, co-author of The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently *"A model for how the post-biblical life of a Biblical book can be re-created." * David Stern, author of The Jewish Bible: A Material History *
£45.90
University of Pennsylvania Press And the Sages Did Not Know: Early Rabbinic
Book SynopsisThis book explores the question: How did the rabbis of the first two centuries CE approach bodies that are born with variant genitals—bodies that they could not identify as definitely male or female? The rabbis had constructed a system in which every behavior was governed by one’s sex/gender, posing a conundrum both for people who did not fit into that model and for the rabbinic enterprise itself. Despite this, their texts contain dozens of references to intersex. And the Sages Did Not Know examines the rabbis’ legal texts and concludes that they had multiple approaches to intersex people. Sarra Lev analyzes seven different rabbinic responses to this conflict of their own making. Through their rulings on how intersex people should conduct themselves in multiple circumstances, the early rabbis treat intersex people as unidentifiable males or females, as indeterminate, as male, as non-gendered, as sui generis, as part-male/part-female, as a sustainable paradox, and, finally, as a way for them to think about gender, having nothing to do with intersex people themselves. This is the first such work that concentrates primarily on the potential effects of these rabbinic texts on intersex persons themselves rather than focusing on what the texts offer readers whose interest is rabbinic approaches to sex and gender or gender diversity. Although the rabbinic texts do not include the voices of known intersex people, these materials do offer us a window into how one small group of people approached intersex bodies, and how those approaches were both similar to and different from those we recognize today.Trade Review"With this meticulous and erudite study of the early rabbinic texts about the figure of the nonbinary body, the androginos, Sarra Lev offers a compelling case for using the late ancient material in the contemporary conversation about intersex embodiment. Lev beautifully weaves together the rabbinic legal discourse with contemporary intersex voices, thereby crafting a space of possibility for a different future for these late ancient Jewish texts. A critical contribution toward contending with the Jewish and—by implication—with the U.S. binary sex/gender system of law." * Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Stanford University *
£50.40
Fordham University Press A Grammar of the Corpse: Necroepistemology in the
Book SynopsisNo matter when or where one starts telling the story of the battle of al-Qasr al-Kabir (August 4, 1578), the precipitating event for the formation of the Iberian Union, one always stumbles across dead bodies—rotting in the sun on abandoned battlefields, publicly displayed in marketplaces, exhumed and transported for political uses. A Grammar of the Corpse: Necroepistemology in the Early Modern Mediterranean proposes an approach to understanding how dead bodies anchored the construction of knowledge within early modern Mediterranean historiography. A Grammar of the Corpse argues that the presence of the corpse in historical narrative is not incidental. It fills a central gap in testimonial narrative: providing tangible evidence of the narrator’s reliability while provoking an affective response in the audience. The use of corpses as a source of narrative authority mobilizes what cultural historians, philosophers, and social anthropologists have pointed to as the latent power of the dead for generating social and political meaning and knowledge. A Grammar of the Corpse analyzes the literary, semiotic, and epistemological function these bodies serve within text and through language. It finds that corpses are indexically present and yet disturbingly absent, a tension that informs their fraught relationship to their narrators’ own bodies and makes them useful but subversive tools of communication and knowledge. A Grammar of the Corpse complements recent work in medieval and early modern Iberian and Mediterranean studies to account for the confessional, ethnic, linguistic, and political diversity of the region. By reading Arabic texts alongside Portuguese and Spanish accounts of this key event, the book responds to the fundamental provocation of Mediterranean studies to work beyond the linguistic limitations of modern national boundaries.Table of ContentsPreface | vii Introduction: Necroepistemology | 1 1 Presence: Here Are the Dead | 25 2 Absence: Disappearing the Royal Dead | 45 3 Vitality: Wounded Narrators and the Living Dead | 69 4 Assemblage: Recovering Diplomatic Power with Corpses | 89 5 Erasure: Corpse Desecration for Narrative Control | 110 Epilogue | 135 Acknowledgments | 141 Notes | 145 Bibliography | 195 Index | 215
£84.15
Fordham University Press A Grammar of the Corpse: Necroepistemology in the
Book SynopsisNo matter when or where one starts telling the story of the battle of al-Qasr al-Kabir (August 4, 1578), the precipitating event for the formation of the Iberian Union, one always stumbles across dead bodies—rotting in the sun on abandoned battlefields, publicly displayed in marketplaces, exhumed and transported for political uses. A Grammar of the Corpse: Necroepistemology in the Early Modern Mediterranean proposes an approach to understanding how dead bodies anchored the construction of knowledge within early modern Mediterranean historiography. A Grammar of the Corpse argues that the presence of the corpse in historical narrative is not incidental. It fills a central gap in testimonial narrative: providing tangible evidence of the narrator’s reliability while provoking an affective response in the audience. The use of corpses as a source of narrative authority mobilizes what cultural historians, philosophers, and social anthropologists have pointed to as the latent power of the dead for generating social and political meaning and knowledge. A Grammar of the Corpse analyzes the literary, semiotic, and epistemological function these bodies serve within text and through language. It finds that corpses are indexically present and yet disturbingly absent, a tension that informs their fraught relationship to their narrators’ own bodies and makes them useful but subversive tools of communication and knowledge. A Grammar of the Corpse complements recent work in medieval and early modern Iberian and Mediterranean studies to account for the confessional, ethnic, linguistic, and political diversity of the region. By reading Arabic texts alongside Portuguese and Spanish accounts of this key event, the book responds to the fundamental provocation of Mediterranean studies to work beyond the linguistic limitations of modern national boundaries.Table of ContentsPreface | vii Introduction: Necroepistemology | 1 1 Presence: Here Are the Dead | 25 2 Absence: Disappearing the Royal Dead | 45 3 Vitality: Wounded Narrators and the Living Dead | 69 4 Assemblage: Recovering Diplomatic Power with Corpses | 89 5 Erasure: Corpse Desecration for Narrative Control | 110 Epilogue | 135 Acknowledgments | 141 Notes | 145 Bibliography | 195 Index | 215
£23.79
Fordham University Press Singing with the Mountains: The Language of God
Book SynopsisAn illuminating story of a Sufi community that sought the revelation of God. In the Afghan highlands of the sixteenth century, the messianic community known as the Roshaniyya not only desired to find God’s word and to abide by it but also attempted to practice God’s word and to develop techniques of language intended to render their own tongues as the organs of continuous revelation. As their critics would contend, however, the Roshaniyya attempted to make language do something that language should not do—infuse the semiotic with the divine. Their story thus ends in a tower of skulls, the proliferation of heresiographies that detailed the sins of the Roshaniyya, and new formations of “Afghan” identity. In Singing with the Mountains, William E. B. Sherman finds something extraordinary about the Roshaniyya, not least because the first known literary use of vernacular Pashto occurs in an eclectic, Roshani imitation of the Qur’an. The story of the Roshaniyya exemplifies a religious culture of linguistic experimentation. In the example of the Roshaniyya, we discover a set of questions and anxieties about the capacities of language that pervaded Sufi orders, imperial courts, groups of wandering ascetics, and scholastic networks throughout Central and South Asia. In telling this tale, Sherman asks the following questions: How can we make language shimmer with divine truth? How can letters grant sovereign power and form new “ethnic” identities and ways of belonging? How can rhyme bend our conceptions of time so that the prophetic past comes to inhabit the now of our collective moment? By analyzing the ways in which the Roshaniyya answered these types of questions—and the ways in which their answers were eventually rejected as heresies—this book offers new insight into the imaginations of religious actors in the late medieval and early modern Persianate worlds.Table of ContentsPreface: First Words | vii Acknowledgments | xi Mountains and Messiahs: An Introduction | 1 1 Bayazid’s Doubles: Hagiography and History in the Messianic Community | 29 2 The Dhikr of the Wretch: Text, Practice, and the Roshani Self | 62 3 Revelation through Repetition: The Roshaniyya Write the Word of God | 90 4 Vernacular Apocalypse: Poetic and Polemical Emergences of Pashto Literature | 118 5 The Vanguard of Disbelief: Afghan Ethnicity and Temporality after the Roshaniyya | 151 Ishmael’s Daydream: A Conclusion | 180 A Note on Sources | 189 Notes | 193 Bibliography | 227 Index | 253
£95.20
Fordham University Press Singing with the Mountains: The Language of God
Book SynopsisAn illuminating story of a Sufi community that sought the revelation of God. In the Afghan highlands of the sixteenth century, the messianic community known as the Roshaniyya not only desired to find God’s word and to abide by it but also attempted to practice God’s word and to develop techniques of language intended to render their own tongues as the organs of continuous revelation. As their critics would contend, however, the Roshaniyya attempted to make language do something that language should not do—infuse the semiotic with the divine. Their story thus ends in a tower of skulls, the proliferation of heresiographies that detailed the sins of the Roshaniyya, and new formations of “Afghan” identity. In Singing with the Mountains, William E. B. Sherman finds something extraordinary about the Roshaniyya, not least because the first known literary use of vernacular Pashto occurs in an eclectic, Roshani imitation of the Qur’an. The story of the Roshaniyya exemplifies a religious culture of linguistic experimentation. In the example of the Roshaniyya, we discover a set of questions and anxieties about the capacities of language that pervaded Sufi orders, imperial courts, groups of wandering ascetics, and scholastic networks throughout Central and South Asia. In telling this tale, Sherman asks the following questions: How can we make language shimmer with divine truth? How can letters grant sovereign power and form new “ethnic” identities and ways of belonging? How can rhyme bend our conceptions of time so that the prophetic past comes to inhabit the now of our collective moment? By analyzing the ways in which the Roshaniyya answered these types of questions—and the ways in which their answers were eventually rejected as heresies—this book offers new insight into the imaginations of religious actors in the late medieval and early modern Persianate worlds.Table of ContentsPreface: First Words | vii Acknowledgments | xi Mountains and Messiahs: An Introduction | 1 1 Bayazid’s Doubles: Hagiography and History in the Messianic Community | 29 2 The Dhikr of the Wretch: Text, Practice, and the Roshani Self | 62 3 Revelation through Repetition: The Roshaniyya Write the Word of God | 90 4 Vernacular Apocalypse: Poetic and Polemical Emergences of Pashto Literature | 118 5 The Vanguard of Disbelief: Afghan Ethnicity and Temporality after the Roshaniyya | 151 Ishmael’s Daydream: A Conclusion | 180 A Note on Sources | 189 Notes | 193 Bibliography | 227 Index | 253
£26.99
Baker Publishing Group Crowned with Glory – How Proclaiming the Truth of
Book SynopsisAmerica was founded on the concept of the innate and inalienable rights of humankind. Many Christians see an echo of the imago Dei--that every human being carries the image of God--within those ideals. Yet these rights were systemically withheld from the Black and enslaved residents of this country for centuries. Through it all, Black people have proclaimed the truth of their dignity and personhood in powerful and profound ways. Crowned with Glory collects many of the writings of these men and women, both familiar and lesser-known, to shine a light on what has always been there: an enormous movement of Black Americans demanding the liberty they were promised and deserved. With moving and insightful reflections on these oft-forgotten or suppressed voices, author Jasmine L. Holmes offers a hopeful and encouraging testament to the power of unrelenting cries for justice that will strike a chord with anyone looking for a robust Christian history of resistance. If you want to understand how we got here, read this book. If you want to know where we go from here, read it again.
£14.39
Baker Publishing Group The First One Hundred Years of Christianity: An
Book SynopsisBeginning as a marginal group in Galilee, the movement initiated by Jesus of Nazareth became a world religion within 100 years. Why, among various religious movements, did Christianity succeed? This major work by internationally renowned scholar Udo Schnelle traces the historical, cultural, and theological influences and developments of the early years of the Christian movement. It shows how Christianity provided an intellectual framework, a literature, and socialization among converts that led to its enduring influence. Senior New Testament scholar James Thompson offers a clear, fluent English translation of the successful German edition.Table of ContentsContents 1. On Writing a History of Origins 1.1 History as Interpretation of the Present and the Past 1.2 History and Method 2. Definition and Demarcation of the Epoch 2.1 Primitive Christianity or Early Christianity? 2.2 The Chronological Framework 3. Presuppositions and Contexts 3.1 Hellenism as a World Culture 3.2 Greco-Roman Culture 3.3 Judaism 3.4 The Political and Economic Situation in the Roman Empire in the First and Second Centuries CE 4. The New Movement of Christ-Believers 4.1 The Easter Events 4.2 The Origin of Christology 4.3 The Founder of a New Discourse and New Thinking 5. The Jerusalem Church 5.1 The Beginnings 5.2 Groups and Persons 5.3 Places: The Temple 5.4 Conflicts 5.5 Theological Institutions and Discourse 5.6 Texts: The Passion Narrative 5.7 The Theological Development of the Early Jerusalem Church 6. Early Churches and Early Mission outside of Jerusalem 6.1 Contexts: Mobility and Religious-Philosophical Variety in the Roman Empire 6.2 Persons 6.3 Groups: The Jesus Movement 6.4 Lands and Places 6.5 Competitors and Conflicts 6.6 The Development of the Community's Own Cult Praxis and Theology/the First Forms of Institutionalization 6.7 Texts 6.8 The First Missionary Journey and the Mission to the Gentiles without the Requirement of Circumcision 6.9 The Three Great Currents at the Beginning 7. The Apostolic Conference 7.1 The Initial Conflict 7.2 The Essential Problem 7.3 The Process 7.4 The Result 7.5 Interpretations of the Outcome 7.6 The Incident at Antioch 8. The Independent Mission of Paul 8.1 Perspective, Process, and Conflicts 8.2 Persons 8.3 Structures 8.4 External Discourse 8.5 Internal Discourse 8.6 Theology in Letter Form: The Pauline Letters 8.7 Paul and the Development of Early Christianity as an Independent Movement 9. The Crisis of Early Christianity around 70 CE 9.1 The Deaths of Peter, Paul, and James and the First Persecutions 9.2 The Destruction of the Temple, the Fall of the Jerusalem Church, and the Fiscus Judaicus 9.3 The Rise of the Flavians 9.4 The Writing of the Gospels and Pseudepigraphy as Innovative Responses to Crises 10. The Establishment of Early Christianity 10.1 A New Genre for a New Era: The Gospels 10.2 The Synoptic Gospels and Acts as Master Narratives 10.3 The Continuing Legacy of Paul 10.4 Johannine Christianity as the Fourth Great Current (Stream) 10.5 Jewish Christianity as an Abiding Power 10.6 Perceptions by Outsiders 11. Dangers and Threats 11.1 The Delay of the Parousia 11.2 Poor and Rich 11.3 Controversies/False Teachers/Opponents 11.4 Structures and Offices 11.5 Conflicts with Judaism after 70 CE 12. Persecutions of Christians and the Imperial Cult 12.1 The Imperial Cult as a Political Religion 12.2 Persecution under Nero 12.3 Persecution under Domitian? 12.4 Pliny and Trajan concerning Christianity 13. Early Christianity as an Independent Movement 13.1 The New Narrative and the New Language of the Christians 13.2 New Perspectives about God 13.3 Serving as a Model of Success 13.4 Early Christianity as a Religion of the City and of Education 13.5 The Major Theological Currents and Networks near the End of the First Century 13.6 The Expansion of Early Christianity 14. The Transition to the Ancient Church 14.1 Claims to Power and Established Structures 14.2 The Emergence of Another Message: Early Gnosticism 15. Fifteen Reasons for the Success of Early Christianity Works Cited Indexes
£41.99
Baker Publishing Group The Significance of Singleness – A Theological
Book SynopsisThe church needs to do a better job of speaking theologically to single Christians. Challenging prevailing evangelical assumptions about "the problem" of singleness, this book explains why the church needs single people and offers a contemporary theology of singleness relevant to all members of the church. Drawing on the examples of three important figures from the history of Christianity, the book helps today's church form a vision of life in the kingdom of God that is as theologically significant for single people as it is for those who are married.Table of ContentsContentsIntroductionPart 11. Why Singleness?Part 22. Macrina: Singleness and Community3. Perpetua: Singleness and Identity4. Lottie Moon: Singleness and AuthorityPart 35. How Singleness Can Shape Us into Better Theologians
£15.19
Baker Publishing Group Providence: A Biblical, Historical, and
Book SynopsisAddressing a topic of perennial interest in Christian theology, this volume offers a constructive account of the doctrine of providence. Mark Elliott shows that, contrary to received opinion, the Bible has a lot to say about providence as a distinct doctrine within the wider scope of God's acts of salvation. This book by a leading scholar of Christian theology and exegesis is a capstone of years of research on the history and theology of the doctrine of providence.Table of ContentsContents 1. Is Providence Topical or Even Biblical? 2. Alternative Themes to Providence in the Bible 3. Providence and Divine Action, Viewed Biblically 4. Finding Providence across the Old Testament Genres 5. Providence as Set Forth in the New Testament 6. Systematic Considerations in the Light of Biblical Theology Indexes
£19.79
Baker Publishing Group Retrieving Nicaea – The Development and Meaning
Book SynopsisKhaled Anatolios, a noted expert on the development of Nicene theology, offers a historically informed theological study of the development of the doctrine of the Trinity, showing its relevance to Christian life and thought today. According to Anatolios, the development of trinitarian doctrine involved a global interpretation of Christian faith as a whole. Consequently, the meaning of trinitarian doctrine is to be found in a reappropriation of the process of this development, such that the entirety of Christian existence is interpreted in a trinitarian manner. The book provides essential resources for this reappropriation by identifying the network of theological issues that comprise the "systematic scope" of Nicene theology, focusing especially on the trinitarian perspectives of three major theologians: Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine. It includes a foreword by Brian E. Daley.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Development as Meaning in Trinitarian Doctrine1. Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology: History and InterpretationBefore NicaeaThe Early Stages of ControversyCrisis and ResolutionCategories and Interpretation2. Development of Trinitarian Doctrine: A Model and Its ApplicationCommon Experience at the Threshold of NicaeaTrinitarian Theologians of Unity of WillTrinitarian Theologians of Unity of Being 3. Athanasius: The Crucified Lord and Trinitarian DeificationThe Divinity of the Crucified and the Christian Story of SalvationConstructing a Trinitarian HermeneuticsNicaea and the Dialectic of Scripture and DoctrineTheology of the Holy SpiritChristian Life in the Trinity4. Gregory of Nyssa: The Infinite Perfection of Trinitarian LifeThe Doctrine of Against EunomiusA Trinitarian Systematic Theology of the Catechetical OrationTheology of the Holy SpiritDefining the Trinity? Three Hypostaseis, One OusiaChristian Life in the Trinity5. Augustine's De Trinitate: Trinitarian Contemplation as Christological QuestAugustine's Trinitarian EpistemologyScriptural Exposition of God as TrinityThe Trinitarian Image in HumanityHuman Certainty and Seeing the TrinityConclusion: Retrieving the Systematic Scope of Nicene TheologyIndexes
£28.99
Baker Publishing Group Early North African Christianity – Turning Points
Book SynopsisAn internationally recognized scholar highlights the important role the North African church played in the development of Christian thought. This accessible introduction brings Africa back to the center of the study of Christian history by focusing on key figures and events that influenced the history and trajectory of Christianity as a whole. Written and designed for the classroom, the book zeroes in on five turning points to show how North African believers significantly shaped Christian theology, identity, and practice in ways that directly impact the church today.Table of ContentsContents1. A (Re)Introduction to AfricaPart 1: Perpetua and Felicity2. The Life and Times of the Early Martyrs3. Perpetua and Felicity: Models of Christian Devotion4. Perpetua: Leadership and ControversyPart 2: Tertullian5. The Life and Times of Tertullian6. Tertullian Defending the Faith: Apologetics and Heretics7. Tertullian Defining the Faith: The Fullness of the TrinityPart 3: Cyprian of Carthage8. The Life and Times of Cyprian9. Cyprian: On Forgiveness and Unity10. Cyprian: The Rebaptism ControversyPart 4: The Donatist Controversy11. The Life and Times of the Later Martyrs12. Caecilianists versus Donatists: Rival Churches13. Donatists versus Caecilianists: Rival MartyrsPart 5: Augustine of Hippo14. The Life and Times of Augustine15. Augustine: Theologian of the West16. Augustine: Debate with Pelagius on Grace and the WillConclusionSelect Resources for Further ReadingIndex
£16.14
Wilfrid Laurier University Press Travel and Religion in Antiquity
Book Synopsis Travel and Religion in Antiquity considers the importance of issues relating to travel for our understanding of religious and cultural life among Jews, Christians, and others in the ancient world, particularly during the Hellenistic and Roman eras. The volume is organized around five overlapping areas where religion and travel intersect: travel related to honouring deities, including travel to festivals, oracles, and healing sanctuaries; travel to communicate the efficacy of a god or the superiority of a way of life, including the diffusion of cults or movements; travel to explore and encounter foreign peoples or cultures, including descriptions of these cultures in ancient ethnographic materials; migration; and travel to engage in an occupation or vocation. With interdisciplinary contributions that cover a range of literary, epigraphic, and archeological materials, the volume sheds light on the importance of movement in connection with religious life among Greeks, Romans, Nabateans, and others, including Judeans and followers of Jesus. Trade Review``This interdisciplinary collection of essays tackles the complicated and significant role of travel and movement in ancient Mediterranean religions. Its chapters address issues of pilgrimage, travel narratives, ethnography, migration and occupational travel through the examination of literary, epigraphic, papyrological and archaeological sources. Focusing primarily on the eastern Mediterranean, it explores travel in the religious lives of ancient Mesopotamians, Judeans, Greeks, Romans, Nabateans, and Christians. Its chronological, geographic and methodological range is impressive and the chapters only grow stronger when seen in dialogue with one another.... Altogether...the essays succeed admirably at charting new directions and exploring new terrain. While many others have studied travel and religion, especially with regard to pilgrimage and identity, the range of this collection leads us to think about travel as an inherent and widespread component of religions in the ancient Mediterranean world.... Travel and Religion in Antiquity will surely spark future research in this important area, especially in light of its timeliness. All told it is a very welcome addition to the scholarship on ancient travel and religion.'' -- Josephine Shaya, The College of Wooster -- Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 2011.11.24, 201111``Philip Harland has produced an exceptionally interesting and theoretically astute collection of essays, based on the seminars of the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies and throughly in dialogue with new work like Jaś Elsner and Ian Rutherford's Seeing the Gods (although too late for some of the participants to engage in Catherine Heszer's new Jewish Travel in Antiquity).[1] In some ways the volume follows new questions in the area of New Testament studies about itinerancy and cult migration; and yet only two of the papers in the volume address New Testament materials. The collection is far more eclectic, including discussions of Mesopotamian mythology, Nabataean ritual, and Tacitus's interpretations of barbarian gods.... Harland has assembled a rich, lucid, and thought-provoking book of essays, the kind that can be recommended for general perusal rather than for a few isolated essays.'' -- David Frankfurter -- H-Judaic (H-Net Reviews), June 2012, 201207``The importance of the relationship between travel and religion has emerged in a trickle of intriguing publications in recent years, but it remains a relatively new and under-explored field. The 12 essays collected in this volume contribute much to the discussion. They offer fresh insights and new angles on familiar material, as well as introducing some less familiar sources.'' -- Jane Heath -- Journal for the Study of the New Testament, Volume 35.5, August 2013, 201309``The scholarship in these essays is excellent. It is evident that all of the authors know their fields well; they are well acquainted with the relevant primary and secondary literature as well as with the relevant methodologies. The manuscript as such makes an important contribution to the field. Harland's introductory essay does a superb job of placing the volume in the broader context of the field as a whole, and of showing that while the study of travel in the ancient world has been undertaken by others, this volume is likely the first to highlight the intersection of religion and travel. The volume will make a very important contribution both to the discussion of ancient travel and, even more perhaps, to the field of religion in antiquity.'' -- Adele Reinhartz, University of Ottawa, author of Jesus of Hollywood (2007) -- 201001Table of Contents Travel and Religion in Antiquity, edited by Philip A. Harland Map: The Ancient Mediterranean Preface I. Pausing at the Intersection of Religion and Travel Philip A. Harland Honouring the Gods II. Religion on the Road in Ancient Greece and Rome Steven Muir III. Going Up to Jerusalem: Pilgrimage, Purity, the Historical Jesus Susan Haber IV. Pilgrimage, Place, and Meaning Making by Jews in Greco-Roman Egypt Wayne O. McCready V. Have Horn, Will Travel: The Journeys of Mesopotamian Deities Karljürgen G. Feuerherm Promoting a Deity or Way of Life VI. The Divine Wanderer: Travel and Divinization in Late Antiquity Ian W. Scott VII. Journeys in Pursuit of Divine Wisdom: Thessalos and Other Seekers Philip A. Harland VIII. ""Danger in the wilderness, danger at sea"": Paul and the Perils of Travel Ryan S. Schellenberg Encountering Foreign Cultures IX. Roman Translation: Tacitus and Ethnographic Interpretation James B. Rives Migrating X. Migration and the Emergence of Greco-Roman Diaspora Judaism Jack N. Lightstone Making A Living XI. Religion and the Nomadic Lifestyle: The Nabateans Michele Murray XII. Christians on the Move in Late Antique Oxyrhynchus Lincoln H. Blumell Works Cited
£999.99
