Social groups: religious groups and communities Books

Book SynopsisThis important collection of essays addresses the question of why scholars can no longer do without class in religious studies and theology, and what we can learn from a renewed engagement with the topic. This volume discusses what new discourses regarding notions of gender, ethnicity, and race might add to developments on notions of class.Trade ReviewTimely and indispensable for working to change the plight of the 99 percent, this provocative text probes the intersection of religion, theology, and class through the lenses of global capital, gender, blackness, migration, and alternative economies. I highly recommend it. - Kwok Pui-lan, Professor, Episcopal Divinity School, USA By gathering provocative analyses from international thinkers into one volume, Joerg Rieger raises embedded assumptions about social class and theology into a much-needed, critical light. Religion, Theology, and Class: Fresh Engagements After Long Silence provides a space for substantive conversations among scholars in religious studies, particularly as we consider building just relationships. - Stephanie Y. Mitchem, Professor, Department of Religious Studies, University of South Carolina, USATable of ContentsIntroduction: Why We Can Do No Longer without Class in Religious Studies and Theology; Joerg Rieger PART I: BASIC DEFINITIONS AND CHALLENGES 1. Religion and Class; Richard D. Wolff 2. Classes, Other Distinctions, and Their Theological Values; Néstor Míguez 3. Save Us from Cynicism: Religion and Social Class; Jung Mo Sung 4. Class, Sin, and the Displaced; Vítor Westhelle PART II: HISTORICAL CONTEXTS 5. Religion and Class in the Construction and Deconstruction of the Myth of American Exceptionalism; Sheila D. Collins 6. Protesting Classes through Protestant Glasses: Class, Labor, and the Social Gospel in the United States; Ken Estey PART III: ONGOING STRUGGLES: GENDER, POVERTY, RACE, AND CLASS 7. Poverty and Poor People's Agency in High-Tech Capitalism; Jan Rehmann 8. Inequality, Class, and Power in Global Perspective; Pamela K. Brubaker 9. Black Reconstruction: Thinking Blackness and Rethinking Class in Late Capitalist America, Corey D.B. Walker 10. Instigating Class Struggle? The Study of Class in Religion and Theology and Some Implications for Race and Gender; Joerg Rieger

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Book SynopsisChristian theology has been complicit in justifying the war on women, but it also has resources to help finally declare peace in the war on women. War itself has come to resemble the war on women, and thus strategies to end the war on women, supported by new Christian theological interpretations, will also help end today's endless wars.Trade Review“Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite sets out to address the ways in which Western models of war and peace affect the global War on Women. … the book is certainly an accessible read for people from a variety of social locations and interest levels … . This book is entirely rooted in culture, lived experience, historical understanding, and, above all, it offers a hopeful roadmap for praxis that will lead to a life-giving future for all.” (Katie Deaver, Christian Feminism Today, eewc.com, March, 2016)"Reverend Thistlethwaite makes an important contribution to the current debate on the wars we are waging and how they effect violence against women. Her treatment of Christian notions of "just war" makes this book essential reading for those who are motivated by Jesus' words: 'Blessed are the peacemakers.'" - Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, co-founder of The Carter Center "In this very important new book, Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite argues that war and violence against women have some of the same social, cultural, and religious roots. Women's Bodies as Battlefield is a very significant critical intervention in the public discourses on the war on women a must-read for anyone engaged in such conversations. I highly recommend the book." - Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, Krister Stendahl Professor, The Divinity School, Harvard University, USA 'With the comprehensive scholarly analysis and complex feminist insight that we have come to expect from Thistlethwaite's work, she reveals the intricate and inextricable relationship of wars fought between nations and the wars fought on women's bodies. To read this book is to be compelled to act against the 'reality of violence in women's lives,' by witnessing against international, national, and domestic wars, for women's bodies are the link between all of them.' - Kelly Brown Douglas, Professor of Religion, Goucher College, USA 'The idea of 'just war' has more often been an excuse than a standard for a real public policy debate about the United States waging war. Thistlethwaite lays the groundwork for a serious critique that includes a gender analysis. It's high time we had this conversation.' - Rev. Dr. Marie M. Fortune, Founder and Senior Analyst, Faith Trust Institute, USA 'Through her luminous idea of "critical physicality," Thistlethwaite rescues the concept of the body from false dualities and misleading theories, and restores to real women's bodies the integrity of their complicated corporeal existence. This brilliant work will force us to reflect on what it means to be a woman on the battlefield of her own body, and how the violence done to real women's real bodies compromises our communities and our very humanity.' - Michael Eric Dyson, University Professor of Sociology, Georgetown University, USA 'For every ethical person who cares about the global scourge of violence, this comprehensive guide to the religious roots and cultural and social dimensions of the war on women is a must-read.' - Rita Nakashima Brock, PhD, co-author of Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War 'Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite suggests that 'theology begins where the pain is.' She makes critical connections between the war on women and our society's continued lust for violence.' - Rev. Michael Neuroth, Minister, United Church of Chris, USA, and Policy Advocate for International Issues, Justice and Witness Ministries Office, United Church of Christ, USATable of ContentsIntroduction1: Injuring: Bodies and Battlefields2: Injuring: Women's Bodies in the War on Women3: The History of Theologies of the Body: Sexism and Militarism4: Looking Away: The Heroic Fiction of War5: Looking Away: The Erotic Fiction of the War on Women6: Just War: Authorizing the Injuries7: Just War: Conducting the Injuries 8: Just Peace: Practice Without Embodiment9: Just Peace: Bodies at the Center10: Toward An Embodied Theology of Peace

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Book SynopsisThis book helps explain some of Max Weber's key concepts such as charisma, asceticism, mysticism, pariah-people, prophets, salvation, and theodicy and places them within the context of Weber's sociology of religion.Table of ContentsPreface PART I: CONCEPTUAL CONTEXTS 1. Introduction 2. From Roman Agrarianism to Sociology of Religion 3. Conceptual Influences and Developments PART TWO: FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS 4. Asceticism and Mysticism 5. Prophets and Pariah-people 6. Salvation and Theodicy 7. Charisma Bibliography

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Book SynopsisAsia, Modernity, and the Pursuit of the Sacred examines a large number of Europeans who, disillusioned with western culture and religion after World War I, and anticipating the spiritual seekers of the counterculture, turned to the religious traditions of Asia for inspiration.Trade Review“This book provides a unique and Creative thesis about which scholars of Asia would do well to think critically in their studies of religion and culture and in reconsidering their methodologies. … I imagine a broad audience would find it inaccessible. Therefore this book is recommended for Asian studies and religious studies scholars interested in the theoretical questions relevant to their disciplines.” (Brooke Schedneck, SOJOURN - Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 32 (1), February, 2017)Table of Contents1. Anthropology and the Limits of Secular Reason 2. Gnosticism and the Pursuit of the Sacred 3. Traditionalism: a Dialectic of Authenticity 4. Gnostics, Religion and the (Mis)Recognition of Modernity 5. Modern Mystics: Towards a Gnostic Science 6. The Inner Journey of the Gnostic Self: Ethics and Politics 7. Other Worlds or Ours? Sacred/Secular/Gnostic/Modern 8. What if Culture Didn't Matter? Asian Studies and the New Universalism(s)

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Book SynopsisDrawing on a broad cultural and historical canvas, and weaving in the author's personal experience, The Israeli Mind presents a compelling, if disturbing, portrait of the Israeli national character. Emerging from the depth of Jewish history and the drama of the Zionist rebellion against it, lsraelis are struggling to forge an identity.

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Book SynopsisThe book examines the intersection of two philosophical developments which define define contemporary life in the liberal democratic west, considering how democracy has become the only legitimate and publicly defensible regime, while also considering how modern democracy attempts to solve what Leo Strauss called the 'theologico-political problem.'Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction: A Pre-history of Democracy 1. Spinoza and Democracy as the Best Regime 2. Rousseau and Democratic Civil Religion 3. Thomas Jefferson: Bringing Democracy Down from the Heavens Conclusion References

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Book SynopsisThis innovative volume provides an interdisciplinary, theoretically innovative answer to an enduring question for Pentecostal/charismatic Christianities: how do women lead churches? This study fills this lacuna by examining the leadership and legacy of two architects of the Pentecostal movement - Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson.Trade Review“In the face of a lack of in-depth studies on these intriguing religious figures, the book aims to fill the gap in existing religious and gender studies scholarship, offering a theoretically-based, interdisciplinary study. … a fascinating historical journey through the process of establishing legitimacy as a woman pastor in the early twentieth century. Therefore, this book represents a valuable contribution to the history of American revivalism, religion and gender studies and to the further research of female evangelists.” (Aleksandra Djurić Milovanović, Religion & Gender, Vol. 7 (2), 2017)Table of ContentsIntroduction 1. The Ideal American Minister 2. "Walking Bibles": Narrating Female Pentecostal Ministry 3. "Pants Don't Make Preachers": The Image of a Female Pentecostal Minister 4. "A Glorious Symbol": Building a Female Pentecostal Worship Space 5. "Thunder" and "Sweetness": Authority and Gender in Pentecostal Performance 6. "A Regular Jezebel": Female Ministry, Pentecostal Ministry on Trial Conclusion

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Book SynopsisChapter 1: The Necroculture of Capitalism.- Chapter 2: Artificial Life on a Dead Planet.- Chapter 3: Speed and Stasis.- Chapter 4: The Pornography of Information.- Chapter 5: The Tyranny of Negative Freedom. Trade Review“‘Necroculture’, the productivist ideology which denies climate change and promotes techno-salvationism is expressed as a complete capitulation to the perceived power of capital, not to preserve life but to reproduce it as something which transcends death.” (Debra Benita Shaw, New Formations, Issue 91, 2017)“In Necroculture, Charles Thorpe challenges this received wisdom by gathering an ambitious array of macrosocial ills into cohesive categories and then drawing theoretical purchase from Karl Marx and Erich Fromm to explain them. … Necroculture is a must-read for anyone interested in studying such camouflaged macrosocial addictions.” (Shawn Van Valkenburgh, Critical Sociology, August, 2017)Table of ContentsChapter 1: The Necroculture of Capitalism Chapter 2: Artificial Life on a Dead Planet Chapter 3: Speed and Stasis Chapter 4: The Pornography of Information Chapter 5: The Tyranny of Negative Freedom

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Book SynopsisHannah Arendt's (1906-1975) writings, both in public magazines and in her important books, are still widely studied today. She made original contributions in political thinking that still astound readers and critics alike. The subject of several films and numerous books, colloquia, and newspaper articles, Arendt remains a touchstone in innumerable debates about the use of violence in politics, the responsibility one has under dictatorships and totalitarianism, and how to combat the repetition of the horrors of the past. The Bloomsbury Companion to Arendt offers the definitive guide to her writings and ideas, her influences and commentators, as well as the reasons for her lasting significance, with 66 original essays taking up in accessible terms the myriad ways in which one can take up her work and her continuing importance. These essays, written by an international set of her best readers and commentators, provides a comprehensive coverage of her life and the contexts in which her worTrade ReviewThis volume explores many of the “thought trains” central to Arendt’s understanding of modernity. Essays on dozens of topics invite readers to think about politics, birth, truth, and power in light of Arendt’s profound reflections on those topics. While Arendt found “truth” elusive, she thought we were obliged to “think about what we are doing”, the authors of these essays help us to shoulder that task. * Johanna Meehan, McCay-Casady Professor of Humanities, Grinnell College, USA *Diverse, accessible, and highly impressive in its scope, this compelling volume will doubtless become essential reading both for established scholars of Arendt’s work and for new readers. Effectively showcasing the urgency and vitality of Arendt’s writings, it strikes the perfect balance between enriching current conversations and presenting new directions for Arendt scholarship. * Danielle Sands, Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Thought, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Notes on contributors Editor’s Introduction, Peter Gratton and Yasemin Sari Part I: Sources, Influences, and Encounters 1. Arendt and the Roman Tradition, Dean Hammer 2. Concepts of love in Augustine, Charles Synder 3. Thomas Hobbes: the emancipation of the political-economic, Peg Birmingham 4. Arendt, Montesquieu, and the spirits of politics, Lucy Cane 5. Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s sovereign intimacy, Peg Birmingham 6. Arendt and Kant’s moral philosophy, Robert Burch 7. Arendt and Kant’s categorical imperative, William Clohesy 8. Hannah Arendt and Karl Marx: beyond the human condition, Tama Weisman 9. Max Weber: methodology, action, and politics, Philip Walsh 10. Phenomenology: Arendt’s politics of appearance, Peter Gratton 11. Martin Heidegger: love and the world, Jennifer Gaffney 12. Karl Jaspers, Arendt, and the love of citizens, Ian Storey 13. Isaiah berlin: liberty, liberalism, and anti-totalitarianism, Kei Hiruta 14. Arendt and America, Richard H. King 15. Franz Kafka and Arendt: pariahs in thought, Ian Storey 16. Walter Benjamin and Arendt: a relation of sorts, Andrew Benjamin 17. Merleau-Ponty: hiding, showing, being, Kascha Semonovitch 18. Arendt and critical theory: impossible friends, Rick Elmore 19. Arendt and the New York intellectuals, Richard H. King Part II: Key Writings 20. Love and st. Augustine, Charles Snyder 21. Rahel Varnhagen, Samir Gandesha 22. The origins of totalitarianism, Richard Bernstein 23. The human condition, Peter Gratton 24. Eichmann in Jerusalem, Leora Bilsky 25. Between past and future, Emily Zakin 26. On revolution, Robert Fine 27. Lectures on Kant’s political philosophy, Matthew wester 28. The life of the mind, Robert Burch Part III: themes and topics Ontology 29. Arendt and appearance, Jeremy Elkins 30. Arendt on the activity of thinking, Wout Cornelissen 31. Judaism in the human condition, Bonnie Honig 32. Life and human plurality, Dianna Taylor 33. Natality and the birth of politics, Anne O’Byrne 34. Place: the familiar table and chair, Peter f. Cannavò 35. Plurality, Catherine Kellogg 36. The right to have rights, Yasemin Sari 37. Truth, Ronald Beiner 38. Two-in-one, Robert Burch Politics 39. Artificial equality: procedural, epistemic, and performative, Yasemin Sari 40. Arendt and Ecological politics, Kerry H. Whiteside 41. Evil, James Bernauer 42. Freedom, Catherine Kellogg 43. Imperialism, Jennifer Gaffney 44. International law: its promise and limits, Natasha Saunders 45. Justice: Arendt in jerusalem and the problem of judgment, Vincent Lefebve 46. Law: nomos and lex, constitutionalism and totalitarianism in Arendt’s thought, Vincent Lefebve 47. On the lost spirit of revolution, Samantha Rose Hill 48. Power, Patrick Hayden 49. Radical democracy within limits, Andrew Schaap 50. Reconciliation, Roger Berkowitz 51. Responsibility, Phillip Nelson 52. The sensus communis and common sense: the worldly, affective sense of judging spectators, Peg Birmingham 53. Sovereignty, Christian Volk 54. Violence: illuminating its political meaning and limits, Maša Mrovlje Society 55. Arendt’s alteration of tone, Susannah Gottlieb 56. Art and performance, Cecilia Sjöholm 57. Biopolitics: racing and “managing” human populations, Dianna Taylor 58. The “conscious pariah”: beyond identity and difference, Samir Gandesha 59. Education: Arendt against the politicization of the university, Peter Baehr 60. Expropriation: the loss of land as place in the world, James Barry, Jr 61. Arendt and Feminism, Julian Honkasalo 62. Labor: the liberation and the rise of the life society, James Barry, Jr 63. Narrative, Adriana Caverero 64. Political philosophy of science: from cosmos to power, Eve Seguin 65. Arendt on Race and Racism, Grayson Hunt 66. The stateless: the logic of the camp, Samir Gandesha 67. World alienation and the search for home in Arendt’s philosophy, David Macauley Index

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Book SynopsisK. S. Batmanghelichi is Associate Professor for the Study of Modern Iran in the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo, Norway.Trade ReviewThis is a well-written book on a very important topic, which readers will find interesting and perhaps surprising. * CHOICE *Batmanghelichi provides a fascinating analysis of how the regulation of sexuality has evolved in Iran. The book takes us on an illuminating journey from reforming the visual arts, to regulating prostitution in red-light parks before the 1979 revolution and relying on temporary marriage after the revolution, to refashioning “modest” statues post-revolution, and finally to contradictory government approaches to dealing with HIV/AIDs. This is a must read if you want to understand sexuality before and after the Islamic revolution. * Melanie Heath, Associate Professor of Sociology, McMaster University, Canada *In this perceptive, well documented and illustrated study, Batmanghelichi depicts the scope, determination as well as failures of Iran’s policy of moral cleansing targeting women’s sexuality. Combining historical analysis and ethnographic research, this is a welcome addition to the literature on the resilience of women’s sexuality to the power of moral engineering grounded in religion. * Marnia Lazreg, Professor of Sociology, Hunter College and Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA *Drawing on an innovating combination of archival, historical material; social policies including sexual health policies; art, women’s magazines, and the rearrangement of public spaces in Iran over the last 100 years under two very different states, the author skillfully counters current understandings of the Islamic regime’s treatment of women, their bodies, their dress and as a rupture from the Pahlavi era treatment of women. This book convincing argues that the policies of both regimes, and their perspectives on women, a part of a a continuum that views women and their public representation as central to national ideology as imagined by the state, regardless of each regime’s particular political perspective. Readers are taken on an intriguing tour of a century of social and oral history and exploration of policy directives. This tour highlights the failures of these successive regimes to understand the diversity of Iranian women, to successfully manipulate women’s bodies as a collective vehicle for state ideology, or to entrench their desired ideological hegemony. An unparalleled account of the role and the centrality of female citizens in the political imaginations of both the current Iranian regime and the Pahlavi monarchy it unseated, this is a work of original and interestingly sourced scholarship, and of thoughtful analysis. * Homa Hoodfar, Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, Concordia University, Canada *Table of ContentsList of Figures Acknowledgements A Note On Transliteration Introduction 1. Reform: An Art Of Visual Persuasion 2. Red-lights In Parks: A Social History Of Park-E Razi 3. Safety valves and post-revolutionary “prostitution” 4. Naked Modesty And The Reformation Of Statues 5. When Hiv/Aids Meets Government Morality Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe book is an exploration of the creative crossings between the liberative stream of the eschatology of Edward Schillebeeckx and the stylistic strategies of 'Third Cinema', political cinema dedicated to the representation of Third World liberation.Trade Review'I find Screening Schillebeeckx: Theology and Third Cinema in Dialogue very interesting. I am not one who sees a lot of films; for me, that is a defect. I think cinema, which speaks of human life, is very interesting and also very necessary for theologians to study. It is a serious task that involves expertise in different areas. Theology without the interdisciplinary approaches is not possible at the moment.' Edward Schillebeeckx 'The great Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein once wrote of the social value of 'intellectual montage,' in which new and revolutionary ideas might spring from the juxtaposition of previously separate images. In his book Screening Schillebeeckx, Antonio Sison performs just such an intellectual montage. By bringing together the liberatory theology of Schillebeeckx (who never writes of film) with the stylistic images of Third Cinema (of whose directors certainly never read the Dutch theologian), Sison succeeds in crossing and colliding the cinematic with the theological to produce, as Eisenstein would say, an 'explosion' of meaning.' S. Brent Plate, author of Walter Benjamin, Religion and Aesthetics and editor of Representing Religion in World Cinema (Palgrave) 'Sison offers a fresh, constructive and theological contribution to understanding Third Cinema through a theological lens. Each chapter unfolds grounding principles that stimulate the religious imagination for alternative applications in this field of study. New radical portals of insight are opened for those who engage in Sison's work.' Angela Ann Zukowski, Professor, Department of Religious Studies, The University of DaytonTable of ContentsForeword; R.J.Schreiter Introduction PART I: CINEMATIC PRINCIPLES The Concept of Third Cinema Exploring National Dimensions of Third Cinema Films from a Virtual Geography of Third Cinema PART II : THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLE Political Holiness: The Eschatological Perspective of Edward Schillebeeckx PART III : CREATIVE CROSSINGS The Crystallization of Political Holiness in Third Cinema Conclusion

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Book SynopsisExploring the experience of Muslims in America following 9/11, this book assesses how anti-Muslim bias within the U.S. government and the larger society undermines American security and democracy.Trade ReviewScapegoating Islam explores the role Islam and Muslims have played in the evolution of US national security policy over the last 400 years. It is an important addition to the existing literature on national security. It is well researched and referenced. Anyone dealing with or studying US national security would benefit from this book. * The Washington Book Review *Table of ContentsIntroduction 1 America's Evolving Perspectives on Islam: From Threat Abroad to Challenge at Home 2 9/11 and the New Homeland Security Paradigm 3 Homeland Security and the Muslim Experience at the State and Local Levels 4 Climate of Fear 5 Hate Crimes and Anti-Muslim Violence 6 Muslim Americans and the Homeland Security Enterprise Epilogue: Aligning Security and Civil Rights Timeline of Major Policies and Government Actions Affecting Muslims in America Notes Selected Bibliography Further Reading Index

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Book SynopsisThis illuminating work offers readers a comprehensive overview of ISIS, with more than 100 in-depth articles on a variety of topics related to the notorious terrorist group, and more than a dozen key primary source documents.ISIS formed through a combination of a rise in violent extremist ideologies demonstrated on September 11, 2001; the invasion of Iraq; and the Syrian Civil War. ISIS is possibly the most important conflict group and phenomena of the last half century, and understanding its source and success is crucial to functioning in the world today. This book provides insight into ISIS from its beginnings to the present, through coverage of its people, organizations, and operations.The book begins with an overview of ISIS, which provides context for each of the reference entries that follow. The introductory material also includes entries on the causes and consequences of the conflict between ISIS and the West. The book contains more than 100 reference entries on general and speTrade ReviewSteed's latest reference work on ISIS provides readers with as complete a view as reasonably possible. . . The work is a well-suited reference which provides a 360-degree view of ISIS. * Booklist *Recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals. * Choice *Table of ContentsList of Entries, List of Primary Documents, Preface, Introductory Essays, Overview of the War with ISIS (1999–2018), Causes of the War with ISIS, Consequences of the War with ISIS, A–Z Entries, Primary Source Documents, Chronology, Recommended Bibliography, List of Contributors, Index,

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Book SynopsisAndrew Dawson is Senior Lecturer in Religion at Lancaster University, UK.Trade ReviewThis work is important as there are very few academic or anthropological texts widely available in English on this subject. -- Rod Sazio * De Numine *Aimed at undergraduate students and researchers working in Religious Studies, Sociology of Religion, Anthropology, Cultural Studies and Latin American Studies, this work is important as there are very few academic or anthropological texts widely available in English on this subject. * De Numine *This book is important reading for anyone interested in religion in the contemporary world. * Religion and Society *Highly informative and enlightening ... A unique contribution to the discipline and an important example for fieldwork in religion. * Fieldwork in Religion *Impressive ... A book of exemplary research and keen insight ... [An] exceptional ethnographic case study ... [and a] systematic and nuanced portrait of religious change. * Journal of Religious History *A sophisticated treatment of an older new religion ... The book is a welcome contribution to the study of religion in the globalized and (post- or late-)modernized world. * Anthropology Review Database *Andrew Dawson is the acknowledged expert on Santo Daime. This book reveals both the depth of his insight and the significance of Santo Daime for the study of religion in late modernity. -- Grace Davie, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at University of Exeter, UKDawson’s book is a welcome contribution to the study of contemporary spirituality, a field traditionally dominated by research conducted in Western European and North American settings. Tracing Santo Daime on its journey from the Amazon to Brazil’s individualized and subjectivized urban middle class, he paints its transformation in bright ethnographic colors, delving deeply into the complex relationship between religion and modernity. -- Dick Houtman, Professor of Cultural Sociology at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, the NetherlandsAndrew Dawson provides us with a sophisticated and well –researched insight into the origins, nature, gradual transformation, and larger social significance of this fascinating and now global new religion from Brazil. One of the best case studies of a new religion ever published, this book gives us more than just an understanding of an exotic new way of being religious, it concretely explores the complexities of the relations between late-modern subjectivized selves and a neo-traditional and collective framework of religious practice. -- Lorne L. Dawson, Professor of Sociology at University of Waterloo, CanadaIn this absorbing volume, Andrew Dawson takes us on a trip from the Amazonian origins of Santo Daime to international middle-class professional circles, where lawyers and doctors indulge in the psychotropic ritual consumption of ayahuasca. Drawing on both detailed empirical data and a wide range of theoretical perspectives, Dawson illuminates the complex and dynamic interrelationships between collective belonging and the individualisation and subjectivization of contemporary religiosity, explaining how the world-rejecting aestheticism of Santo Daime combines with the this-worldly concerns of an apolitical counterculture. Provocative and instructive, this is a book to be recommended to anyone interested in the ever-increasing varieties of religious experience. -- Eileen Barker, Professor Emeritus of Sociology of Religion at London School of Economics, UKTable of ContentsIntroduction \ 1. Historical Origins and Contemporary Directions \ 2. The Daimista Ritual Repertoire: Disciplinary Regime and Dynamic Field of Force \ 3. New World - New Selves: Daimista Discourse as an Apolitics of Transformation \ 4. Ritual Reinvention: Shifting Profiles of Spirit-Oriented Practice \ 5. Santo Daime in Late-Modern Context \ Postscript \ Notes \ Bibliography \ Index

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Book SynopsisAbi Doukhan is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Queens College, CUNY, USA.Trade ReviewArguing against the received position that exile carries a negative connotation, Abigail Doukhan offers a re-reading of exile as a positive trope, one that also argues founds Levinas's philosophical project. Doukhan reads Levinas's philosophy as a philosophy of exile, one that bridges the gap between exile and ethics and thus offers new interpretive tools for thinking about societies in crisis as a result of the exile inside and outside the community. -- Claire Katz, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies at Texas A&M University, USATable of ContentsAcknowledgments \ Abbreviations \ Introduction: The Problem of Exile \ 1. A Life and Thought in Exile \ 2. An Ethics of Exile \ 3. Exile and the Political \ 4. The Exile of Love \ 5. Truth in Exile \ 6. A Metaphysics of Exile \ 7. An Aesthetics of Exile \ Conclusion: The Wisdom of Exile \ Notes \ Bibliography \ Index

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Book SynopsisAmanullah De Sondy is Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Miami, Florida, USA.Trade ReviewThe Crisis of Islamic Masculinities shows how any notion of Muslim or Islamic masculinity is always constructed against a number of “others” – women, the West and God … This is an important work for those interested in gender relations in Muslim societies. I only wish that my students could read English because this work would help them to explore a broader range of gender constructions without the (fully justifiable) fear of being labelled un-Islamic. -- Julia Droebner, An-Najah National University * Times Higher Education *This book might be of interest to scholars working on various areas including but not limited to gender, Islam, and feminism. In summary, it is a useful book for the library. -- Nazli Alimen, London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London * Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography *Ultimately, De Sondy does not aim to uncover one specific definition of true Islamic masculinity, but, rather, to explore the different ways in which Muslims have understood masculinity ... The Qur’anic chapter is particularly interesting, insofar as De Sondy feels that the Qur’an is inconclusive with respect to uncovering a single definition of masculinity, since many Qur’anic male figures – such as Adam, Jesus, Joseph, and the Prophet Muhammad – lived significantly different lives. -- Amina Inloes, The Islamic College, London * Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, 7.3 *The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities, provides a timely addition to the emergent field of masculinity studies ... De Sondy has produced an inclusive and pluralistic vision of Islamic masculinities that accommodates polar opposite exemplars such as Mawdudi and Mirza Ghalib, that argues that the diversity of Qur’anic masculine paradigms must themselves be taken as proof that Islam does not support a single model of masculinity, and which offers a cogent analysis of the multiple positions Muslim women feminists have adopted and the methods they have employed to remain “pro-faith” while debunking the hegemonic discourses of Islamic traditions ... A beautifully written ... and well documented study that should be read not only by those interested in gender in Islam but by anyone interested in gender and masculinity issues more broadly. -- Linda G. Jones, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain * Society for Contemporary Thought and the Islamicate World Review *De Sondy does a fine job in illuminating the role of a foundational text such as the Qur’an in shaping notions of masculinity while at the same time avoiding over-determining scripture’s role in this process. Equally, in order to avoid the pitfalls of generalizing about Muslim men worldwide, he focuses his analysis on case studies from the Indian subcontinent between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries … beautifully written … and well documented study that should be read not only by those interested in gender in Islam but by anyone interested in gender and masculinity issues more broadly. -- Linda G. Jones, Universitat Pompeu Fabra * SCTIW Review *This book opens the way to rethinking what it means to be a man in the Islamic tradition, showing the intricate ways in which constructions of femininity and masculinity are intertwined. It is a must-read for those wishing to understand the Islamists' obsession with sexuality, their rejection of gender equality, and their invocation of religious dogma as the basis for gender rights. -- Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Centre for Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, UK.De Sondy makes an original and rich contribution to the burgeoning literature on Islamic masculinities while engaging productively with Muslim feminist thought. -- Kecia Ali, Associate Professor of Religion, Boston University, USA.The study of Muslim masculinities is in its infancy, and The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities easily succeeds in laying a secure foundation for this highly significant but neglected field - a major step forward. -- Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Professor of History, University of Maryland, USA.Table of ContentsIntroduction 1.The Knot Mawdudi Tied 2. Feminists’ Nonothering Hermeneutics 3. The Failed Search for a Single Qur’anic Masculinity 4. Mirza Ghalib’s Hedonistic Challenge 5.Sufism’s Beloved Subversion Conclusion Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis collection of essays offers a new paradigm, in which the trans-Saharan and trans-Atlantic worlds of slavery are brought into focus under the same lens. While slave studies have considered either trans-Atlantic or Islamic slavery, rarely has any study combined the enslavement of Africans in America and the Lands of Islam in one volume. Both the Saharan and Atlantic worlds imported enslaved populations from western and central Sudan, but in general the two markets have been treated in isolation and without reference to the common bond of Islam and the multiple roles that Islam has played in the history of slavery, whether in West Africa itself, the Americas, or the Islamic Mediterranean. Western Africa served as the point of dispersion across desert and sea, but it was also the final destination of many of those who were enslaved but who were not transported across the Atlantic or the Sahara. The relationship between Islam and slavery is explored as a series of frontiers: in the Americas between enslaved Muslims and their Christian masters and the types of resistance and accommodation that arose there; in West Africa between Muslim and non-Muslim societies and the attempts at defining who was a Muslim in terms of issues of enslavement; in North Africa between Muslim masters and the enslaved population from West Africa and the popularity of spirit possession cults. The resistance of Muslims to assimilation and the accommodation of Muslims to bondage also created other frontiers that are explored in this book.

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Book SynopsisThe phrase ""I am Catholic, but I am Jewish"" may seem contradictory to some, but in the Caribbean islands and the countries of the Caribbean periphery, there are hundreds if not thousands of individuals who identify themselves in this manner and can trace their ancestry back to the early Sephardim of the Dutch island of Curacao.The nineteenth century was a time of great political and economic upheaval in the Caribbean, precipitating waves of migration away from stagnant economies, revolutions, and religious persecution. ""The Sephardic Jews of Curacao"" were active participants in this changing environment. They left the recessionary economy of the Dutch island in search of better opportunities in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands; Coro, Venezuela; Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic; Barranquilla, Colombia; and many other Caribbean ports.Here, the Lopez Penhas, De Marchenas, Delvalles, Capriles, Sassos, Seniors, Curiels, Salas, and Alvarez Correas involved themselves in all aspects of their new abodes. They were retailers, traders, politicians, poets, industrial entrepreneurs, doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, each contributing in their own way to the economic and cultural growth of the countries that became their homes. Over time, they and their descendants fully assimilated into their host communities. Yet, throughout the centuries, the generations that came after them continued to remember their Sephardic, Curacaoan heritage. This book tells their stories.

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