Religion and beliefs Books

Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAn immensely rich resource for persons interested in medieval Islamic civilization. Choice A groundbreaking work in the study of Sufism. -- Laury Silvers International Journal of Middle East Studies A remarkable study of embodiment in a Sufi and Islamic idiom. -- Scott Kugle Journal of Sufi Studies [A] pathbreaking book... I hope that more scholars follow Shahzad Bashir's lead and contribute to this critically important field of inquiry in Islamic studies. History of ReligionsTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Note on Transliteration Abbreviations Chronology Introduction and Shaking Hands 1 Framing Sufi Ideas and Practices 1. Bodies Inside Out 2. Befriending God Corporeally 3. Saintly Socialites 2 Sufi Bodies in Motion 4. Bonds of Love 5. Engendered Desires 6. Miraculous Food 7. Corpses in Morticians' Hands Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade Review[T]he book will have some real and lasting use as a primary source American Catholic Studies

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewOverall, Mandair's broad temporal, spatial, and intellectual perspectives make this a very interesting volume. By exploring Sikhism from the perspectives of deconstructionist, postcolonial, and postsecular theory, he fills in an important gap in Sikh philosophy and charts out provocative new directions. -- Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh History of Religions Arguably the most theoretically incisive work in Sikh studies since the field's inception. -- Balbinder Singh Bhogal Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Mandair has... provided us with a sketch of a postsecular theory that promises to vigorously decolonize the mind. -- Harjot Oberoi, University of British Columbia The Journal of Asian Studies By pursuing a postcolonial perspective that aims to undo inherited imperialist configurations, Mandair paves new ground and pushes the boundaries of a currently widespread postcolonial critique of power, especially when it comes to the question of religion and secularism in the public sphere. -- Michael Nijhawan, York University Translation Studies [A]n ambitious book that is an important contribution to the critical discourse about religion in the context of post-colonialism. -- Gavin Flood, University of Oxford Method and Theory in the Study of ReligionTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction Part I. "Indian Religions" and Western Thought 1. Mono-theo-lingualism: Religion, Language, and Subjectivity in Colonial North India 2. Hegel and the Comparative Imaginary of the West Part II. Theology as Cultural Translation 3. Sikhism and the Politics of Religion-Making 4. Violence, Mysticism, and the Capture of Subjectivity Part III. Postcolonial Exits 5. Ideologies of Sacred Sound 6. Decolonizing Postsecular Theory Epilogue Glossary of Indic Terms Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsDay / Night Beginning / Origin Elsewhere / Silence Reflections / Reticence Premonitions / Postcards Home / Afterlife Stealth / Sacrifice Killing / Elemental Abandonment / Mortality Displacement / Place Creativity / Thinking E/Mergence / Emptiness Walls / Garden Painting / Play Perhaps / Numbers Pleasure / Money Vocation / Teaching Last / Burial Solitude / Loneliness Things / Ghosts Levity / Grief Humor / Monsters Faction / Dishonesty Inheritance / Withholding Letting Go / Dinnertime Compassion / Suffering Clouds / Waiting Freedom / Terror Forgiveness / Cruelty Daughters / Obsession Failure / Success Balance / Simplicity Face / Aging Stigma / Autoimmunity Patience / Chronicity Technology / Addiction Pain / Intimacy Blindness / Aura Cancer / Surviving Trust / Bitterness Hands / Will Secrets / Tripping Strangers / Tips Sharing / Fatigue Idleness / Guilt Driving / Accident Imperfection / Vulnerability Friendship / Doubt Love / Fidelity Hope / Despair Happiness / Melancholy Ordinary / Extraordinary Notes Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA welcome addition to our catalog of religious movements and a timely reminder that circulation does not flow in only one direction-and never will again. -- Jack David Eller Anthropology Review Database [An] informative and erudite book. -- Alexandra Kent Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute a rich and challenging text. -- Hanna H. Kim H-Asia Winged Faith is a readable and carefully documented account of an extraordinary modern religious figure, but its appeal is much wider. It is an important contribution to the literature on globalization and a valuable corrective to the pervasive view that globalization, especially cultural globalization, is simply westernization. -- Bryan S. Turner Society It is a book that should be widely read by scholars and people coming from a wide range of disciplines and perspectives. -- Amit Chaturvedi Contemporary South Asia Srinivas' impressive study argues for new visions of pluralism that hinge upon an engaged cosmopolitanism...One hopes Srinivas' impressive work will be read by scholars from numerous fields, as its reach is incredibly broad. -- Jeffrey M. Brackett Journal of Hindu StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Note on Translation List of Abbreviations Introduction: Toward Cultural Understanding 1. Becoming God: The Story of Sathya Sai Baba 2. Deus Loci: Economies of Faith, Sacred Travel, and the Building of a Moral Architecture 3. Illusion, Play, and Work in a Moral Community: Divine Darshan and the Practices of Transnational Devotion 4. Renegotiating the Body: Muscular Morality, Truancy, and the Satisfaction of Desire 5. Secrecy, Ambiguity, Truth, and Power: The Global Sai Organization and the Anti-Sai Network 6. Out of God's Hands: Reframing Material Worlds In Lieu of a Conclusion: Some Thoughts on Cultural Translation and Engaged Cosmopolitanism Appendix Notes References Index

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Book SynopsisAngel Park is a Mormon fundamentalist polygamous community where plural marriages between one man and multiple women are common. Based on many years of in-depth ethnographic research, Illicit Monogamy considers the plural family from the points of view of husbands, wives, and children, giving a balanced account of its complications and conflicts.Trade ReviewIllicit Monogamy focuses on the polygamous community Angel Park, giving readers a real feel for the society. Jankowiak is superb at treating his subjects with fairness, so that we don't care about who is 'best,' but rather what universal factors shape people's responses. This is a wonderful book—I'd be proud to have written it. -- Elaine Hatfield, author of What's Next in Love and Sex: Psychological and Cultural PerspectivesJankowiak explores in detail the nature of polygynous relationships from the points of view of husbands, wives, and children. The ethnography is very rich and complex, and he is deeply sympathetic to these families in the almost inevitable clash they experience between religious ideology and human emotion and is able to deeply explore their often-conflicted perspectives. Jankowiak is masterful at this—I feel that I can truly understand from this book what it must be like to live in a plural-family household, in both its happiness and its tensions. -- Gordon Mathews, coauthor of The World in Guangzhou: Africans and Other Foreigners in South China’s Global MarketplaceThis original study of the fundamentalist Mormon polygamous community draws on the background of Jankowiak's cross-cultural and ethnographic research on romantic and companionate love, marriage, and sex in Mongolia, China, and elsewhere. Based on a six-year ethnographic project, the author presents rich details from the individual lives of men, women, and children as they adapt to a patriarchally-based polygamous form of family. Simultaneously the ethnographer discerns general patterns and regularities based on systematic collective norms drawn from religious sources. Jankowiak's brilliant synthesis of ethnography and theory throughout his lucid and engaging presentation will interest anthropologists, sociologists, social workers, and religious studies scholars everywhere. -- Raymond Scupin, author of Cultural Anthropology: A Global Perspective, Tenth EditionTable of ContentsA Note to Residents of Angel ParkAcknowledgments1. Plural Marriage and What It Means to Be Human2. Fundamentalist Polygamy: Contextual Background3. In the Name of the Father: Public Adoration, Private Qualification4. Different Philosophies for Organizing a Family5. Placement Marriage or Self Choice: Finding Your Soul Mate6. Managing a Marriage: Expectation, Duty, and Preference7. Cowife Jealousy, Regret, and Cooperative Exchanges8. Family Politics Revealed Through Naming Practices9. Theology and Mother Care: Full-Sibling and Half-Sibling Bonding10. Theological Parenthood and the Making of the Good Polygamous Teenager11. The Lonely World of Polygamous MenConclusion: Themes and TrendsNotesReferencesIndex

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewTerror, Religon, and Liberal Thought is a volume with plenty to consider, a key addition to any political science collection. Midwest Book Review Miller offers readers a brilliant exercise in liberal social criticism, which stands firmly at the crossroads of moral theory, political philosophy, and pragmatic cultural criticism...it stands heads above many recent works on religion, violence, and terrorism in its thoughtful application of the tools of social criticism. ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. The Problem of Religious Violence 2. 9/11 and Varieties of Social Criticism 3. Rights to Life and Security 4. Toleration, Equality, and the Burdens of Judgment 5. Respect and Recognition 6. Religion, Dialogue, and Human Rights 7. Liberal Social Criticism and the Ethics of Belief Appendix 1: The Right to War and Self-Defense Appendix 2: Is Attacking the Taliban and al Qaeda Justified? Notes Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewTerror, Religon, and Liberal Thought is a volume with plenty to consider, a key addition to any political science collection. Midwest Book Review Miller offers readers a brilliant exercise in liberal social criticism, which stands firmly at the crossroads of moral theory, political philosophy, and pragmatic cultural criticism...it stands heads above many recent works on religion, violence, and terrorism in its thoughtful application of the tools of social criticism. ChoiceTable of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. The Problem of Religious Violence 2. 9/11 and Varieties of Social Criticism 3. Rights to Life and Security 4. Toleration, Equality, and the Burdens of Judgment 5. Respect and Recognition 6. Religion, Dialogue, and Human Rights 7. Liberal Social Criticism and the Ethics of Belief Appendix 1: The Right to War and Self-Defense Appendix 2: Is Attacking the Taliban and al Qaeda Justified? Notes Select Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewLacorne is an acute yet friendly observer of US politics and culture. The parts of the book that form a straightforward essay on religion in America are wise, sympathetic, and vividly written. But his weaving of this account into the story of France's long obsession with America is fascinating in its own right, and casts light on the larger theme. Sorting through the insights and misconceptions of his predecessors is unexpectedly revealing: quite often funny, too. Financial Times Anyone interested in religion and politics in the U.S. stands to be deeply informed by Lacorne's lucid, intelligent book. Booklist Forceful and intelligent. Kirkus Reviews it surveys its subject with grace and insight, as well as a lot of information. -- Jim Cullen Cutting Edge It's an edifying read for someone seeking grounding in the subject as well as a user-friendly course adoption. -- Jim Cullen History News Network This book provides a much welcomed viewpoint from outside our ongoing religious squabbles in American politics. Lacorne admirably avoids oversimplification while remaining eminently readable. Library Journal A fascinating and noteworthy study of American religion. -- Eldon J. Eisenach Journal of American History On a shelf groaning with books on politics and religion, Denis Lacorne's study will stand out for its distinct perspective and erudition. -- Thomas E. Buckley American Historical Review The book is quite thorough, considering the substantial historical period being covered. Examples-from legal cases to travel narratives, public school curricula changes to political pulpits-are expertly chosen, and the resulting exploration is as concerned with the specifics of the topics as it is a general commentary on broad overarching concepts. -- Saliha Chattoo Studies in Religion Suitable for college-level political history and religion holdings alike...a fine scholarly assessment and history, this is a recommendation for any college-level collection! Midwest Book ReviewTable of ContentsForeword, by Tony Judt Introduction 1. America, the Land of Religious Utopias 2. The Rehabilitation of the Puritans 3. Evangelical Awakenings 4. The Bible Wars 5. Religion 6. A Godless America 7. The Rise of the Religious Right 8. The Wall of Separation Between Church and State Epilogue: Obama's Faith-Friendly Secularism Postscript Appendix: The Religious Composition of the United States Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisDenis Lacorne identifies two competing narratives defining the American identity. The first narrative, derived from the philosophy of the Enlightenment, is essentially secular. Associated with the Founding Fathers and reflected in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers, this line of reasoning is predicated on separating religion from politics to preserve political freedom from an overpowering church. Prominent thinkers such as Voltaire, Thomas Paine, and Jean-Nicolas Demeunier, who viewed the American project as a radical attempt to create a new regime free from religion and the weight of ancient history, embraced this American effort to establish a genuine wall of separation between church and state. The second narrative is based on the premise that religion is a fundamental part of the American identity and emphasizes the importance of the original settlement of America by New England Puritans. This alternative vision was elaborated by Whig politTrade ReviewLacorne is an acute yet friendly observer of US politics and culture. The parts of the book that form a straightforward essay on religion in America are wise, sympathetic, and vividly written. But his weaving of this account into the story of France's long obsession with America is fascinating in its own right, and casts light on the larger theme. Sorting through the insights and misconceptions of his predecessors is unexpectedly revealing: quite often funny, too. Financial Times Anyone interested in religion and politics in the U.S. stands to be deeply informed by Lacorne's lucid, intelligent book. Booklist Forceful and intelligent. Kirkus Reviews it surveys its subject with grace and insight, as well as a lot of information. -- Jim Cullen Cutting Edge It's an edifying read for someone seeking grounding in the subject as well as a user-friendly course adoption. -- Jim Cullen History News Network This book provides a much welcomed viewpoint from outside our ongoing religious squabbles in American politics. Lacorne admirably avoids oversimplification while remaining eminently readable. Library Journal A fascinating and noteworthy study of American religion. -- Eldon J. Eisenach Journal of American History On a shelf groaning with books on politics and religion, Denis Lacorne's study will stand out for its distinct perspective and erudition. -- Thomas E. Buckley American Historical Review The book is quite thorough, considering the substantial historical period being covered. Examples-from legal cases to travel narratives, public school curricula changes to political pulpits-are expertly chosen, and the resulting exploration is as concerned with the specifics of the topics as it is a general commentary on broad overarching concepts. -- Saliha Chattoo Studies in Religion Suitable for college-level political history and religion holdings alike...a fine scholarly assessment and history, this is a recommendation for any college-level collection! Midwest Book ReviewTable of ContentsForeword, by Tony Judt Introduction 1. America, the Land of Religious Utopias 2. The Rehabilitation of the Puritans 3. Evangelical Awakenings 4. The Bible Wars 5. Religion 6. A Godless America 7. The Rise of the Religious Right 8. The Wall of Separation Between Church and State Epilogue: Obama's Faith-Friendly Secularism Postscript Appendix: The Religious Composition of the United States Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis translation of Stanislas Breton's A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul was an excellent decision. Breton's book is timely and, as an already established classic, it will without a doubt receive a wide reading. Ward Blanton's introduction also provides a value-added component. -- Todd Penner, coauthor of Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse: Thinking Beyond TheclaTable of ContentsDispossessed Life: Introduction to Breton's Paul Ward Blanton A Radical Philosophy of Saint Paul Preface 1. Biographical Outline 2. Hermeneutics and Allegory 3. Jesus the Christ: Faith and the Law 4. The Pauline Cosmos 5. The Church According to Saint Paul 6. The Cross of Christ Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTable of ContentsPreface Introduction: Fiction as a Mirror of Culture Part I. Exposing the Divine: 1790s-1850s 1. Faltering Fathers and Devious Divines: Popular Images 2. Clerics in Contention: Church Images 3. Vulnerable Divines: Radical Images Part II. Discrediting the Divine: 1860s-1920s 4. Compulsives and Accommodators: Popular Images (1) 5. Con Men in Collars and Heroes of the Cloth: Popular Images (2) 6. Activist Preachers and Th eir Detractors: Popular Images (3) 7. Champions of the Faith: Church Images 8. Foundering Divines: Radical Images (1) 9. Flawed Divines: Radical Images (2) Part III. The Legacy: 1930s-2000s 10. Fallen Divines: Some Contemporary Images Conclusion. The Legacy of the Displaced Divine Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisBuddhist intellectual discourse owes its development to a dynamic interplay between primary source materials and subsequent interpretation, yet scholarship on Indian Buddhism has long neglected to privilege one crucial series of texts. Commentaries on Buddhist scriptures, particularly the sutras, offer rich insights into the complex relationship between Buddhist intellectual practices and the norms that inform--and are informed by--them. Evaluating these commentaries in detail for the first time, Richard F. Nance revisits--and rewrites--the critical history of Buddhist thought, including its unique conception of doctrinal transmission. Attributed to such luminaries as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Dignaga, and Santideva, scriptural commentaries have long played an important role in the monastic and philosophical life of Indian Buddhism. Nance reads these texts against the social and cultural conditions of their making, establishing a solid historical basis for the interpretation of key belieTrade Review...particularly instructive for Buddhists who find themselves in these early stages of receiving and interpreting the dharma in the West. Buddhadharma Meticulously situating his sources within the institutional and cultural landscape of their creation, Nance explores these questions with clarity, intelligence, and even humor. This work will be an especially welcome resource for graduate students of Buddhism and other Indian traditions. Choice Impressive. Nance's project is welcome and overdue in Buddhist and premodern Indian textual studies. Philosophy East and WestTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Models of Speaking: Buddhas and Monks 2. Models of Instruction: Preachers Perfect and Imperfect 3. Models of Argument: Epistemology and Interpretation 4. Models of Explication: Commentarial Guides Conclusion Appendix A. The Vyakhyayukti, Book I Appendix B. The Abhidharmasamuccayabhasya (Excerpt) Appendix C. The *Vivaranasamgrahani Notes Bibliography Index of Texts Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewHow has religious difference been constructed as a problem to which 'pluralism' becomes the solution? From within a rich variety of historical settings and international case studies, the essays collected in After Pluralism reveal 'pluralism' as an ideological and normative space, a discursive frame within which questions of religious difference may legitimately be engaged but which nevertheless cannot account for the messiness of religion on the ground, where 'dialogue' and 'recognition' between discrete religions and religious actors are seldom to be seen. In the process, religions emerge as shifting constellations of belief and practice continually made and remade within relations of power that are not always in need of resolution or amenable to it. An accomplished, exhilarating, and game-changing book. -- Tracy Fessenden, Arizona State University After Pluralism is an outstanding collection of essays on religious diversity by a group of multidisciplinary scholars. Their work is at the cutting edge of the relationship between religion, culture, law, and public life in a post-secular age. The introduction is an invaluable guide not only to the book but to the whole field as well. -- James Tully, University of Victoria After Pluralism brings us astonishing new insight into the underpinnings, uses, and limits of religious pluralism in many settings -- from US and Canadian law courts, to the sacred lands of indigenous peoples, the American theatre, Cairo television, German prisons, and more. Its closely reasoned and beautifully illustrated essays make us rethink the ways in which religions are and can be lived in the world. A deeply important book for our time. -- Natalie Zemon Davis, University of TorontoTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Habits of Pluralism Pamela E. Klassen and Courtney Bender Part I. Law, Normativity, and the Constitution of Religion 1. Ethics After Pluralism Janet R. Jakobsen 2. Pluralizing Religion: Islamic Law and the Anxiety of Reasoned Deliberation Anver M. Emon 3. Religion Naturalized: The New Establishment Winnifred Fallers Sullivan 4. The Cultural Limits of Legal Tolerance Benjamin L. Berger Part II. Performing Religion After Pluralism 5. The Birth of Theatrical Liberalism Andrea Most 6. The Perils of Pluralism: Colonization and Decolonization in American Indian Religious History Tracy Leavelle 7. A Matter of Interpretation: Dreams, Islam, and Psychology in Egypt Amira Mittermaier 8. The Temple of Religion and the Politics of Religious Pluralism: Judeo-Christian America at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair J. Terry Todd Part III. The Ghosts of Pluralism: Unintended Consequences of Institutional and Legal Constructions 9. Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment Michael D. McNally 10. Saving Darfur: Enacting Pluralism in Terms of Gender, Genocide, and Militarized Human Rights Rosemary R. Hicks 11. What Is Religious Pluralism in a "Monocultural" Society? Considerations from Postcommunist Poland Genevieve Zubrzycki 12. The Curious Attraction of Religion in East German Prisons Irene Becci Selected Bibliography Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewHow has religious difference been constructed as a problem to which 'pluralism' becomes the solution? From within a rich variety of historical settings and international case studies, the essays collected in After Pluralism reveal 'pluralism' as an ideological and normative space, a discursive frame within which questions of religious difference may legitimately be engaged but which nevertheless cannot account for the messiness of religion on the ground, where 'dialogue' and 'recognition' between discrete religions and religious actors are seldom to be seen. In the process, religions emerge as shifting constellations of belief and practice continually made and remade within relations of power that are not always in need of resolution or amenable to it. An accomplished, exhilarating, and game-changing book. -- Tracy Fessenden, Arizona State University After Pluralism is an outstanding collection of essays on religious diversity by a group of multidisciplinary scholars. Their work is at the cutting edge of the relationship between religion, culture, law, and public life in a post-secular age. The introduction is an invaluable guide not only to the book but to the whole field as well. -- James Tully, University of Victoria After Pluralism brings us astonishing new insight into the underpinnings, uses, and limits of religious pluralism in many settings -- from US and Canadian law courts, to the sacred lands of indigenous peoples, the American theatre, Cairo television, German prisons, and more. Its closely reasoned and beautifully illustrated essays make us rethink the ways in which religions are and can be lived in the world. A deeply important book for our time. -- Natalie Zemon Davis, University of TorontoTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction: Habits of Pluralism Pamela E. Klassen and Courtney Bender Part I. Law, Normativity, and the Constitution of Religion 1. Ethics After Pluralism Janet R. Jakobsen 2. Pluralizing Religion: Islamic Law and the Anxiety of Reasoned Deliberation Anver M. Emon 3. Religion Naturalized: The New Establishment Winnifred Fallers Sullivan 4. The Cultural Limits of Legal Tolerance Benjamin L. Berger Part II. Performing Religion After Pluralism 5. The Birth of Theatrical Liberalism Andrea Most 6. The Perils of Pluralism: Colonization and Decolonization in American Indian Religious History Tracy Leavelle 7. A Matter of Interpretation: Dreams, Islam, and Psychology in Egypt Amira Mittermaier 8. The Temple of Religion and the Politics of Religious Pluralism: Judeo-Christian America at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair J. Terry Todd Part III. The Ghosts of Pluralism: Unintended Consequences of Institutional and Legal Constructions 9. Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment Michael D. McNally 10. Saving Darfur: Enacting Pluralism in Terms of Gender, Genocide, and Militarized Human Rights Rosemary R. Hicks 11. What Is Religious Pluralism in a "Monocultural" Society? Considerations from Postcommunist Poland Genevieve Zubrzycki 12. The Curious Attraction of Religion in East German Prisons Irene Becci Selected Bibliography Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book will become essential reading for anyone studying the importance of religion in international relations. Indeed, it will be relevant for anyone who wishes to understand key dynamics in international affairs more broadly. -- Hendrik Spruyt, Northwestern University A remarkable collection that brings religion, in all its multiple forms, into international relations theory. These erudite chapters show the origins of secular theories in religious values and institutions, the ways in which religion can be incorporated into established theories, the other ways in which religion continues to rival secular world views, and the variety of consequences that we should expect from a world in which religion appears to be becoming increasingly salient. An essential addition to the library of international theory. -- Michael W. Doyle, author of Ways of War and Peace Though religion has returned to the global public square with a vengeance, until now international relations theory seemed oblivious. This book changes that. Its timely and thoughtful essays bring religion back into the picture, exploring major aspects of international relations theory and providing new ways of thinking about religion within major theoretical frames of reference. Written with clarity and grace by leading thinkers in the field, this landmark book will be read by scholars and students of international relations theory for years to come. -- Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State impressive -- G. John Ikenberry Foreign Affairs ... the book is easy to read and is a great source for scholars who are interested in the roots of secularism and the resurgence of religion. The contributors also elegantly tie their research to international relations theory in their respective conclusions. -- Nukhet A. Sandal Perspectives on PoliticsTable of Contents1. Introduction, by Jack Snyder 2. The Fall and Rise of Religion in International Relations: History and Theory, by Timothy Samuel Shah and Daniel Philpott 3. Secularism and International Relations Theory, by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd 4. Another Great Awakening? International Relations Theory and Religion, by Michael Barnett 5. Religion, Rationality, and Violence, by Monica Duffy Toft 6. Religion and International Relations: No Leap of Faith Required, by Daniel H. Nexon 7. In the Service of State and Nation: Religion in East Asia, by Il Hyun Cho and Peter J. Katzenstein 8. Conclusion: Religion's Contribution to International Relations Theory, by Emily Cochran Bech and Jack Snyder List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book will become essential reading for anyone studying the importance of religion in international relations. Indeed, it will be relevant for anyone who wishes to understand key dynamics in international affairs more broadly. -- Hendrik Spruyt, Northwestern University A remarkable collection that brings religion, in all its multiple forms, into international relations theory. These erudite chapters show the origins of secular theories in religious values and institutions, the ways in which religion can be incorporated into established theories, the other ways in which religion continues to rival secular world views, and the variety of consequences that we should expect from a world in which religion appears to be becoming increasingly salient. An essential addition to the library of international theory. -- Michael W. Doyle, author of Ways of War and Peace Though religion has returned to the global public square with a vengeance, until now international relations theory seemed oblivious. This book changes that. Its timely and thoughtful essays bring religion back into the picture, exploring major aspects of international relations theory and providing new ways of thinking about religion within major theoretical frames of reference. Written with clarity and grace by leading thinkers in the field, this landmark book will be read by scholars and students of international relations theory for years to come. -- Mark Juergensmeyer, author of Global Rebellion: Religious Challenges to the Secular State impressive -- G. John Ikenberry Foreign Affairs ... the book is easy to read and is a great source for scholars who are interested in the roots of secularism and the resurgence of religion. The contributors also elegantly tie their research to international relations theory in their respective conclusions. -- Nukhet A. Sandal Perspectives on PoliticsTable of Contents1. Introduction, by Jack Snyder 2. The Fall and Rise of Religion in International Relations: History and Theory, by Timothy Samuel Shah and Daniel Philpott 3. Secularism and International Relations Theory, by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd 4. Another Great Awakening? International Relations Theory and Religion, by Michael Barnett 5. Religion, Rationality, and Violence, by Monica Duffy Toft 6. Religion and International Relations: No Leap of Faith Required, by Daniel H. Nexon 7. In the Service of State and Nation: Religion in East Asia, by Il Hyun Cho and Peter J. Katzenstein 8. Conclusion: Religion's Contribution to International Relations Theory, by Emily Cochran Bech and Jack Snyder List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisWhile a rational consciousness grasps many truths, Gananath Obeyesekere believes an even richer knowledge is possible through a bold confrontation with the stuff of visions and dreams. Spanning both Buddhist and European forms of visionary experience, he fearlessly pursues the symbolic, nonrational depths of such phenomena.Trade ReviewThe Awakened Ones is the most sustained and powerful treatment since William James of the forms of knowledge and life that visionary experience makes possible. It is a remarkable combination of panoramic reference, detached analysis, and the most personal intensity of feeling and style. -- Akeel Bilgrami, Sidney Morgenbesser Professor of Philosophy, Columbia UniversityThe Awakened Ones: Phenomenology of Visionary Experience is Gananath Obeyesekere’s magnum opus, his summa, his valedictory volume, to use three Latinate terms that come down to, it’s a great big book into which he’s put all the wisdom of his long lifetime. . . . Brilliant, erudite, and candid. -- Wendy Doniger * Current Anthropology *In his impeccable style, with an unmatched eloquence, a series of sparking, sparkling insights, and an expansive comparative vision, Gananath Obeyesekere gives us what can only be called a spiritual-intellectual testament. In the process, he calls on us to unite the rational and the nonrational at the highest levels of scholarship and cultural work and to envision a cross-cultural enlightenment that is as indebted to the visionary teachings of a Buddha or a William Blake as to the humanities and social sciences. A stunning and edifying achievement from a major intellectual. -- Jeffrey J. Kripal, Rice University, author of The Serpent's Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of ReligionIn a world subjugated by the reification, if not deification, of rationality and science, this is a sorely needed antidote.... Highly recommended. * Choice *A stunning scholarly achievement. * The Ecclesial University *[Obeyesekere's] cultural and historical range is as impressive as his epistemological thesis is focused and tight. -- Jeffrey J. Kripal * History of Religions *In this finely written, massive essay, ethnographer Obeyesekere elucidates a dialectic epistemology that utilizes both rational-scientific thinking and what he calls "passive cerebration." * Religious Studies Review *This is an excellent book on visionary experience. * Biz India *I have read no more profound book in many years and recommend this book to anyone who is interested in visionary experiences that are salvific, whether explicitly religious or not. -- Ralph W. Hood Jr. * Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions *

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewViefhues-Bailey does, however, very effectively clarify some crucial points in frequently enlightening ways, and the book constitutes a useful and significant intervention into this most confounding political impasse of our time. -- Whitney Strub H-HistSex ...Viefhues-Bailey's book participates in a reserved yet powerful undermining of homophobia in general... Books and IdeasTable of ContentsAuthor's Note Acknowledgments 1. Introduction Who Are the Conservative Christians, by and Why the Focus on Focus on the Family? Connection to Previous Research Structure of the Book Theoretical Considerations and Methodological Consequences 2. Religious Interests Between Bible and Politics Love Between Gays or Lesbians Is Wrong, by Because the Bible Tells Me So? A Confluence of Forces: Religion and Politics 3. America and the State of Respectable Christian Romance Same-Sex Couples and the Moral and Spiritual Stamina of the Nation Theologies of Christian Marriage American (Christian) Marriage: A History of Change Protecting the Body Politic: A Political Analysis Conclusion: Religion, by Respectability 4. Same-Sex Love and the Impossibility of Christian Femininity and Masculinity Gays and Feminists: From Logic to Rhetoric Christian Masculinity as Crisis Submission and the Crisis of Christian Womanhood Complicated Flows of Power in Ordinary Family Life 5. A Political and Sexual Theology of Crisis Beyond Functionalism Struggling for the Christian Life A Political and Sexual Theology of Crisis Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewHindu Widow Marriage threw down a major challenge to popular attitudes about the destinies of widows. It was both denounced by traditionalists and embraced by reformers. In his translation of and extensive introduction to Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar's text and context, Brian A. Hatcher brings to life the contentious debates within Calcutta's emerging middle class about how a modern world can be embraced within the framework of an enduring tradition. This book is a masterful contribution to our understanding of how traditional textual authority, prevailing social practices, and the pressures of colonialism collided and brought into being a religious and cultural world that was both in continuity with and a departure from the past. -- Paul Courtright, Emory University, coeditor of From the Margins of Hindu Marriage: Essays on Gender, Religion, and Culture Brian Hatcher is to be commended for giving them such detailed and responsible treatment and, thereby, making Vidyasagar's documents accessible to a wide scholarly audience. -- David Brick Journal of the American Oriental Society It is superbly researched and written, with useful resources that go a long way towards making the text intelligible to non-specialists. -- Ferdinando Sardella Journal of Hindu Studies Hatcher's masterly translation of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar's Hindu Widow Remarriage affords us a rare opportunity to peer deeply into the world of the nineteenth-century Bengali intelligentsia... [this translation] must now be considered "required reading." International Journal of Hindu Studies A triumph of historical scholarship... Hatcher's translation of Vidyasagar's Bengali text is exemplary with its close attention to details and his concern for readability and integrity. His annotations are ample and meticulous. Orientalistische LiteraturzeitungTable of ContentsPreface A Word About the Translation Hindu Categories for First-Time Readers Chronology: Events Pertaining to the Widow Marriage Movement in Bengal Introduction A Short Life of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar Widow Marriage in Bengal Hindu Widow Marriage as Modern-Day Commentary The Real Significance of Hindu Widow Marriage Hindu Widow Marriage: The Complete English Translation Book One Book Two Glossary Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThrough a timeless character of legend and literature, we are allowed a ringside view of our most fascinating cultural--and gendered--history. India Today Thapar shows how it is possible to express complex ideas, rooted in philosophy and hermeneutics, without recourse to jargon. This book is a frontrunner for the prize of the best book on Indian history. Telegraph As fascinating as Sakuntala's journey is Thapar's retelling of it and her careful assumption of the role of a literary detective. Hindu Thapar's wide-ranging essays and monographs make a strong case for the urgency to historicize traditions and highlight the changing meanings of texts and oral cultures. Hindustan Times A virtuoso feat of historical and cultural analysis. Biblio Professor Thapar's book is not only significant in uncovering the historical impulses, often multiply driven, that empower certain readings or receptions of the story but also gives us in the process many of those forgotten stories -- Saswati Sengupta Religions of South AsiaTable of ContentsPreface 1. Preliminaries 2. The Narrative from the Mahabharata 3. The Abhijnana-sakuntalam of Kalidasa Sakuntala and the Ring of Recollection-the play by Kalidasa 4. Popular and high culture as historical parallels 5. Adaptations: another popular tradition and its role in another court 6. Translations: Orientalism, German romanticism and the image of Sakuntala 7. Translation: colonial views 8. Sakuntala from the perspective of middle-class nationalism 9. Conclusion Endnotes

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA window onto how spirituality has functioned as a social category that bestows value on even 'secular' objects, What Matters? brilliantly demystifies spirituality without banishing spirits. With an embarrassment of riches at hand, including paranormal shadows in 'real' science, turns to 'tribalism' in psytrance festivals, and 'spiritual' motivations within secular humanitarianism, these essays are an original foray into how spirituality is used to account for contemporary human experience, with piety and irony in play. -- Pamela Klassen, University of Toronto, author of Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity ...a helpful classroom resource. -- Ryan Harper Sociology of ReligionTable of ContentsIntroduction: Things of Value From a Materialist Ethic to the Spirit of Prehistory Conquering Religious Contagions and Crowds: Nineteenth-Century Psychologists and the Unfinished Subjugation of Superstition and Irrationality Religious and Secular, "Spiritual" and "Physical" in Ghana Volunteer Experience Secular Humanitarianism and the Value of Life Homeschooling the Enchanted Child: Ambivalent Attachments in the Domestic Southwest Mind Matters: Esalen's Sursem Group and the Ethnography of Consciousness Tribalism, Experience, and Remixology in Global Psytrance Culture Acknowledgments Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewA window onto how spirituality has functioned as a social category that bestows value on even 'secular' objects, What Matters? brilliantly demystifies spirituality without banishing spirits. With an embarrassment of riches at hand, including paranormal shadows in 'real' science, turns to 'tribalism' in psytrance festivals, and 'spiritual' motivations within secular humanitarianism, these essays are an original foray into how spirituality is used to account for contemporary human experience, with piety and irony in play. -- Pamela Klassen, University of Toronto, author of Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity ...a helpful classroom resource. -- Ryan Harper Sociology of ReligionTable of ContentsIntroduction: Things of Value From a Materialist Ethic to the Spirit of Prehistory Conquering Religious Contagions and Crowds: Nineteenth-Century Psychologists and the Unfinished Subjugation of Superstition and Irrationality Religious and Secular, "Spiritual" and "Physical" in Ghana Volunteer Experience Secular Humanitarianism and the Value of Life Homeschooling the Enchanted Child: Ambivalent Attachments in the Domestic Southwest Mind Matters: Esalen's Sursem Group and the Ethnography of Consciousness Tribalism, Experience, and Remixology in Global Psytrance Culture Acknowledgments Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe suggestion brought to the fore by Flanagan and Wallace-that Buddhism may be a source of insight in these areas-is a welcome and tantalizing one. -- Daniel Stoljar Nature This book is a stirring attack on the hubris and blind spots of the scientific establishment, combined with an engaging presentation of Buddhist wisdom as the antidote. -- Joseph S. O'Leary Japan TimesTable of ContentsPrologue: Skepticism in Buddhism and Science Part I: Restoring Our Human Nature 1. Toward a Revolution in the Mind Sciences 2. Buddhism and Science: Confrontation and Collaboration 3. Buddhism and the Mind Sciences 4. A Three-Dimensional Science of Mind 5. Restoring Meaning to the Universe 6. What Makes Us Human? Scientific and Buddhist Views 7. Achieving Free Will Part II: Transcending Our Human Nature 8. Buddhist Radical Empiricism 9. From Agnosticism to Gnosticism 10. A Buddhist Model of Optimal Mental Health 11. Mindfulness in the Mind Sciences and in Buddhism 12. Shamatha and Vipashyana in the Indian Buddhist Tradition 13. Shamatha and Vipashyana in the Dzogchen Tradition Epilogue: The Many Worlds of Buddhism and Science Notes Selected Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewAlan F. Segal's approach to myth is very illuminating for the 'The Worst, Most Awful Stories of the Bible.' To see how these stories reflect (and attempt to resolve) contradictions-moral, social, and gender-is salutary and fresh. Segal was one of our finest thinkers about the legacy of ancient Judaism for modern thought. This book, his last contribution, is wise and moving. -- Ronald Hendel, University of California, Berkeley ...a book rich in information for intelligent nonspecialists, written in an accessible style that doesn't scrimp on complicated or challenging matters. Publishers Weekly His book's greatest value lies in forcing contemporary readers to grapple with biblical stories that some would prefer to ignore. -- Michael Carasik H-Judaic insightful, lucid observations Choice Professor Segal's writing is easily accessible and can be read as a modern commentary to the Bible providing us with new insights for thought and interpretation. -- Barbara Andrews Jewish Book Council Online A gracefully written introduction to the narrative contents of the Hebrew Bible... A clear, engaging, yet slightly offbeat survey of our knowledge of Israelite history and literature since the work of Albrecht Alt, Martin Noth and William Foxwell Albright. Biblical Archaeology ReviewTable of ContentsIntroduction: The Bible and Myth 1. The Matriarch in Peril 2. The Golden Calf: A Lesson in Chronology 3. A Historical Tragedy: The Short-lived Deuteronomic Reform 4. The Concubine of the Levite: A Complete Horror 5. The Horror of Human Sacrifice: Sex, Intermarriage, and Proper Descent 6. Ways of a Man with a Woman 7. No Peace in the Royal Family Conclusion: Synoptic Sinning Notes Index

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Book SynopsisThe way in which religious people eat reflects not only their understanding of food and religious practice but also their conception of society and their place within it. This anthology considers theological foodways, identity foodways, negotiated foodways, and activist foodways in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. Original essays explore the role of food and eating in defining theologies and belief structures, creating personal and collective identities, establishing and challenging boundaries and borders, and helping to negotiate issues of community, religion, race, and nationality. Contributors consider food practices and beliefs among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists, as well as members of new religious movements, Afro-Caribbean religions, interfaith families, and individuals who consider food itself a religion. They traverse a range of geographic regions, from the Southern Appalachian Mountains to North America's urban centers, and span historical periods fromTrade ReviewA welcome addition to the literature on food and religion. No other work compares with it. -- Ken Albala, coeditor of Food and Faith in Christian Culture Fresh and mature fare that nurtures not only our understanding of foodways but also of American religion and the wider study of religions. -- Charles Wallace, Willamette University From a Georgia farm to the salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest, from Sylvester Graham to hip vegans, Americans draw tight links between their food and their faith. These essays investigate a broad set of religious traditions, and the results are theoretically rich yet accessible to nonspecialists. The volume helps us think about what it means to be American, as well as what it means to be religious, and forces us to broaden our definition of religion, with implications for health, commerce, and the environment. -- Daniel Sack, author of Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture An excellent introduction to this growing area of inquiry, and one that will undoubtedly serve as a foundation for future scholarship. Food, Culture & SocietyTable of ContentsForeword, by Martha L. Finch Acknowledgments Introduction: Religion, Food, and Eating, by Marie W. Dallam Part 1: Theological Foodways 1. Dynamics of Christian Dietary Abstinence, by David Grumett 2. "Join Us! Come, Eat!": Vegetarianism in the Formative Period of the Seventh-day Adventists and the Unity School of Christianity, by Jeremy Rapport 3. "And as We Dine, We Sing and Praise God": Father and Mother Divine's Theologies of Food, by Leonard Norman Primiano 4. Hallelujah Acres: Christian Raw Foods and the Quest for Health, by Annie Blazer Part 2: Identity Foodways 5. Draydel Salad: The Serious Business of Jewish Food and Fun in the 1950s, by Rachel Gross 6. Salmon as Sacrament: First Salmon Ceremonies in the Pacific Northwest, by Suzanne Crawford O'Brien 7. An Unusual Feast: Gumbo and the Complex Brew of Black Religion, by Derek S. Hicks 8. "I Chose Judaism but Christmas Cookies Chose Me": Food, Identity, and Familial Religious Practice in Christian/Jewish Blended Families, by Samira K. Mehta Part 3: Negotiated Foodways 9. Crystallizing Subjectivities in the African Diaspora: Sugar, Honey, and the Gods of Afro-Cuban Lucumi, by Elizabeth Perez 10. Good to Eat: Culinary Priorities in the Nation of Islam and Latter-day Saint Church, by Kate Holbrook 11. Mindful Eating: American Buddhists and Worldly Benefits, by Jeff Wilson 12. The Feast at the End of the Fast: The Evolution of an American Jewish Ritual, by Nora L. Rubel Part 4: Activist Foodways 13. Koinonia Partners: A Demonstration Plot for Food, Fellowship, and Sustainability, by Todd LeVasseur 14. Refreshing the Concept of Halal Meat: Resistance and Religiosity in Chicago's Taqwa Eco-Food Cooperative, by Sarah E. Robinson 15. Quasi-religious American Foodways: The Cases of Vegetarianism and Locavorism, by Benjamin E. Zeller Selected Bibliography on Religion and Food List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThe way in which religious people eat reflects not only their understanding of food and religious practice but also their conception of society and their place within it. This anthology considers theological foodways, identity foodways, negotiated foodways, and activist foodways in the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean. Original essays explore the role of food and eating in defining theologies and belief structures, creating personal and collective identities, establishing and challenging boundaries and borders, and helping to negotiate issues of community, religion, race, and nationality. Contributors consider food practices and beliefs among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists, as well as members of new religious movements, Afro-Caribbean religions, interfaith families, and individuals who consider food itself a religion. They traverse a range of geographic regions, from the Southern Appalachian Mountains to North America's urban centers, and span historical periods fromTrade ReviewA welcome addition to the literature on food and religion. No other work compares with it. -- Ken Albala, coeditor of Food and Faith in Christian Culture Fresh and mature fare that nurtures not only our understanding of foodways but also of American religion and the wider study of religions. -- Charles Wallace, Willamette University From a Georgia farm to the salmon runs of the Pacific Northwest, from Sylvester Graham to hip vegans, Americans draw tight links between their food and their faith. These essays investigate a broad set of religious traditions, and the results are theoretically rich yet accessible to nonspecialists. The volume helps us think about what it means to be American, as well as what it means to be religious, and forces us to broaden our definition of religion, with implications for health, commerce, and the environment. -- Daniel Sack, author of Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture An excellent introduction to this growing area of inquiry, and one that will undoubtedly serve as a foundation for future scholarship. Food, Culture & SocietyTable of ContentsForeword, by Martha L. Finch Acknowledgments Introduction: Religion, Food, and Eating, by Marie W. Dallam Part 1: Theological Foodways 1. Dynamics of Christian Dietary Abstinence, by David Grumett 2. "Join Us! Come, Eat!": Vegetarianism in the Formative Period of the Seventh-day Adventists and the Unity School of Christianity, by Jeremy Rapport 3. "And as We Dine, We Sing and Praise God": Father and Mother Divine's Theologies of Food, by Leonard Norman Primiano 4. Hallelujah Acres: Christian Raw Foods and the Quest for Health, by Annie Blazer Part 2: Identity Foodways 5. Draydel Salad: The Serious Business of Jewish Food and Fun in the 1950s, by Rachel Gross 6. Salmon as Sacrament: First Salmon Ceremonies in the Pacific Northwest, by Suzanne Crawford O'Brien 7. An Unusual Feast: Gumbo and the Complex Brew of Black Religion, by Derek S. Hicks 8. "I Chose Judaism but Christmas Cookies Chose Me": Food, Identity, and Familial Religious Practice in Christian/Jewish Blended Families, by Samira K. Mehta Part 3: Negotiated Foodways 9. Crystallizing Subjectivities in the African Diaspora: Sugar, Honey, and the Gods of Afro-Cuban Lucumi, by Elizabeth Perez 10. Good to Eat: Culinary Priorities in the Nation of Islam and Latter-day Saint Church, by Kate Holbrook 11. Mindful Eating: American Buddhists and Worldly Benefits, by Jeff Wilson 12. The Feast at the End of the Fast: The Evolution of an American Jewish Ritual, by Nora L. Rubel Part 4: Activist Foodways 13. Koinonia Partners: A Demonstration Plot for Food, Fellowship, and Sustainability, by Todd LeVasseur 14. Refreshing the Concept of Halal Meat: Resistance and Religiosity in Chicago's Taqwa Eco-Food Cooperative, by Sarah E. Robinson 15. Quasi-religious American Foodways: The Cases of Vegetarianism and Locavorism, by Benjamin E. Zeller Selected Bibliography on Religion and Food List of Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisThis well-rounded introduction takes an expansive view of Islamic ideology, culture, and tradition, sourcing a range of historical, sociological, and literary perspectives.Trade Review[A] truly extraordinary book... the very best introduction currently available in English for non-Muslims seeking a sound approach to Islam. -- Murad Wilfried Hofmann Journal of Islamic Studies Muslim Identities is a welcome addition to the list of introductory books on Islamic religion. -- Christine D. Baker H-Mideast-Medieval An excellent corrective to many other introductions... Hughes's text has much to recommend it for introductory classes on Islam at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. And it is certain to lead to much productive conversation and debate among scholars of Islamic Studies about the future of the field itself. -- Khurram Hussain ReligionTable of ContentsPreface Acknowledgments Introduction: Religious Studies and the Academic Study of Islam Part I. Origins 1. Setting the Stage: Pre-Islamic Arabia 2. The Making of the Last Prophet 3. The Quran: The Base Narrative Part II. Identity Formations 4. Islam Beyond the Arabian Peninsula: A Historical Overview 5. Early Sectarianism and the Formation of Shi'ism 6. Legal Developments and the Rise of Sunni Islam 7. Sufism Part III. Beliefs and Practices 8. Constituting Identities: Beliefs and Schools 9. The Performance of Muslim Identities Part IV. Modern Variations 10. Encounters with Modernity 11. Constructing Muslim Women 12. Islam Post-September 11 Glossary Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis exciting volume defamiliarizes our understanding of secularization as process and practice. The contributors raise profound questions regarding the persistence of 'the religious' as a form of ethicality, as a resistant presence and practice, and as an animating constraint in women's lives. The theoretical range and global scope of the volume is a remarkable achievement. -- Anupama Rao, Barnard College Rather than taking what is often viewed as the high road of secularism, the contributors challenge the ability of both religion and secularism to provide master narratives for the equality of women. This book is a vital contribution to the new feminism that is currently emerging at local, national, and global levels. It opens space for new collaborations and theoretical innovations and encourages us to 'imagine differently.' -- Lori G. Beaman, University of Ottawa Many feminists have hoped-and many fundamentalists have feared-that the decline of religion would lead inevitably to women's liberation. This bold, thought-provoking book shows how, around the world, the gender politics of secularism are confounding the easy assumptions of progressives and conservatives alike. -- Joseph Kip Kosek, George Washington University This book both genders and shatters the divide between the secular and the religious in a global context. By historicizing the privatization of both women and religion in modernity, these essays unhinge any simple alignment between feminism and secularism. Cady and Fessenden have produced a collection that coheres, a must read for scholars of gender and all those engaged with the question of the secular. -- Laura S. Levitt, Temple UniversityTable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Part 1 by Gendering the Divide 1. Religion, the Secular, and the Politics of Sexual Difference: An Introduction, by Linell E. Cady and Tracy Fessenden 2. Secularism and Gender Equality, by Joan Wallach Scott 3. Sexuality and Secularism, by Saba Mahmood 4. Must It Be Either Secular or Religious? Reflections on the Contemporary Journeys of Women's Rights Activists in Egypt, by Azza Karam 5. Religion and Women's Political Mobilization, by Ann Braude Part 2 by Gender and the Privatization of Religion 6. Secular Liberalism, Roman Catholicism, and Social Hierarchies: Understanding Multiple Paths, by Gene Burns 7. Gendering the Secular and Religious in Modern Egypt: Woman, Family, and Nation, by Margot Badran 8. Women, Religion, and Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Zilka Spahi?-Siljak Part 3 by Gender, Sexuality, and the Body Politic 9. Bodies-Politics: Christian Secularism and the Gendering of U.S. Policy, by Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini 10. Crimes of Moral Turpitude: Questions at the Borders of Religion, the Secular, and the U.S. Nation-State, by Molly K. McGarry 11. On French Religions and Their Renewed Embodiments, by Nacira Guenif-Souilamas Part 4 by Bridging the Divide 12. Rescued by Law? Gender and the Global Politics of Secularism, by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd 13. The Brahmin Widow and Female Religious Agency: Anticaste Critique in Two Modern Indian Texts, by Rajeswari Sunder Rajan 14. Issues with Authority: Feminist Commitments in a Late Secular Age, by David Kyuman Kim Bibliography Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis exciting volume defamiliarizes our understanding of secularization as process and practice. The contributors raise profound questions regarding the persistence of 'the religious' as a form of ethicality, as a resistant presence and practice, and as an animating constraint in women's lives. The theoretical range and global scope of the volume is a remarkable achievement. -- Anupama Rao, Barnard College Rather than taking what is often viewed as the high road of secularism, the contributors challenge the ability of both religion and secularism to provide master narratives for the equality of women. This book is a vital contribution to the new feminism that is currently emerging at local, national, and global levels. It opens space for new collaborations and theoretical innovations and encourages us to 'imagine differently.' -- Lori G. Beaman, University of Ottawa Many feminists have hoped-and many fundamentalists have feared-that the decline of religion would lead inevitably to women's liberation. This bold, thought-provoking book shows how, around the world, the gender politics of secularism are confounding the easy assumptions of progressives and conservatives alike. -- Joseph Kip Kosek, George Washington University This book both genders and shatters the divide between the secular and the religious in a global context. By historicizing the privatization of both women and religion in modernity, these essays unhinge any simple alignment between feminism and secularism. Cady and Fessenden have produced a collection that coheres, a must read for scholars of gender and all those engaged with the question of the secular. -- Laura S. Levitt, Temple UniversityTable of ContentsPreface and Acknowledgments Part 1 by Gendering the Divide 1. Religion, the Secular, and the Politics of Sexual Difference: An Introduction, by Linell E. Cady and Tracy Fessenden 2. Secularism and Gender Equality, by Joan Wallach Scott 3. Sexuality and Secularism, by Saba Mahmood 4. Must It Be Either Secular or Religious? Reflections on the Contemporary Journeys of Women's Rights Activists in Egypt, by Azza Karam 5. Religion and Women's Political Mobilization, by Ann Braude Part 2 by Gender and the Privatization of Religion 6. Secular Liberalism, Roman Catholicism, and Social Hierarchies: Understanding Multiple Paths, by Gene Burns 7. Gendering the Secular and Religious in Modern Egypt: Woman, Family, and Nation, by Margot Badran 8. Women, Religion, and Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by Zilka Spahi?-Siljak Part 3 by Gender, Sexuality, and the Body Politic 9. Bodies-Politics: Christian Secularism and the Gendering of U.S. Policy, by Janet R. Jakobsen and Ann Pellegrini 10. Crimes of Moral Turpitude: Questions at the Borders of Religion, the Secular, and the U.S. Nation-State, by Molly K. McGarry 11. On French Religions and Their Renewed Embodiments, by Nacira Guenif-Souilamas Part 4 by Bridging the Divide 12. Rescued by Law? Gender and the Global Politics of Secularism, by Elizabeth Shakman Hurd 13. The Brahmin Widow and Female Religious Agency: Anticaste Critique in Two Modern Indian Texts, by Rajeswari Sunder Rajan 14. Issues with Authority: Feminist Commitments in a Late Secular Age, by David Kyuman Kim Bibliography Contributors Index

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Book SynopsisJuxtaposing Muslim scholars' debates over women’s attendance in mosques with historical descriptions of women’s activities within Middle Eastern and North African mosques, Marion Holmes Katz shows how over the centuries legal scholars' arguments have often reacted to rather than dictated Muslim women’s behavior.Trade ReviewA scholarly milestone. Women in the Mosque is a comprehensive, categorical treatment of the question of women's mosque access in Islamic law and history. Marion Holmes Katz is one of the most widely respected scholars of Islamic law and ritual in the West, and, in its scope and detail, this work is peerless to my knowledge. -- Jonathan Brown, Georgetown UniversityWomen in the Mosque will become an essential part of the library of every scholar concerned with Islamic ritual law, women in religion, women in Islam, and even religious architecture. There is something here for students of Islamic law, Ottoman history, Arab social history, and modern Muslim intellectual history. -- Kevin Reinhart, Dartmouth CollegeMarion Holmes Katz brings to light and adds context to the fascinating history of women's access to mosques through a dexterous presentation of a wide range of legal sources, travel accounts, contemporaneous Christian and Jewish accounts, literature, and a unique sixteenth-century manuscript recounting when women contested the ruling authorities' attempt to ban them from Islam's most sacred mosque in Mecca. A must-read for anyone interested in a solid historical account related to issues of women and gender in Islam. -- Intisar A. Rabb, Harvard Law School, and director of the Islamic Legal Studies ProgramThis is an extremely detailed, nuanced and precise account of women's presence in the mosque over the centuries. * Journal of Islamic Studies *This book is praiseworthy for its extensive use of textual sources, making it an excellent source for the study of intellectual discourse on women's mobility and visibility in Islam. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *One of the most significant contributions to Muslim women's history and to Islamic legal studies in recent decades...pioneering and magisterial. * Der Islam *A highly scholarly work on an important but oft-ignored aspect of women in Islam. * The Islamic Quarterly *Extraordinary... a rich, in-depth, and often amusing analysis of the legal debates and social records of women's mosque attendance from the eighth to the early twenty-first century. * Journal of the Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World *[An] extremely valuable book. -- Ruth Roded * Religion & Gender *The book is of great importance to those interested in Muslim women's status, religious rights, and practice.... Highly recommended. * Choice *Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction1. Women's Mosque Attendance as a Legal Problem2. Reconstructing Practice3. Debating Women's Mosque Access in Sixteenth-Century Mecca4. Modern DevelopmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisPowerful illiberal Christian movements have upended liberal democracies in countries that were once seen as paradigms of secular governance. Ludger H. Viefhues-Bailey offers new insight into the foundations of these movements, demonstrating how they emerge from the contradictions at the intersection of secularism and democracy.Trade ReviewNo Separation is revelatory. Viefhues-Bailey uses three case studies—in Germany, France, and the U.S.—to illustrate the fragile and harmful mix of Christianity and sexual norms that undergird secular democracy, and to envision a more resilient and compassionate way forward. Mind-blowing and clear, this book is essential reading. -- Shannon Craigo-Snell, author of Disciplined Hope: Prayer, Politics, and ResistanceA leading voice working at the intersection of religion, politics, and critical theory, Ludger Viefhues-Bailey probes today’s most nettlesome religious freedom dilemmas. His book moves between textured accounts of on-the-ground conflicts and sophisticated analysis, yielding a compelling account of the various ways political Christianities are entangled with populist movements today. -- Vincent Lloyd, author of Black Dignity: The Struggle Against DominationWhy does sex matter to politics in the name of the people? Ludger Viefhues-Bailey argues that political Christianities both effect and emerge in the regulation of the direct and discursive reproduction of 'the people.' And he charts a way out of the crisis of democracy: the people need to put communities of care at the core of their democracies, so that more compassionate political Christianities can come about. -- Ulrich Schmiedel, coauthor of The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far RightTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1. Germany, Cultural Christianity, and the Veil2. Philosophical Interlude on Making the Bonds That Unite Us3. France, Republican Catholicism, and Marriage for All4. American Cultural Christianities from Animus to Eros5. Democracy Without Moral Monsters? Reproducing a Community of CareNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisPowerful illiberal Christian movements have upended liberal democracies in countries that were once seen as paradigms of secular governance. Ludger H. Viefhues-Bailey offers new insight into the foundations of these movements, demonstrating how they emerge from the contradictions at the intersection of secularism and democracy.Trade ReviewNo Separation is revelatory. Viefhues-Bailey uses three case studies—in Germany, France, and the U.S.—to illustrate the fragile and harmful mix of Christianity and sexual norms that undergird secular democracy, and to envision a more resilient and compassionate way forward. Mind-blowing and clear, this book is essential reading. -- Shannon Craigo-Snell, author of Disciplined Hope: Prayer, Politics, and ResistanceA leading voice working at the intersection of religion, politics, and critical theory, Ludger Viefhues-Bailey probes today’s most nettlesome religious freedom dilemmas. His book moves between textured accounts of on-the-ground conflicts and sophisticated analysis, yielding a compelling account of the various ways political Christianities are entangled with populist movements today. -- Vincent Lloyd, author of Black Dignity: The Struggle Against DominationWhy does sex matter to politics in the name of the people? Ludger Viefhues-Bailey argues that political Christianities both effect and emerge in the regulation of the direct and discursive reproduction of 'the people.' And he charts a way out of the crisis of democracy: the people need to put communities of care at the core of their democracies, so that more compassionate political Christianities can come about. -- Ulrich Schmiedel, coauthor of The Claim to Christianity: Responding to the Far RightTable of ContentsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction 1. Germany, Cultural Christianity, and the Veil2. Philosophical Interlude on Making the Bonds That Unite Us3. France, Republican Catholicism, and Marriage for All4. American Cultural Christianities from Animus to Eros5. Democracy Without Moral Monsters? Reproducing a Community of CareNotesBibliographyIndex

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Book SynopsisAn intimate psychological study of a largely invisible minority navigating life in a religious world.Trade ReviewAtheists in America is a unique contribution to the literature on atheism touching on topics rarely discussed or researched. I do not know of any other book on the market that seeks to bring together individual narratives of deconversion and the challenges faced afterward. -- Amarnath Amarasingam, York University Atheists in America-a vital new contribution to the growing literature on nonbelievers-reveals in their own words how a wide diversity of people learned to live lives of integrity and meaning without God. The book also grants readers ready to hear it the message that not only is it okay not to believe, being an atheist can be both enlightening and liberating. -- Michael Shermer, editor of Skeptic I used to preach that atheists are fools who lead sad, empty, meaningless, and immoral lives. Then I actually met some atheists. After reading the moving and honest stories in Atheists in America, you will agree with me that nonbelievers lead reasonable, moral, and purposeful lives. -- Dan Barker, copresident, Freedom from Religion Foundation Intriguing... This volume should appeal to academics and some spiritual seekers. Library JournalTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction. The Other Closet: An Introduction to Atheism and Coming Out Processes Part 1. Leaving Faith: Arriving at Atheist Identity from Religious Backgrounds 1. How I Got to None of the Above, by Alvin Burstein 2. Religion and the F-Word (Feminism), by Lynnette 3. Clap Our Hands Like Trees, by Chris Matallana 4. Ex-Mormon, by Cora Judd Part 2. Cultural Contexts in Coming Out as Atheist 5. An Unexamined Life, by Naima Cabelle 6. User Error: Coming Out as Atheist in Utah, by James Mouritsen 7. The Names We Call Home, by Shawn Mirza 8. A Life of Class Consciousness, by David Hoelscher Part 3. Two Closets? Identifying as Both LGBTQ and Atheist 9. A Tale of Two Closets, by Stephen S. Mills 10. The Permanent Prodigal Daughter, by Sherilyn Connelly 11. Far from Home, by David Philip Norris Part 4. Ain't No Mountain High Enough: Navigating Romantic Relationships as an Atheist 12. An Atheist's Simple Revelation About Love: It's Complicated, by Ethan Sahker 13. Swept Under the Rug, by Kristen Rurouni 14. On Love and Credulity, by Matt Hart Part 5. Family Life and Atheist Parenting 15. Dinner with Grandma, by Ronnelle Adams 16. Parenting Authentically in an Interfaith Marriage, by Kevin J. Zimmerman 17. Having a Baby Made Me an Atheist, by Amy Watkins 18. Born Secular, by Adrienne Filardo Fagan Part 6. The Search for Connection: Coming Out to Friends and Questing for Community 19. Slow Growth, by Justus Humphrey 20. An Atheist in the Bible Belt, by Brittany Friedel 21. Coming Out and Finding Home, by Pam Zerba Part 7. Atheism at Work: Tales of Coming Out to Coworkers and Colleagues 22. Is This the Way to Amarillo?, by Samuel W. Needleman 23. Cracking Open the Closet Door, by Camilo Ortiz 24. My Favorite Atheist, by John Douma Part 8. Atheism and Aging: The Challenges of Entering Older Adulthood as a Nonbeliever 25. The Road Less Traveled, by Ursula Raabe 26. A Contrarian Life Story, by Elizabeth Malm Clemens 27. Dark Matter and Missing Socks, by Margaret M. Bennett Concluding Thoughts: The Open Door Notes Bibliography

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewQuintman is the leading authority on the Milarepa story, and this book is the most important contribution to our understanding of this great narrative's rich history to date. -- Kurtis R. Schaeffer, University of Virginia The most important study yet published about the literary tradition surrounding the greatest single work in Tibetan literature. It does more than any previous study to give historical access to the life (and lives) of Tibet's most revered and influential yogin and poet. -- Roger R. Jackson, Carleton College This book studies the making of perhaps the greatest masterpiece in Tibetan history. Quintman shows how a bare account of events is transformed into a human story that touches the lives of both its author and its avid readers, making a signal contribution to the study of literature and its place in religion. -- Janet Gyatso, Harvard Divinity School The Yogin and the Madman is a treasure trove for anyone, who wishes to learn more about literary traditions in the Himalayas, Buddhist history, and about the life of Milarepa. Kuensel Quintman's work represents a groundbreaking achievement in the presentation of Tibetan biographies to a wider audience. His command of both Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhism ensures a solid presentation of complex and wide-ranging material, and his deep knowledge of literary theory broadens the reader's understanding of sacred biography in general. -- Cecile Ducher Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies [A] masterful study. -- Janet Gyatso The Journal of Asian StudiesTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Introduction 1. Earliest Sources: A Biographical Birth 2. Proto-Lives: Formations of a Skeletal Biography 3. Biographical Compendia: Lives Made Flesh 4. A New Standard: Tsangnyon Heruka's Life and Songs of Milarepa 5. The Yogin and the Madman: A Life Brought to Life 6. Conclusions Epilogue: Mila Comes Alive! List of Abbreviations Appendix 1: Gampopa's Life of Jetsun Mila Appendix 2: Colophons Appendix 3: Outlines and Concordances Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisA definitive account of the efforts by Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and other conservatives to remake American politics, the American economy, and America’s approach to the world in a pivotal decade.Trade ReviewAn amazing book and a stellar contribution to Columbia University Press's growing catalog of Tibetan and Tibetan Buddhist studies, for it will be the key book on medicine and religion in Tibet for this generation. Like Janet Gyatso's book on autobiography, her new book on medicine will simply be field defining. Little of this literature has received attention to date, and in fact much of it has only been available to a contemporary international scholarly audience for a decade or so. -- Kurtis R. Schaeffer, University of Virginia Janet Gyatso's long-awaited Being Human in a Buddhist World is the most important study of Tibetan medicine in the English language, surpassing previous scholarship in the scope of its history, the extent of its research, and the depth of its insights. Yet it is also more than that. It is the rare work that causes us to rethink the foundations of our field, leaving readers with both answers and questions about what is encompassed by terms like 'Tibetan Buddhism' and 'medical science.' -- Donald Lopez, University of Michigan This book is a fascinating, lucid, and profound exploration of the history in Tibet of the mentality and practices, both empirical and discursive, of probative medicine within the context of Buddhist civilization, a concept introduced and used as a more broad category than that of a 'Buddhism' concerned primarily with ideals of human perfection and supernatural realms. Moving deftly between fine-grained analysis of textual and visual materials from the seventh to seventeenth centuries and an open-ended discussion of large-scale historical and cultural issues, the book makes a significant contribution not only to Tibetan and Buddhist studies but also to current debates on the historiography and philosophy of the interactions and conflicts between religion and science. -- Steven Collins, University of Chicago Janet Gyatso's book is an extraordinarily sophisticated presentation of the history of Tibetan Buddhist medical practice from the inside out-an account that is deeply grounded in Tibetan language sources while never losing sight of key analytical, historical, and methodological questions pertinent to recent debates in the history of medicine and Buddhist studies, not to mention wider studies in the history of culture and literature in South Asia and beyond. This book will be a landmark in the study of South Asian medical traditions. What distinguishes it from other studies is its complexity of vision. It deftly traces the surprising entanglements of Buddhist doctrine, state patronage, and social power with both scholastic medical traditions and medical practitioners on the ground to give us a historical picture that is compellingly nuanced and refreshingly open-clearing the path for future research. -- Daud Ali, University of Pennsylvania A fascinating intellectual history by a mature scholar at the top of her game. Choice Written in a brilliant style, with engaging language... This exceptional work is an inspiring and valuable contribution to a broad range of medical discourses reaching well beyond the world of Tibetan medicine. Isis [Gyatso's] breadth of erudition is matched by the clarity and sophistication with which she frames and explicates her subject matter. Bulletin of the History of Medicine This is a major contribution to the field, and deserves to be widely read. Social History of Medicine Lucid and eloquent... [Being Human in a Buddhist World] is a major contribution to the broader issues of science-religion themes in Asian medicine, and will clearly be outstanding among the works on the history of Tibetan medicine for a long time to come. -- Barbara Gerke Himalaya: The Journal of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies [Being Human in a Buddhist World] greatly increases our understanding of Tibetan medical history, and could complement well readings in a graduate course on the history of science or medicine in Asia. -- Ryan John Jones Religious Studies Review Bridging studies of religion, science, and medicine, Being Human in a Buddhist World will be a valuable resource for scholars interested in thinking through these topics comparatively within and beyond Asian studies. The book will be valued by specialists and in graduate courses for its contributions to Buddhist studies and Tibetan studies, including an overview of the complex Tibetan system of tantric anatomy. At the same time, this intellectual history draws attention to the dearth of social histories of Tibet, and in particular Tibetan medical culture, which might shed further light on the rhetorical contradictions Gyatso identifies among Tibetan medical scholars. -- Stacey Van Vleet Journal of Asian Studies This major publication, the fruit of many years' work and engagement with key sources in the historical development of Tibetan medicine, is likely to remain a landmark in the study of Tibetan medical thought. -- Cathy Cantwell Revue d'Etudes TibetainesTable of ContentsList of Illustrations Acknowledgments A Technical Note Abbreviations Introduction Part I: In the Capital 1. Reading Paintings, Painting the Medical, Medicalizing the State 2. Anatomy of an Attitude: Medicine Comes of Age Part II: Bones of Contention 3. The Word of the Buddha 4. The Evidence of the Body: Medical Channels. Tantric Knowing 5. Tangled Up in System: The Heart, in the Text and in the Hand Coda: Influence, Rhetoric, and Riding Two Horses at Once Part III: Roots of the Profession 6. Women and Gender 7. The Ethics of Being Human: The Doctor's Formation in a Material Realm Conclusion: Ways and Means for Medicine Notes Bibliographies Index

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Book SynopsisA collage of original artwork, photographs, and ruminations that engage with modern and postmodern society, art, and technology.Trade ReviewTaylor engages-by modeling it in language as well as in earth and water-his readers' desire for an earthen transcendence. -- Jack Miles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of God: A Biography Taylor is not limited by fields of research and study-he turns over ideas and regards objects and effects from all sides. His deep reading of philosophy, political theory, and sociology is combined with a unique understanding of art in its most elemental forms. He guides us in ways of seeing, experiencing, and receiving. In an increasingly fragmented and solipsistic world, Taylor encourages us to regard a sense of 'place' as a set of ethical and tangential contexts not limited by material potential for exploitation. -- Liam Gillick, artist Taylor is a true renaissance thinker, a synthesizer of high order. His new book is a deep pleasure to read, his beloved New England landscape informs his thinking as he lands one by one on each enlightened stone. Take this book to the nearest garden, sit on a rock and let the language, Taylor's ideas in language, take you to where you had not planned on going. -- Sophie Cabot Black, poet Mark C. Taylor is a brilliant thinker who continually explodes the conventions of scholarship to create works of philosophical art and artistic philosophy. In Recovering Place, he has turned his fine mind and extraordinary eye to the place he knows best: Stone Hill. This series of meditations and photographs is at once a hymn to particularity-to these snow-covered berries, this dead raccoon, these yellow apples near a moss-covered stone-and a profound rumination on the myriad, proliferating meanings of being alive and mortal and of the earth -- Siri Hustvedt, writer One of our most important philosophers of culture, Taylor frames his poetic and passionate argument with a very personal reflection, not unlike Thoreau. Stone Hill, Taylor's Walden Pond, gives a visual identity to his important words. His poetic manifesto of place is a joy to read; its timely urgency is a gift to students in philosophy, art, architecture, and cultural criticism. -- Steven Holl, architect Taylor has created a work that is simultaneously stunningly direct and sensually complex. Its natural, spatial, analytical and temporal dimensions combine to perhaps surpass even his most brilliant and well reasoned texts in its capacity to draw the viewer/reader into a visceral and theoretical discourse at the very same moment. Recovering Place is about time, the ceaseless contemplation of which is at the root of all of Taylor's work. The originality of both his art and his writing are drawn together in this beautifully elegant book, which will, without doubt, generate pilgrimages to 'the Place.' -- Thomas Krens, director emeritus, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation New York [Taylor's] musings, when paired with the author's own color photos, read as poetic and verbal artifacts... The book will inspire readers to pause, look, and consider. Publishers Weekly Beautiful images of the natural world paired with introspective musings on life's greatest mysteries fill this wondrous compendium... Recovering Place makes an excellent and unforgettable giftbook; nature lovers especially will enjoy browsing its insights. Midwest Book Review Indescribable... it contains some of the finest prose and photography you'll find anywhere. A weird, wonderful, wallop-packing work of untethered spirituality. Foreword ReviewsTable of ContentsIntroduction Stone Hill Capital Globalization Modern Mobility Displacement Place Non-Place Orientation Posthuman Nihilism Project Philosophy nechius chi God Art Craft Imagination Disfiguring Faults Dawn Night Night Vision Gardens Placement Folly Abstraction Body Flesh Parasite Sense Color Touch Smell Apprehension Thinking Surface Seaming Appearing Human Real Grace Bliss Point Particularity Photographing Wildflowers Infinity Invisibility Holes Shadows Near Tracks Ghosts Not Distraction Boredom Slowness Revelation Fuzzy Compliance Time Complacency Snow Winter Spring Summer Fall Excess Indifference Inhuman Abandonment Cultivation Practice Raking Walking Stones Granite Marble Moraines River Stone Walling Elemental Earth Air Wind Fire Water Rain Ice Wood Forest Flows HardSoft Silence Solitude Waste Pyramid Pit Sign Sacrifice Burial Bones Relics Death Prayer Creativity Economies Waiting Idleness Dwelling Contentment Notes Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisLike religion, playing and watching sports is a deeply meaningful, celebratory ritual enjoyed by millions across the world. The first scholarly work designed for use in both religion and sports courses, this collection develops and then applies a theoretically grounded approach to studying sports engagement globally and its relationship to modern-day issues of violence, difference, social protest, and belonging. Case studies explore the place of sports in mainstream faiths, such as Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity, and lesser-known religious groups, particularly in Africa. It covers football, baseball, and basketball but also archery, soccer, bullfighting, judo, and track. Essays reflect all skill levels, from amateur to professional, and find surprising affinities among practices and cultures in locations as disparate as Germany and Japan, Spain and Saudi Arabia. Thoroughly examining a range of phenomena, this collection fully captures the unique overlap of two universal inTrade ReviewIn Religion and Sports, Rebecca T. Alpert offers a series of expertly crafted case studies with innovative, provocative, and compelling suggested exercises for classroom use. The case studies are superb in their content and accessibility and cover a wide range of sports from across the globe, raising important questions related to race, gender, ethnicity, creed, pluralism, and moral complexity. -- Arthur Remillard, Saint Francis University Alpert explicitly seeks to add religions with their similar and different characteristics to the conversation about sports because she wants to explore how these two (nearly ubiquitous) spheres of life together might help us better understand what it means to be human in relation to the environment, to other living creatures, and to each other. -- John B. White, Baylor University The majority of previous books on sport and religion have focused on specific religious traditions. Religion and Sports, however, provides varied and deep insights into the symbiotic relationship between Protestant and Catholic forms of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Zen Buddhism, to name a few. Perhaps, though, the most impressive aspect of this new and important book is its usefulness in the classroom. With rich case studies, study questions for class discussion at the end of each chapter, and a chapter entitled What would Phil Jackson Do?, this book will interest and engage students and will be an invaluable resource for educators. -- Nick J. Watson, York St John University, and coauthor, Sport and the Christian Religion In Religion and Sports Rebecca T. Alpert provides a much needed, interactive introduction to this emerging field in interdisciplinary studies. Using case studies that involve diverse religions and multiple sports, Alpert's ingenious work stimulates students to engage various intersections between sports and religion. To guide them through their encounters with the complex cases, Alpert provides specific learning objectives, assorted exercises and activities, and a series of probing questions for each chapter. Simply, this is a model textbook for cultivating student interest in religious studies and the significance of sports. -- Joseph L. Price, author of Rounding the Bases: Baseball and Religion in America This worthy book should be adopted by a number of sport and religion courses and should be required reading for sports officials. Excellent bibliography, notes, and index. Choice Alpert provides an important step in literature of the religion and sport field... Alpert's work is accessible, engaging, and beneficial for students. -- William Whitmore Sport in HistoryTable of ContentsA Note to Instructors on How to Use This Text Acknowledgments Introduction: Why Study Religion and Sports Part 1: Why Do People Think Sports Are a Religion? Case 1. Friday Night Lights: High School Football as Religion in Odessa Case 2. Oscar Pistorius and What It Means to Be Human Part 2: Does Religion Have a Place in Sports, or Sports in Religion? Case 3. Zen and Archery in Japan Case 4. O God of Players: Prayer and Women's Basketball at a Catholic College Case 5. Juju: Witchcraft and African Football Case 6. Jewish Umpires and Baseball Chapel Part 3: What Happens When Religion and Sports Come Into Conflict? Case 7. American Jews and the Boycott of the 1936 Berlin Olympics Case 8. The Belleville Grays and Playing Sports on the Sabbath Case 9. Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf and the National Anthem Ritual in the NBA Case 10. Judo and Hijab at the Olympics Part 4: Religion and Ethical Dilemmas in Sports Case 11. Caroline Pla and CYO Football: Should Girls Be Allowed to Compete with Boys? Case 12. Should the Roman Catholic Church Condemn Bullfighting in Spain? Case 13. Florida State University Seminoles' Osceola and Renegade: Mascots or Symbols Case 14. Jack Taylor's 138 Points: Is "Running Up the Score" Christian? Case 15. Conclusion: What Would Phil Jackson Do? Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book is bound to become a standard against which future scholarship on the cultural history of Christianity and several related fields will be evaluated. It achieves the feat of offering an exhaustive genealogy of the significance of "blood" in Western civilization, thereby pulling blood into an urgently needed visibility. -- Elisabeth Weber, University of California, Santa Barbara This is an original reading of the place of blood in Christian theology and religion and its far-reaching impact on the history and cultural practices of the West. It is distinguished by the singular voice of its author, who is at once fiercely critical, ironic, contemptuous, erudite, and enlightening as he engages thinkers both living and dead on the relationship between blood and its many metaphoric and literal representations. This is not a conventional book in any way, it is a manifesto, a call, if not to arms, then to recognition of the fact that Western thought, its social and political organization, is infused with Christianity, even if those influenced by it are not practicing Christians in any religious sense. -- Joan W. Scott, Harold F. Linder Professor, Institute for Advanced Study As in all his writings, Anidjar always surprises us by seeing connections where others have missed them. In this challenging book, he brilliantly excavates the meanings of blood in Christianity as well as how those meanings persist in our world in barely secularized form. -- David Biale, author of Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians Blood is first of all language, style, thought in writing. Blood is relentlessly compelling, a joyful destruction of trivialities, a delight of erudition. Blood is moved by epistemic urgency and internal critique, it answers the need for historical perspective, guided by the desire to understand what we are politically made of. Blood looks at the way blood speaks and is spoken, how it governs and rules over us, how it shapes the Christian nation, the state and the economy. Our obsession with blood is not a thing of the past, it is our absolute present time. Blood is not a metaphor, it is an organizing principle. Blood is not what Harvey discovered, something that would always have been known to us. It is what the Eucharist partakes of and brings up: the community of blood, blood piety--soon the purity of blood. And from these are derived our theory and politics, kinship and race, science and religion, literature and dreams, technology and bodies. Blood is an exceptionally powerful and fascinating object to be read, kept on a shelf--and meditated. -- Dominique Pestre, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales In this highly original book Anidjar deconstructs 'Christianity' into its element: blood. In doing so he demonstrates, with impressive skill, the ubiquity of blood-and its metamorphoses-in Christian history. In this exploration of the circulation of blood as the life of nation, state, and capital, the reader is presented with an extraordinary account of modernity no less. Scholars of modernity will learn to see 'Christianity' as something at once more and less than 'religion'-even though it is, as Anidjar argues, the (misleading) prototype of all religions.' This is a work to be read carefully and its implications pondered over. -- Talal Asad, CUNY Graduate Center Every once in awhile one encounters a book that makes one ask: 'why has this not been written before?' How could we have overlooked the importance of blood? What is it? A fact, metaphor, substance, medium, or element in which we live and move? A bloodbath? Or are we merely the tub, the tubes, and plumbing in which the essence of life and symbol of violent death gurgles and flows. Anidjar has identified, not a bright red line, but an entire circulatory system that links religion, race, economics, the state, the family, and biology. This is a book that will not so much be read as injected into all these discourses, infecting them with a necessary and viral critique. A brilliant achievement by one of the most original intellects of our time. -- W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago, editor of Critical Inquiry Ambitious and daring... Blood is bound to provoke heated discussion... Immanent Frame Academic books can dazzle for a variety of reasons. Some projects are so painstakingly, meticulously researched that, even though the subject matter is sometimes dry and often only ever capable of appealing to a highly specific audience, they command respect. Other works are written with such finesse and linguistic dexterity that they dazzle with their glimmering sheen of intellectual bravura. Yet others become cornerstones of the academic canon because of their wide-reaching implications in many diverse disciplines. Blood: A Critique of Christianity is that rare combination that manages all three. A project of soaring ambition and incredible scope, Gil Anidjar attempts to weave a narrative constructed from-and soaked in-the cultural, social, political history of blood within Christianity and, by extension, the entire Western world. Oxonian Review Gil Anidjar's Blood: A Critique of Christianity is a consuming book - a fierce intelligence combined with compelling readings of everything and anything related to the mechanics of circulation, the rhythmic splattered arcs, the media and metaphysics, the diseases born within and carried by the blood. Syndicate - John Modern Gil Anidjar academia's Quentin Tarantino. Both men have rewritten the history of the modern West as a history of blood... One can only wish Anidjar's work Tarantinoesque popularity. Syndicate - Bettina Bildhauer Blood: A Critique of Christianity offers a dazzling and occasionally maddening meditation on the theme of blood in Christianity and Western culture... As a commentary on literature and western thought, Blood is delightful and convincing. Syndicate - Brittany Pheiffer Noble This book designs to provoke, not persuade. It uses history not to make arguments, but to pose questions... There is much to admire in the book... The sheer number of surprising hypotheses will generate some brilliant ones. Syndicate - Eugene Rogers Blood is a book every Christian should read. Journal of the Conference on Faith and HistoryTable of ContentsPreface: Why I Am Such a Good Christian Acknowledgments Introduction: Red Mythology Part One. The Vampire State 1. Nation (Jesus' Kin) 2. State (The Vampire State) 3. Capital (Christians and Money) Part Two. Hematologies 4. Odysseus' Blood 5. Bleeding and Melancholia 6. Leviathan and the Blood Pump Conclusion: On the Christian Question (Jesus and Monotheism ) Notes Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThis book is bound to become a standard against which future scholarship on the cultural history of Christianity and several related fields will be evaluated. It achieves the feat of offering an exhaustive genealogy of the significance of "blood" in Western civilization, thereby pulling blood into an urgently needed visibility. -- Elisabeth Weber, University of California, Santa Barbara This is an original reading of the place of blood in Christian theology and religion and its far-reaching impact on the history and cultural practices of the West. It is distinguished by the singular voice of its author, who is at once fiercely critical, ironic, contemptuous, erudite, and enlightening as he engages thinkers both living and dead on the relationship between blood and its many metaphoric and literal representations. This is not a conventional book in any way, it is a manifesto, a call, if not to arms, then to recognition of the fact that Western thought, its social and political organization, is infused with Christianity, even if those influenced by it are not practicing Christians in any religious sense. -- Joan W. Scott, Harold F. Linder Professor, Institute for Advanced Study As in all his writings, Anidjar always surprises us by seeing connections where others have missed them. In this challenging book, he brilliantly excavates the meanings of blood in Christianity as well as how those meanings persist in our world in barely secularized form. -- David Biale, author of Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians Blood is first of all language, style, thought in writing. Blood is relentlessly compelling, a joyful destruction of trivialities, a delight of erudition. Blood is moved by epistemic urgency and internal critique, it answers the need for historical perspective, guided by the desire to understand what we are politically made of. Blood looks at the way blood speaks and is spoken, how it governs and rules over us, how it shapes the Christian nation, the state and the economy. Our obsession with blood is not a thing of the past, it is our absolute present time. Blood is not a metaphor, it is an organizing principle. Blood is not what Harvey discovered, something that would always have been known to us. It is what the Eucharist partakes of and brings up: the community of blood, blood piety--soon the purity of blood. And from these are derived our theory and politics, kinship and race, science and religion, literature and dreams, technology and bodies. Blood is an exceptionally powerful and fascinating object to be read, kept on a shelf--and meditated. -- Dominique Pestre, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales In this highly original book Anidjar deconstructs 'Christianity' into its element: blood. In doing so he demonstrates, with impressive skill, the ubiquity of blood-and its metamorphoses-in Christian history. In this exploration of the circulation of blood as the life of nation, state, and capital, the reader is presented with an extraordinary account of modernity no less. Scholars of modernity will learn to see 'Christianity' as something at once more and less than 'religion'-even though it is, as Anidjar argues, the (misleading) prototype of all religions.' This is a work to be read carefully and its implications pondered over. -- Talal Asad, CUNY Graduate Center Every once in awhile one encounters a book that makes one ask: 'why has this not been written before?' How could we have overlooked the importance of blood? What is it? A fact, metaphor, substance, medium, or element in which we live and move? A bloodbath? Or are we merely the tub, the tubes, and plumbing in which the essence of life and symbol of violent death gurgles and flows. Anidjar has identified, not a bright red line, but an entire circulatory system that links religion, race, economics, the state, the family, and biology. This is a book that will not so much be read as injected into all these discourses, infecting them with a necessary and viral critique. A brilliant achievement by one of the most original intellects of our time. -- W. J. T. Mitchell, University of Chicago, editor of Critical Inquiry Ambitious and daring... Blood is bound to provoke heated discussion... Immanent Frame Academic books can dazzle for a variety of reasons. Some projects are so painstakingly, meticulously researched that, even though the subject matter is sometimes dry and often only ever capable of appealing to a highly specific audience, they command respect. Other works are written with such finesse and linguistic dexterity that they dazzle with their glimmering sheen of intellectual bravura. Yet others become cornerstones of the academic canon because of their wide-reaching implications in many diverse disciplines. Blood: A Critique of Christianity is that rare combination that manages all three. A project of soaring ambition and incredible scope, Gil Anidjar attempts to weave a narrative constructed from-and soaked in-the cultural, social, political history of blood within Christianity and, by extension, the entire Western world. Oxonian Review Gil Anidjar's Blood: A Critique of Christianity is a consuming book - a fierce intelligence combined with compelling readings of everything and anything related to the mechanics of circulation, the rhythmic splattered arcs, the media and metaphysics, the diseases born within and carried by the blood. Syndicate - John Modern Gil Anidjar academia's Quentin Tarantino. Both men have rewritten the history of the modern West as a history of blood... One can only wish Anidjar's work Tarantinoesque popularity. Syndicate - Bettina Bildhauer Blood: A Critique of Christianity offers a dazzling and occasionally maddening meditation on the theme of blood in Christianity and Western culture... As a commentary on literature and western thought, Blood is delightful and convincing. Syndicate - Brittany Pheiffer Noble This book designs to provoke, not persuade. It uses history not to make arguments, but to pose questions... There is much to admire in the book... The sheer number of surprising hypotheses will generate some brilliant ones. Syndicate - Eugene Rogers Blood is a book every Christian should read. Journal of the Conference on Faith and HistoryTable of ContentsPreface: Why I Am Such a Good Christian Acknowledgments Introduction: Red Mythology Part One. The Vampire State 1. Nation (Jesus' Kin) 2. State (The Vampire State) 3. Capital (Christians and Money) Part Two. Hematologies 4. Odysseus' Blood 5. Bleeding and Melancholia 6. Leviathan and the Blood Pump Conclusion: On the Christian Question (Jesus and Monotheism ) Notes Index

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Book SynopsisFeaturing close studies of Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakosabhasya, Vyakhyayukti, Vimsatika, and Trisvabhavanirdesa, among other works, this book identifies recurrent treatments of causality and scriptural interpretation that unify distinct strands of thought under a single, coherent Buddhist philosophyTrade ReviewVasubandhu, one of the greatest minds in the history of Buddhism, is brought to life in these pages. Jonathan Gold's synthetic treatment of his most important ideas is a model for how to treat the work of a classical Buddhist thinker. Written in clear and lively prose, Paving the Great Way will be the definitive work on this great Buddhist philosopher for many years to come. Essential reading for anyone interested in classical Buddhist thought. -- Jose Ignacio Cabezon, University of California, Santa Barbara Gold has done something extraordinary: he has pulled together the key philosophical strands running through Vasubandhu's works, thereby demonstrating far greater continuity than might have been suspected, and he has given us a much deeper and more compelling author as a result. This book will forever change the way we read Vasubandhu. -- Mark Siderits, Seoul National University A rare example of a sustained and subtle engagement with the whole career of one of history's greatest Buddhist philosophers, Paving the Great Way makes an important and eminently readable case for thinking that the works of the prolific Buddhist thinker Vasubandhu represent the development of a unified philosophical project. -- Dan Arnold, University of Chicago Paving the Great Way is a masterpiece of philosophical exposition, synthesis, and creative commentary. Gold addresses every facet of Vasubandhu's considerable and varied corpus and integrates them in his articulation of Vasubandhu's original synthesis of Buddhist ideas. Gold brings to this project great philological erudition, deep philosophical insight, scrupulous commentarial skills, and a marvelous lucidity in exposition. This book is a major contribution not only to Vasubandhu scholarship but also to Yogacara studies, the history of Indian philosophy, the history of world philosophy, and the engagement between Western and Buddhist philosophical scholarship. -- Jay L. Garfield, Yale-NUS College This book makes a major contribution not only to Vasubandhu scholarship but also to Yogacara scholarship as well as to the history of Indian Buddhist philosophy and contemporary engagement between Western and Asian Buddhist philosophical scholarship... Highly recommended. Choice Beautifully written and cogently argued... A superb assessment of one of Buddhism's greatest thinkers. Buddhadharma An erudite, informative, impressively organized and presented study, Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu's Unifying Buddhist Philosophy is a model of insightful scholarship. Midwest Book Review I am sure that students of Buddhism will use Gold's extraordinary book for a long time to come. Journal of ReligionTable of ContentsAcknowledgments Abbreviations 1. Summarizing Vasubandhu: Should a Buddhist Philosopher Have a Philosophy? 2. Against the Times: Vasubandhu's Critique of His Main Abhidharma Rivals 3. Merely Cause and Result: The Imagined Self and the Literalistic Mind 4. Knowledge, Language, and the Interpretation of Scripture: Vasubandhu's Opening to the Mahayana 5. Vasubandhu's Yogacara: Enshrining the Causal Line in the Three Natures 6. Agency and the Ethics of Massively Cumulative Causality Conclusion: Buddhist Causal Framing for the Modern World Appendix A. Against the Existence of the Three Times Appendix B. Brief Disproof of the Self Appendix C. Discussion of "View" (Drsti) Appendix D. Against the Eternality of Atoms (Paramanu) Appendix E. The Proper Mode of Exposition on Conventional and Ultimate Appendix F. The Twenty Verses on Appearance and Memory Appendix G. The Three Natures Exposition Notes Bibliography Index

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