Worship, rites, ceremonies and rituals Books

Book SynopsisThe ritual culture of image-worshipping Sventambar Jains of the western Indian states of Gujarat and Rajasthan are explored in this volume, with the author linking Jain tradition to the social identity of existing Jain communities.

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Book SynopsisAnalyzes the debate on sati, or widow burning, in colonial India. This book argues that the women who were burned were marginal to the debate and that the controversy was over definitions of Hindu tradition, the place of ritual in religious worship, the civilizing missions of colonialism and evangelism, and the proper role of the colonial state.Table of ContentsLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS INTRODUCTION 1 Equivocations in the Name of Tradition: The Official Debate on Widow Burning 2 Abstract Disquisitions: Bhadralok and the Normative Violence of Sati 3 Missionaries and Subalterns: Belaboring Tradition in the Marketplace 4 Traveling Texts: The Consolidation of Missionary Discourse on India 5 The Female Subject, the Colonial Gaze: Eyewitness Accounts of Sati AFTERWORD NOTES GLOSSARY BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

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Book SynopsisYearly thousands of men and women from more than 60 countries journey by foot and bicycle across northern Spain. Their destination is Santiago de Compostela, where the remains of the apostle James are said to be buried. This book deals with these modern-day pilgrims and the role of the pilgrimage in their lives.

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Book SynopsisThis book describes the ritual world of a group of rural settlements in Shanxi province in pre-1949 North China. The great festivals were their supreme collective achievements, carried out virtually without aid from local officials or educated elites. Newly discovered manuscripts allow Johnson to reconstruct the festivals in unprecedented detail.Trade ReviewMainstream culture has traditionally ignored ordinary Chinese farmers, viewing them as simple, ignorant, and incapable of performing complex cultural activities. The rural festivals displayed by Johnson, however, illustrate a totally contrary picture. The rituals and operas of the temple festivals reveal the rich spiritual and religious activities and achievements of local communities, and the villagers' performances demonstrate their dazzling artistic capability and creativity. Supported by plentiful oral and written materials, Johnson utilizes this long-ignored local knowledge to discover and reveal the scope, depth, variations, and complexity of the local reality. This classic anthropological study of local communities should be a precious addition to the study of traditional Chinese society. -- A. Y. Lee * Choice *

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Book SynopsisAfter the Bible, the Passover haggadah is the most widely read classic Jewish text. Few editions are as exquisite as the Washington Haggadah in the Library of Congress. A stunning facsimile edition, meticulously reproduced in full color, brings this illuminated fifteenth-century manuscript to life for a new generation of readers.Trade ReviewBelknap Press of Harvard University Press has published an absolutely gorgeous volume, complete with a facsimile edition (in full color!) of The Washington Haggadah...Anyone who comes to the seder with The Washington Haggadah will easily win "most beautiful haggadah of the seder" award, and it'll make an absolutely delightful bar/bat mitzvah present. -- Menachem Butler * The Michtavim blog *If you're interested in deepening your Seder with a visual testimony of the ritual's antiquity, [The Washington Haggadah] can be a beautiful addition to your table. -- Jay Michaelson * Forward *The work is illuminating in more ways than one, and includes a color facsimile of the original 38 pages, as well as a description and explanation of each of the 11 illustrations. This academic review leaves one excited about medieval manuscripts, and wanting to delve into additional works created by ben Simeon. -- Mark Rebacz * In Jerusalem *No run-of-the-mill haggadah is quite as effective at making the past present as The Washington Haggadah. This beautifully produced book is a detailed facsimile of a 500-year-old haggadah in the collection of the Library of Congress, which explains the name...[Joel ben Simeon] is described by David Stern, in the introduction to this edition, as one of the most important and prolific scribes and illustrators in the history of the Jewish book...More powerful still, however, are the illustrations that Joel ben Simeon added to the margins of the text (usefully, The Washington Haggadah includes a descriptive catalog of all these illustrations)...The publishers have reproduced the manuscript so accurately that you can see wine and food spots on several pages, as well as places where the ink has smeared after being touched with a wet hand...From the Exodus to the Rabbis to 1478 to 1879 to 2011--in these pages, if anywhere, the past is present and the present past. -- Adam Kirsch * Tablet Magazine *The illustrations of contemporary Jewish life in the margins of the text draw one back into a lost world, shifting between medieval and modern. Even after all these years, the text is remarkably readable...David Stern provides a concise and enlightening introduction to the development of the Haggadah and ben Simeon's work, while Katrin Kogman-Appel reveals a sharp-eyed attention to detail in her examination of the Washington Haggadah itself and its place in the context of the artistic development revealed in other Haggadah manuscripts of the time. -- Ralph Amelan * Jerusalem Report *Belknap Press [is] to be complimented on bringing out a reasonably priced, attractively presented and scholarly facsimile of one of the treasures of the art of the illuminated Hebrew manuscript in its golden period. -- Yerachmiel Rubin * Jewish Tribune *This facsimile edition of one of Joel's best preserved manuscripts opens many doors on the Jewish world of the late Middle Ages...The pleasure in this facsimile lies in its delightful illustrations and innovative calligraphy, graced with Joel's unique decorative touches, and the wine stains and notes left by its various owners, indicating that the haggadah was actually used. In turning the pages of Joel's haggadah at leisure, readers may well imagine its use for over four centuries. * Jewish Book World *

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Book SynopsisPalaces of Time resurrects the seemingly banal calendar as a means to understand early modern Jewish life. Elisheva Carlebach has unearthed a trove of beautifully illustrated calendars, to show how Jewish men and women both adapted to the Christian world and also forged their own meanings through time.Trade ReviewA remarkable and pioneering study of the Jewish calendar and its significance. Brilliantly researched, gracefully written, and timely -- in every sense of the word. -- Jonathan D. Sarna, author of American Judaism: A HistoryIn a brilliant tour de force, Carlebach presents a masterful and penetrating analysis of the Jewish calendar as literature and material object, and as a dynamic, complex expression of cultural values, religious competition, social discipline, and personal meaning. -- Lois Dubin, author of The Port Jews of Habsburg TriesteFocusing on the measure and meaning of time, Elisheva Carlebach has produced a work of enormous importance for all those interested in the convergence of humanistic and scientific knowledge. -- Jay Berkovitz, author of Rites and Passages: The Beginnings of Modern Jewish Culture in France, 1650-1860This study of fascinating, richly illustrated manuscripts and early printed books opens up new horizons in the history not only of the Jewish calendar but also of the Hebrew book, Jewish daily life, personal piety, and the engagement of early modern Jews with surrounding Christianity. -- Sacha Stern, author of Calendar and Community: A History of the Jewish Calendar, 2nd Century BCE to 10th Century CECarlebach takes a narrow subject--sifrei evronot (European Jewish calendars/almanacs) of the 15th to 18th centuries--and mines it for its considerable riches. She demonstrates how these works reflected both Jews' values and beliefs and their interaction with the external Christian society...Carlebach is also particularly good at delving into Jewish folk beliefs as found in the calendars. She is equally illuminating on the calendars' iconography, illustrated by a 1716 calendar that shows the biblical Jepththah's daughter as a teenage European aristocrat...This well-organized and extensively researched book is a magnificent piece of scholarship and a pleasure to read, demonstrating the calendars' importance "as mirrors and agents of change,...indexes of acculturation, and...matchless reflections of the Jewish experience." * Publishers Weekly (starred review) *If you've ever wondered about the Jewish year and its history, Elisheva Carlebach's marvelous new book, Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe, has much to offer you. A preeminent specialist on the Jews of early modern Germany, Carlebach concentrates on what became of the calendar in the early modern period. In the 16th century and after, technical literature about time, which had once been treated as an esoteric knowledge reserved for an elite, became widely available to Jews for the first time, and Carlebach traces this process in detail. But as she reaches back to explain the distant origins of early modern debates and practices and sets the calendars into their larger contexts, Palaces of Time provides even more than it promises: a fascinating and provocative introduction, full of surprises, to the Jewish experience of time. Richly documented and sumptuously illustrated, the book tells a sinuous and sometimes wild story, one in which books of many kinds, in all their grubby materiality, play central roles...The book is exemplary. Palaces of Time is cultural history at its finest: a minutely observant, vivid, and passionately enthusiastic guide book to a world of experience that we--or at least most of us--have lost. -- Anthony Grafton * Tablet Magazine *Palaces of Time: Jewish Calendar and Culture in Early Modern Europe, shows that Jews developed some of the most important theories and discovered some of the most fundamental mathematical underpinnings of early calendar setting. -- Menachem Wecker * Jewish Press *Calendars are the kind of object that are usually taken for granted, that are almost invisible to our everyday glance; therefore they are a perfect subject of analysis for cultural history. Very little good cultural history has been produced about Jewish subjects, and Elisheva Carlebach's book sets a very high standard for the field. Tackling a subject that is ubiquitous but also obscure, Carlebach looks at the topic of Jewish calendars from a number of perspectives. The actual calendrical aspects of the Jewish calendar, the references to non-Jewish dates that were incorporated into many calendars, the startling artistic traditions that are found in many early modern Jewish calendars--each subject is analyzed on its own, and placed in a diachronic and synchronic historical context, explaining how it developed from internal Jewish traditions while incorporating and responding to outside occurrences. Highlights include handwritten calendars from colonial America, symbolic pictures of elephants and bare-bottomed men, informative curses of Christian saints and statistics of fair attendance in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Despite the ostensibly obscure subject matter, Palaces of Time is as far from arcane as can be, written in language that is enjoyable and accessible. The numerous color photographs of Jewish calendars make the volume even more enjoyable and easier to follow. -- Pinchas Roth * Jewish Book Council *This meticulous study of manuscripts and printed books deals with Jewish ways of keeping time, especially during the 16th to l8th centuries in Western and Central Europe. -- R.S. Kohn * Choice *[An] admirable book, beautifully produced and brimming with fascinating pictures and extraordinary facts...[Carlebach] weaves a thoroughly-researched tale of adventures and frequent mishaps in cross-cultural negotiation between Jewish communities and their host societies over several centuries; dealing also with ideological battles, where Christian polemicists attacked Judaism through calendar issues. Anti-Semitic coercion even extended to calendar censorship which could prohibit publicizing rival foreign trade fairs and the sometimes amusing if not plain derogatory nicknames given to gentile festive days. The ubiquitous pocket luach, now so often replaced by an electronic version or a glance at the inside cover of a newspaper for notification of upcoming times and dates, is also dealt with in fascinating detail, its humble transience marked by tribulation and the acute survival instinct of our people under Nazi occupation in Tunisia in 1940 in Judaeo-Arabic and French, or secretly printed in Soviet-ruled Vilna. The book deals with much else of interest, giving a unique view and one of visual delight, ranging from weird and wonderful manuscript illustrations to a table with appropriately depicted "Zodiac man" giving propitious dates for bloodletting from a calendar published in Sulzbach as late as 1789. A worthy contribution to an under-researched subject presented with brio and elegant erudition, certainly one of the most important works of its kind to appear in recent years. -- Yerachmiel Rubin * Jewish Tribune *

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Book SynopsisIn the Leipzig Mahzor, one of the most lavish Hebrew illuminated manuscripts of all time, Kogman-Appel has discovered a fascinating portal into the life of the fourteenth century Jewish community in Worms. A prayer book used only during holidays, it brings to life the religious culture and customs of medieval Ashkenazi Jews.Trade ReviewKatrin Kogman-Appel has established herself as perhaps the foremost expositor of medieval illuminated Hebrew manuscripts today. Her treatment of the Leipzig Mahzor demonstrates once again that she is a scholar of formidable erudition who peels away the layers of these magnificent manuscripts to reveal the rich complexity of medieval society and the important role that visual culture plays in it. -- Adam S. Cohen, University of TorontoAn authoritative study of a stunning manuscript, Katrin Kogman-Appel’s A Mahzor from Worms illuminates one of the great masterpieces of medieval Hebrew book painting. With great learning and historical imagination, Kogman-Appel unravels the Mahzor’s intricate integration of ritual and pietistic practice in Worms, one of the great centers of medieval Ashkenazi culture. -- Jeffrey Hamburger, Harvard UniversityA Mahzor from Worms offers a notably learned and thoughtful examination of a fascinating manuscript that has received surprisingly little scholarly attention. Conceptually sophisticated and thoroughly interdisciplinary, it convincingly reads the Mahzor as a kind of self-portrait created by and for the Worms Jewish community. The sensitive analysis reveals a still vibrant but increasingly pressured community struggling to honor sometimes-conflicting traditions and reconcile a proud heritage with contemporary needs. It is a significant contribution to cultural history as well as art history and Judaic Studies. -- Sara Lipton, State University of New York at Stony BrookIn this meticulously researched book, Kogman-Appel casts new light on the religious concepts, ideas, rituals, and values in 14th-century Worms and in Ashkenaz in general. Her work provides us with historical insights about one of the important Jewish communities of medieval Europe about which we still know too little. We learn how the Jews of Worms ‘saw’ the Mahzor, how they saw themselves, and how they perceived their community in a time of decline. -- Shmuel Shepkaru, University of Oklahoma

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Book SynopsisHow has Confucius, quintessentially and symbolically Chinese, been received throughout Japanese history? The Worship of Confucius in Japan provides the first overview of the richly documented and colorful Japanese version of the East Asian ritual to venerate Confucius, known in Japan as the sekiten.Trade ReviewA major contribution to understandings of Japanese political and cultural history as mediated by ritual and forms of apparent religiosity related to Confucius and company…Future sekiten studies will certainly have strong shoulders on which to stand. -- John A. Tucker * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *Scholars of Japanese history have been looking forward to James McMullen’s book on the worship of Confucius in Japan for a long time…By far the most comprehensive study of sekiten in Japan in any language. It is a must-read for teachers and students of Japan-China studies, Japanese Confucianism, and Sinosphere studies…This is a great work. -- Benjamin Wai-ming Ng * Journal of Japanese Studies *Rigorously researched and enriched by a useful set of appendixes, this volume is an indispensable tool for a better understanding of Confucianism in Japanese cultural history and its enduring influence in the present despite the lack of institutional developments. It is warmly recommended to established specialists and students of East Asian religions. -- Ugo Dessì * Religious Studies Review *

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Book SynopsisThe British Empire governed more than half the world’s Muslims. John Slight traces the empire’s complex interactions with the Hajj—the annual pilgrimage to Mecca—from the 1860s, when an outbreak of cholera led Britain to engage reluctantly in medical regulation of pilgrims, to the Suez Crisis of 1956. He gives voice to pilgrims and officials alike.Trade ReviewThis is an excellent book… It will be indispensable for anyone interested in the Hajj. -- William Roger Louis * Times Literary Supplement *[Slight] explores this important but largely neglected history of Hajj and does so by tracing British involvement with the regulation and performance of this Islamic ritual from early 1860s until the Suez Crisis of 1956… Based on a combination of archival and secondary sources, this is an unusually informative, meticulously researched and highly readable book… This book will prove to be a useful source of reference on the subject for future researchers and writers alike. -- Muhammad Khan * Muslim News *Impressively lucid, this is a ‘must-buy’ addition for anyone interested in the Hajj and Western involvement in it. -- John Darwin, University of OxfordThe ambit of this book is formidable. The British were almost everywhere, globally, between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, and this book tells of their activities vis-à-vis the Hajj. Slight has done a wonderful job of making a huge subject transparent and understandable. -- Eric Tagliacozzo, Cornell UniversityThis is a wildly ambitious book, covering a mind-bogglingly complex array of geographies and periods, requiring deep familiarity with African, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Southeast Asian histories. Slight balances all of this with tremendous ease and an engaging style. He is among the very few scholars with the skill set needed to speak to scholars of the British Empire, the Islamic world, and global history with virtually equal authority. The result is the most wide-ranging and significant book on the colonial-era hajj to date. -- Michael Christopher Low * Journal of British Studies *This is a fascinating book, and particularly timely for those who ponder the nature of the West’s relationship with the Muslim world…This is a valuable, intellectually robust but still highly accessible work that does much to elevate our understanding of a truly significant phenomenon within the history of the British Empire. More importantly, Slight has done much to clarify our understanding and recognition of the inherently Islamic nature of that empire in significant respects. -- Christian Tripodi * American Historical Review *

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Book SynopsisKorean Buddhists, despite living under colonial rule, reconfigured sacred objects, festivals, urban temples, propagation—and even their own identities—to modernize and elevate Korean Buddhism. By focusing on six case studies, this book highlights the centrality of transnational relationships in the transformation of colonial Korean Buddhism.

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"[A] fascinating, short history of the Haggadah."---Simon Rocker, Jewish Chronicle"For any­one inter­est­ed in the emer­gence and com­plex evo­lu­tion of the Hag­gadah, this biog­ra­phy offers a trove of infor­ma­tion in engag­ing and invit­ing language." * Jewish Book Council *

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Book SynopsisThe northern Chinese mountain range of Mount Wutai has been a preeminent site of international pilgrimage for over a millennium. Home to more than one hundred temples, the entire range is considered a Buddhist paradise on earth, and has received visitors ranging from emperors to monastic and lay devotees. Mount Wutai explores how Qing Buddhist ruleTrade Review"Honorable Mention for the Joseph Levenson Pre-1900 Book Prize, Association for Asian Studies""Chou’s study, like the many examples of maps, gazetteers, paintings, murals, sculptures, and temples discussed in her work, continues to shape, guide, and construct our visions of Mount Wutai."---William J. Ma, Religion and the Arts"richly detailed and beautifully illustrated. . . . a major contribution to the growing corpus of studies on Wutai shan."---Natalie Köhle, Journal of Chinese Religions

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Book SynopsisIn this in-depth exploration of the symbols found in Navaho legend and ritual, Gladys Reichard discusses the attitude of the tribe members toward their place in the universe, their obligation toward humankind and their gods, and their conception of the supernatural, as well as how the Navaho achieve a harmony within their world through symbolic cerTrade Review"This book has been a classic in its field since it was first issued in 1950, and it still stands as uniquely authoritative and intriguingly instructive... [It is] a monument of revelation and insight bridging anthropology, religion, sociology, and history."--Publishers WeeklyTable of Contents*FrontMatter, pg. i*CONTENTS, pg. vii*CHARTS, pg. xi*FIGURES, pg. xiii*Foreword to the Second Edition, pg. xv*Preface, pg. xxvii*Note on the Navaho Language, pg. xxxi*Introduction, pg. xxxiii*Chapter 1. Navaho categories, pg. 3*Chapter 2. World view, pg. 13*Chapter 3. The nature of man, pg. 26*Chapter 4. Pantheon: characteristics of supernaturals, pg. 50*Chapter 5. Pantheon: types of supernaturals, pg. 63*Chapter 6. Theory of disease, pg. 80*Chapter 7. Theory of curing, pg. 104*Chapter 8. Ethics, pg. 123*Chapter 9. The nature of symbolism, pg. 147*Chapter 10. Sex, dominance, and size, pg. 171*Chapter 11. Alternation, reversal, and negation, pg. 180*Chapter 12. Color and precious stones, pg. 187*Chapter 13. Color combinations, pg. 214*Chapter 14. Number, pg. 241*Chapter 15. Perceptual symbols, pg. 250*Chapter 16. Word, formula, and myth, pg. 267*Chapter 17. Song, pg. 279*Chapter 18. Prayersticks, pg. 301*Chapter 19. Classification of ceremonies, pg. 314*Chapter 20. Organization of ritual, pg. 338*Notes, pg. 355*A. Supernatural beings, pg. 381*B. Ritualistic ideas, pg. 506*C. Rites, pg. 614*List of concordance topics, pg. 749*Abbreviations, pg. 756*Bibliography, pg. 759*Index, pg. 775*Biographical Note, pg. 817

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Book SynopsisPublished just in time for Passover 5779, this Haggadah from the Jewdas collective is a satirical, political and downright hilarious take on a Jewish tradition. With a multitude of dangerous ideas such as workers’ rights, liberation of the oppressed and the dismantling of nation-states, this Haggadah is for every left-wing Jewish household.Trade Review`I learnt a lot ... a lovely time' -- Jeremy Corbyn, on the 2018 Jewdas seder `They raised a beetroot in the air and shouted f*** capitalism!' -- Daily Mail, on the 2018 Jewdas seder

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Book SynopsisThis guide to fasting for renewal answers practical questions: what to eat, how to pray effectively, how to encounter God, how to worship through self-discipline. Includes Daniel Fast recipes from executive chef John P. Perkins.

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Book SynopsisRooted in historical models and patristic church studies, Ancient-Future Worship examines how early Christian worship models can be applied to the postmodern church.

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Book SynopsisPastor and bestselling author Kyle Idleman helps readers prepare their hearts for Easter by showing how the seven sayings of Jesus from the cross reveal the power of God's grace.

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Book SynopsisMany books discuss the theology and doctrine of the medieval liturgy: there is no dearth of information on the history of the liturgy, the structure and development of individual services, and there is much discussion of specific texts, chants, and services. No book, at least in English, has struggled with the difficulties of finding texts, chants, or other material in the liturgical manuscripts themselves, until the publication of Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office in 1982.Encompassing a period of several centuries, ca 1200-1500, this book provides solutions for such endeavours. Although by this period the basic order and content of liturgical books were more or less standardized, there existed hundreds of different methods of dealing with the internal organisation and the actual writing of the texts and chants on the page. Generalization becomes problematic; the use of any single source as a typical example for more than local detail is impossible. Taking for

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Book SynopsisThis volume of nine essays draws together leading scholars in anthropology, social history, musicology, and ethnomusicology to address the roles and functions of music in the Chinese ritual context.Table of ContentsIntroduction Bell Yung, Evelyn S. Rawski, Rubie S. Watson 1. The nature of Chinese ritual sound Bell Yung Part I. Behind the Scenes: Creating Legitimacy: 2. Ritual and musical politics in the court of Ming Shizong Joseph S. C. Lam 3. State sacrificial music and Korean identity Robert C. Provine 4. Musical assertion of status among the Naxi of Lijiang County, Yunnan Helen Rees Part II. Musical Transformations: Rites of Passage: 5. Chinese bridal laments: the claims of a dutiful daughter Rubie S. Watson 6. Processional music in traditional Taiwanese funerals Ping-Hui Li 7. The creation of an Emperor in eighteenth-century China Evelyn S. Rawski 8. Sing to the spirits of the dead: a Daoist ritual of salvation Judith Magee Boltz 9. Ritual opera and the bonds of authority: transformation and transcendence Ellen R. Judd Notes Index.

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Book SynopsisIn eighth- and ninth-century Byzantium there arose a heated controversy over religious art, known as the "Iconoclastic Controversy." Analyzing hundreds of pages of art-texts, laws, letters, and poems, this book examines the wider context of the debate by providing the first comprehensive study of the Western response to Byzantine iconoclasm.Trade Review"[An] immensely scholarly and interesting book on the Carolingian response to the drama of iconoclasm in Byzantium." * TLS *"A magisterial reexamination of a period in which long-lived ideas about the power and limitations of Christian images were first articulated in the medieval West. . . . The book skillfully explores Carolingian discourses about images in relation to Byzantine and papal positions in the eighth and ninth centuries." * Journal of Church History *"Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians presents a rich detailed history of the written debate over religious imagery in the early Middle Ages, with a particular focus on the West, while deemphasizing the violence, destruction, and change so often included by historians in discussions of iconoclasm." * Journal of Religion *"This learned, incisive and readable book has made an important contribution to the study of early medieval art, and more particularly of a whole religious culture." * Early Medieval Europe *"A deeply impressive, powerfully argued, and extraordinarily interesting book. Noble establishes the centrality of the Carolingian period and its writers to the development of ideas about sacred art. He offers a new interpretation of the understanding of images in both the western and eastern empires in the early Middle Ages." * Rosamond McKitterick, University of Cambridge *"Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians is remarkably scholarly, surveying secondary literature in both Byzantine East and Latin West, and in many different disciplines, including theology and art history as well as history. It is a splendid book. It will be a standard reference for many years to come." * Lawrence Nees, University of Delaware *Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: Art, Icons, and Their Critics and Defenders Before the Age of Iconoclasm Chapter Two: Byzantine Iconoclasm in the Eighth Century Chapter Three: Art and Art Talk in the West in the First Age of Iconoclasm Chapter Four: The Franks and Nicaea: Opus Caroli Regis Chapter Five: Tradition, Order, and Worship in the Age of Charlemagne Chapter Six: The Age of Second Iconoclasm Chapter Seven: Art and Argument in the Age of Louis the Pious Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisWith steady erudition and not infrequent irreverence, Stephanie Trigg ranges from medieval romance to Victorian caricature, from imperial politics to medievalism in contemporary culture, to write a strikingly original cultural history of the Order of the Garter.Trade Review"Trigg's combination of chronological and thematic approaches results in a dynamic study. Rather than a merely biographical or celebratory work, this history of a medieval chivalric order offers a history of medievalism itself, which ingeniously reveals how the slipperiness of the Order's motto allows it to function as a touchstone for each epoch's world view. The motto recalls a moment whose meaning was transformed by a king's words, but the words themselves would take on new and varied meanings in the centuries to come. And like the Order's motto, Stephanie Trigg's book urges us to be aware of what our attitudes towards medieval alterity reveal about ourselves." * Times Literary Supplement *"Because of its theoretical expansiveness, Trigg's invaluable contribution to the history of the Garter should prove of interest to scholars with a wide range of interests, and demonstrates that the still-developing fields of ritual criticism and medievalism studies have much to offer one another." * Comitatus *Table of ContentsIntroduction PART I. RITUAL HISTORIES Chapter 1. Ritual Theory and Medievalism Chapter 2. Origins: Motto, Emblem, and Myth Chapter 3. Histories: Love, Honor, and Medievalism PART II. RITUAL PRACTICES Chapter 4. Honor, Shame, and Degradation Chapter 5. Ritual, Change, and Tradition Chapter 6. Bodies, Clothes, and Medievalism PART III. RITUAL MODERNITIES Chapter 7. Royalty and Medievalism, Medieval to Postmodern Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index Acknowledgments

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Book SynopsisTrade Review"Liturgical Subjects is a pioneering examination of the medieval religious subject that adds texture and nuance to studies that, so far, have tended to emphasize only the Western Christian tradition. . . . Krueger's is the first study to examine how Orthodox liturgy functioned as a mechanism for the formation of the Byzantine Christian's perception of self." * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *"Liturgical Subjects marks another important step in Krueger's enduring progress as a religious historian . . . The breadth is impressive, the juxtaposition of sacred text and ritual custom is significantly novel, the sensitive reading of hymns and prayers is a constant invitation to explore, and the easy style is a sustained pleasure." * Reading Religion *"A thrilling tour of Byzantine culture through wholly unexpected routes. With beautifully crafted prose, Krueger presents a trajectory lucidly drawn, filled with arresting insight and searing, poignant imagery; yet the account is concrete and concise, moving deftly through its chapters with impressive economy and formidable command of a wide array of textual and material evidence." * Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Brown University *

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a huge range and FREE tracked UK delivery on ALL orders.

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe contributors demonstrate a high degree of expertise about their subject matter in well-written, theologically nuanced essays that include generous footnotes containing additional commentary ... It would serve as a valuable introductory text and research resource for seminarians and other graduate students who may be interested in learning from an ecumenical array of scholars about the history of theologies of the sacraments in general. -- Anglican Theological ReviewBehold: an instant classic compendium and textbook on the Christian sacraments. Justin Holcomb and David Johnson have created a coup with this beautifully organized, edited, and accessible time-line of essays on the historic disagreements concerning the means of grace, from the earliest days of the Church to the political theologies of today. -- Rev. Dr. Paul F.M. Zahl,Author of Grace in PracticeBrings in many disparate and oftentimes unattended to voices so as to show how central the sacraments have been to the message and growth of the Christian people. It is a work to be welcomed by any student of theology interested in the richness and the diversity of ritual as well as the need to recover the link between worship and sanctity. -- Fr. David Meconi, SJ,Saint Louis UniversityExquisitely written. Brings accessible and powerful insight into the history of sacramental understanding. It should become a new standard text for any graduate or undergraduate students seeking to gain proficiency or acumen in the world of sacramental theology. -- Rev. Henry L Thompson,Dean and President, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewThe contributors demonstrate a high degree of expertise about their subject matter in well-written, theologically nuanced essays that include generous footnotes containing additional commentary ... It would serve as a valuable introductory text and research resource for seminarians and other graduate students who may be interested in learning from an ecumenical array of scholars about the history of theologies of the sacraments in general. -- Anglican Theological ReviewBehold: an instant classic compendium and textbook on the Christian sacraments. Justin Holcomb and David Johnson have created a coup with this beautifully organized, edited, and accessible time-line of essays on the historic disagreements concerning the means of grace, from the earliest days of the Church to the political theologies of today. -- Rev. Dr. Paul F.M. Zahl,Author of Grace in PracticeBrings in many disparate and oftentimes unattended to voices so as to show how central the sacraments have been to the message and growth of the Christian people. It is a work to be welcomed by any student of theology interested in the richness and the diversity of ritual as well as the need to recover the link between worship and sanctity. -- Fr. David Meconi, SJ,Saint Louis UniversityExquisitely written. Brings accessible and powerful insight into the history of sacramental understanding. It should become a new standard text for any graduate or undergraduate students seeking to gain proficiency or acumen in the world of sacramental theology. -- Rev. Henry L Thompson,Dean and President, Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry

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Book SynopsisPresents an ethnography of seven Gullah/Geechee women from the South Carolina lowcountry. This book emphasizes that this communication affirms the women's spiritual faith - which seamlessly integrates Christian and folk traditions - and reinforces their position as powerful culture keepers within Gullah/Geechee society.Trade Review"Talking to the Dead is an incredibly rich study, which will reward both a general readership and readers from a range of disciplinary backgrounds." -- Teresa Zackodnik * Feminist Review *"LeRhonda Manigault-Bryant’s Talking to the Dead is well suited for the novice who is unaware of any of the traditions and religious practices of the Gullah/Geechee.... Because of its emphasis on black women, the ethnography also has much to offer to the black feminist or black womanist scholar, especially one with an interest in African Diasporic culture or African derivative belief systems." -- Constance Bailey * Western Folklore *"While talking to the dead, as well as other less ‘flashy’ Gullah/Geechee practices risk being lost in application, Manigault-Bryant and other third generation scholars have ensured they will not be completely erased through an increasingly sophisticated historiography accounting for the diverse perspectives of African American women in the South Carolina lowcountry." -- Douglas R. Valentine * Religion *"This masterful interweaving of these personal narratives of Gullah/Geechee women with the spiritual practice of talking to the dead, particularly in light of the present-day commodification of Gullah/Geechee culture (offered in the terminating chapter) in South Carolina, is the overall strength of this work.... This book, then, is a must read for advanced students and scholars in these areas of study." -- Margarita Simon Guillory * Religious Studies Review *"...Talking to the Dead is a welcome addition to scholarship on the Gullah/Geechee culture and African American religious practices in general....Most importantly, Talking to the Dead not only lays the groundwork for further investigation into the gender dymanics of longstanding Gullah-Geechee religiosity, but also underscores the fact that no study of African American religion can be complete without a thorough investigation of women as believers, practitioners, and cultural leaders." -- Shannen Dee Williams * Journal of African American History *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Prologue. Talking to the Dead xiii Introduction. Gullah/Geechee Women 1 1. Culture Keepers 24 2. Folk Religion 66 3. "Ah Tulk to de Dead All de Time" 104 4. "Sendin' Up My Timbah" 136 5. Lived Memory 172 Epilogue. Between the Living and the Dead 205 Appendix A. Companion Audio Materials 211 Appendix B. Interview Format and Demographics 213 Notes 217 Select Bibliography 251 Index 267

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Book SynopsisTrade Review“This excellent book makes a significant contribution to religion and kinship, gender, sexuality, and South Asian studies…. Highly recommended.” -- D. A. Chekki * Choice *“This is a beautifully written and theoretically engaged ethnography about a community whose past has been fraught and whose future lies in the balance. It would be appropriate reading for upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses and makes an important contribution to the anthropology of gender, sexuality, kinship, religion, and modernity in India.” -- Cecilia Van Hollen * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *"We must dwell with, as Given to the Goddess gracefully does, the everyday experiences of devotion, exchange, and one’s social relationship to another—human, nonhuman, or even goddess—that make us, quite simply, kin." -- Durba Mitra * GLQ *"Ramberg’s work exemplifies an extraordinary synthesis of animated empiricism and theoretical rigor. It is heartening to mark the arrival of this very important work that signals a critical departure in several ways." -- Priyadarshini Vijaisri * Anthropos *Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Gods, Gifts, Trouble 1 Part I. Gods 1. Yellamma and Her Sisters: Kinship among Goddesses and Others 39 2. Yellamma, Her Wives, and the Question of Religion 71 Part II. Gifts 3. Tantra, Shakta, Yellamma 113 4. The Giving of Daughters: Sexual Economy, Sexual Agency, and the "Traffic" in Women 142 Part III. Trouble 5. Kinship Trouble 181 6. Troubling Kinship 213 Notes 223 Glossary 247 Bibliography 251 Index 270

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Book SynopsisMeditation has flourished in different parts of the world ever since the foundations of the great civilizations were laid. It played a vital role in the formation of Asian cultures that trace much of their heritage to ancient India and China. This volume brings together for the first time studies of the major traditions of Asian meditation as well as material on scientific approaches to meditation. It delves deeply into the individual traditions while viewing each of them from a global perspective, examining both historical and generic connections between meditative practices from numerous historical periods and different parts of the Eurasian continent. It seeks to identify the cultural and historical peculiarities of Asian schools of meditation while recognizing basic features of meditative practice across cultures, thereby taking the first step toward a framework for the comparative study of meditation. The book, accessibly written by scholars from several fields, opens with chapt

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Book SynopsisBack by popular demand, the classic JPS Holiday anthologies remain essential and relevant in our digital age. The Sabbath Anthology delves into one of the earliest Jewish institutions - the holiday the prophet Isaiah characterized as ""the day of delight"" - elucidating its history, laws, customs and traditions, religious and ethical insights, and observances in different eras.Trade Review“Throughout my long career as a rabbi, the JPS holiday anthologies have been an essential resource. All the core background is in one place. If I need a holiday story, the anthologies contain a wide range of choices. And sections on celebrations worldwide provide new approaches to festivals.”—Rabbi Steven Bob, author of Jonah and the Meaning of Our Lives “This reissue is good news! I read this rich, varied, and classic series with pleasure and collected the volumes avidly when they first appeared.”—Rabbi Reuven Hammer, author of Akiva: Life, Legend, LegacyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note from the Publisher Preface Acknowledgments BOOK I: THE SABBATH IN PRACTICE THE TRADITIONAL SABBATH THE SABBATH IN THE HOME HOME SERVICE FOR THE SABBATH THE SABBATH HOUR FOR CHILDREN THE SABBATH IN THE SYNAGOGUE THE ‘ONEG SHABBAT THE LAW OF THE SABBATH SABBATH SPICE BOOK II: THE SABBATH IN LITERATURE, ART AND MUSIC THE SABBATH IN THE BIBLE THE SABBATH IN JUDAEO-HELLENISTIC LITERATURE THE SABBATH IN THE TALMUD AND THE MIDRASH THE SABBATH IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH LITERATURE THE SABBATH IN MODERN JEWISH LITERATURE THE SABBATH IN THE SHORT STORY THE SABBATH IN JEWISH POETRY THE SABBATH IN MUSIC THE SABBATH IN ART BOOK III: THE SABBATH IN HISTORY THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE SABBATH THE STRUGGLE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE SABBATH THE JEWISH SABBATH AND THE CHRISTIAN SUNDAY SABBATH OBSERVANCE IN THE FAR-FLUNG JEWISH COMMUNITIES MUSIC SUPPLEMENT THE SABBATH SERVICES ZEMIROT GRACE AFTER MEALS ‘ONEG SHABBAT SONGS CANTILLATION MODES ON THE SABBATH Glossary Bibliography Notes

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Book SynopsisBack by popular demand, the classic JPS Holiday anthologies remain essential and relevant in our digital age. The Rosh Hashanah Anthology is designed to make the religious impact and commemoration of the Jewish New Year meaningful as both a solemn and a festive day. Its significance, history, and messages are embodied in the great treasures of Jewish classical writings.Trade Review“Throughout my long career as a rabbi, the JPS holiday anthologies have been an essential resource. All the core background is in one place. If I need a holiday story, the anthologies contain a wide range of choices. And sections on celebrations worldwide provide new approaches to festivals.”—Rabbi Steven Bob, author of Jonah and the Meaning of Our Lives “This reissue is good news! I read this rich, varied, and classic series with pleasure and collected the volumes avidly when they first appeared.”—Rabbi Reuven Hammer, author of Akiva: Life, Legend, LegacyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note from the Publisher Preface Acknowledgments 1 ROSH HASHANAH IN THE BIBLE 2 ROSH HASHANAH IN POSTBIBLICAL WRITINGS 3 ROSH HASHANAH IN TALMUD AND MIDRASH 4 ROSH HASHANAH IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH LITERATURE 5 ROSH HASHANAH IN JEWISH LAW 6 SELECTED PRAYERS 7 THE SCRIPTURAL READINGS 8 THE SHOFAR 9 THE SYMPBOLIC CEREMONY OF TASHLIKH 10 ROSH HASHANAH PARABLES 11 HASIDIC TALES AND TEACHINGS 12 ROSH HASHANAH IN MODERN PROSE 13 ROSH HASHANAH IN ART 14 THE MUSIC OF THE ROSH HASHANAH LITURGY 15 ROSH HASHANAH IN MANY LANDS 16 ROSH HASHANAH IN POETRY 17 ROSH HASHANAH IN THE SHORT STORY 18 ROSH HASHANAH GREETING CARDS 19 THE CULINARY ART OF ROSH HASHANAH 20 ROSH HASHANAH MISCELLANY 21 CHILDREN’S STORIES FOR ROSH HASHANAH 22 CHILDREN’S POEMS FOR ROSH HASHANAH 23 NEW YEAR PROGRAMS Notes Glossary of Rosh Hashanah Terms Bibliography

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Book SynopsisBack by popular demand, the classic JPS Holiday anthologies remain essential and relevant in our digital age. Drawing on Jewish creativity from hundreds of sources and describing Yom Kippur observances in various lands and eras, The Yom Kippur Anthology vividly evokes the vitality of this holiday throughout history and its significance for the modern Jew.Trade Review“Throughout my long career as a rabbi, the JPS holiday anthologies have been an essential resource. All the core background is in one place. If I need a holiday story, the anthologies contain a wide range of choices. And sections on celebrations worldwide provide new approaches to festivals.”—Rabbi Steven Bob, author of Jonah and the Meaning of Our Lives “This reissue is good news! I read this rich, varied, and classic series with pleasure and collected the volumes avidly when they first appeared.”—Rabbi Reuven Hammer, author of Akiva: Life, Legend, Legacy Table of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note from the Publisher Preface Acknowledgments I YOM KIPPUR IN THE BIBLE II. YOM KIPPUR IN POSTBIBLICAL WRITINGS III. YOM KIPPUR IN TALMUD AND MIDRASH IV. YOM KIPPUR IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH LITERATURE V. YOM KIPPUR IN JEWISH LAW VI. SELECTED PRAYERS VII. THE PARADOX OF KOL NIDRE VIII. THE MUSIC OF THE YOM KIPPUR LITURGY IX. HASIDIC TALES AND TEACHINGS X. YOM KIPPUR IN MODERN PROSE XI. YOM KIPPUR IN ART XII. YOM KIPPUR IN MANY LANDS XIII. YOM KIPPUR IN POETRY XIV. YOM KIPPUR IN THE SHORT STORY XV. PRE-YOM KIPPUR FEASTING XVI. YOM KIPPUR MISCELLANY XVII. CHILDREN’S STORIES FOR YOM KIPPUR XVIII. CHILDREN’S POEMS FOR YOM KIPPUR Notes Glossary of Yom Kippur Terms Bibliography

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Book SynopsisBack by popular demand, the classic JPS Holiday anthologies remain essential and relevant in our digital age. The Sukkot and Simhat Torah Anthology offers new insight into the Festival of Ingathering and the Festival of Rejoicing in the Law by elucidating the two festivals' background, historical development, and spiritual truths for Jews and humankind.Trade Review“Throughout my long career as a rabbi, the JPS holiday anthologies have been an essential resource. All the core background is in one place. If I need a holiday story, the anthologies contain a wide range of choices. And sections on celebrations worldwide provide new approaches to festivals.”—Rabbi Steven Bob, author of Jonah and the Meaning of Our Lives “This reissue is good news! I read this rich, varied, and classic series with pleasure and collected the volumes avidly when they first appeared.”—Rabbi Reuven Hammer, author of Akiva: Life, Legend, Legacy Table of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note from the Publisher Preface Acknowledgments SUKKOT IN THE BIBLE SUKKOT IN POSTBIBLICAL WRITINGS SUKKOT IN TALMUD AND MIDRASH SUKKOT IN MEDIEVAL JEWISH LITERATURE SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH IN JEWISH LAW SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH LITURGY HASIDIC TALES AND TEACHINGS SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH IN MODERN PROSE SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH IN ART THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FESTIVAL THE SUKKAH THE FOUR SPECIES SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH IN MANY LANDS SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH IN POETRY SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH IN THE SHORT STORY SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH MISCELLANY SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH HUMOR THE FESTIVAL DELICACIES CHILDREN’S STORIES FOR SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH POEMS FOR CHILDREN PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES DANCES FOR SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH MUSIC FOR SUKKOT AND SIMHAT TORAH Notes Glossary of Sukkot and Simhat Torah Terms Bibliography

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Book SynopsisDelves into the stories and messages of Hanukkah as they have unfolded in Jewish literature over the past two thousand years: biblical intimations of the festival, post-biblical writings, selections from the Talmud and midrashim, excerpts from medieval books, home liturgies, laws and customs, observances in different nations, stories and poems, art, and recipes.Trade Review“Throughout my long career as a rabbi, the JPS holiday anthologies have been an essential resource. All the core background is in one place. If I need a holiday story, the anthologies contain a wide range of choices. And sections on celebrations worldwide provide new approaches to festivals.”—Rabbi Steven Bob, author of Jonah and the Meaning of Our Lives “This reissue is good news! I read this rich, varied, and classic series with pleasure and collected the volumes avidly when they first appeared.”—Rabbi Reuven Hammer, author of Akiva: Life, Legend, LegacyTable of ContentsList of Illustrations A Note from the Publisher Preface Acknowledgments HANUKKAH AND ITS HISTORY HANUKKAH IN THE BIBLE HANUKKAH IN POSTBIBLICAL WRITINGS HANUKKAH IN TALMUD AND MIDRASH THE MEDIEVAL SCROLL OF THE HASMONEANS HANUKKAH IN JEWISH LAW HANUKKAH IN MODERN PROSE HANUKKAH IN ART A HANUKKAH DRAMA HANUKKAH IN MANY LANDS HANUKKAH IN POETRY HANUKKAH IN THE SHORT STORY HANUKKAH ODDITIES HANUKKAH SIDELIGHTS THE HANUKKAH CUISINE CHILDREN’S STORIES FOR HANUKKAH CHILDREN’S POEMS FOR HANUKKAH HOME SERVICE FOR HANUKKAH HANUKKAH PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES DANCES FOR HANUKKAH MUSIC FOR HANUKKAH Notes Glossary of Hanukkah Terms Bibliography

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Book SynopsisPope Benedict XIV Lambertini (r. 1740–58) was one of the driving forces behind the Italian Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. His campaign to reconcile faith and empirical science, re-launch a dialogue between the Church and the European intellectual community, and expand papal patronage of the arts and sciences helped restore Italy’s position as a center of intellectual and artistic innovation.Benedict XIV and the Enlightenment offers a broad and nuanced assessment of Benedict’s engagement with Enlightenment art, science, spirituality, and culture. The collection’s essays, written by international experts in the field, cover topics ranging from Benedict’s revisions to the Church’s procedures for beatification and sanctification to his patronage of women scientists and mathematicians at the university in Bologna, his birthplace.Trade Review'Accompanied by a wonderful set of colour plates, this book remarkably succeeds in its attempt to read the ambiguities and nuances of the "Catholic Enlightenment" through the figure of Benedict XIV. Historians of science will find an abundance of materials to work on the relationships between Catholicism and the science on a global scale in the early modern period.' -- Paolo Savoia Metascience 24 October 2016Table of ContentsPreface by Rebecca Messbarger Introduction by Christopher M. S. Johns Part I: Benedict XIV, Women and Progressive Catholicism 1. Marta Cavazza: Benedict's Patronage of Learned Women 2. Paula Findlen: The Pope and the Englishwoman: Benedict XIV, Jane Squire, the Bologna Academy, and the Problem of Longitude 3. Stephanie Kirk: Benedict XIV and New World Convent Reform Part II: Faith and Medicine in Catholic Enlightenment 4. Rebecca Messbarger: The Art and Science of Human Anatomy in Benedict's Vision of the Enlightenment Church 5. Gianna Pomata: The Devil's Advocate Among the Physicians: What Prospero Lambertini Learned from Medical Sources 6. Fernando Vidal: Modernizing the Miraculous Body in Prospero Lambertini's De Servorum Dei Part III: Benedict's Response to Challenges to Church Authority 7. John L. Heilbron: Benedict XIV and the Natural Sciences 8. Maurice Finocchiaro: Benedict XIV and the Galileo Affair: Liberalization or Carelessness? 9. Maria Pia Donato: Reorder and Restore: Benedict XIV, the Index and the Holy Office Part IV: Theology, Tradition and Institutions in the Era of Enlightened Catholicism 10. Maria Teresa Fattori: Lambertini's Treatises and the Cultural Project of Benedict XIV: Two Sides of the Same Policy 11. Roberto Rusconi: Benedict XIV and the Holiness of Popes in the First Half of the Eighteenth Century 12. Peter Bjorn Kerber: Vicar of Christ and Alter Christus: Benedict XIV's Della S. Messa Part V: Benedict XIV's Transformation of the Public Sphere 13. Paola Giuli: Prospero Lambertini and the Accademia degli Arcadi (1694-1708) 14. Carole Paul: Benedict XIV's Enlightened Patronage of the Capitoline Museum 15. Christopher M. S. Johns: Papal Diplomacy and the Catholic Enlightenment: Benedict XIV's Caffeaus in the Quirinal Gardens Part VI: Art and Architecture Across Italy and the World 16. Jeffrey Collins: Pedagogy in Plaster: Ercole Lelli and Benedict XIV's Gipsoteca at Bologna's Instituto delle Scienze e delle Arti 17. Kristina Kleutghen: The Art Ethnicity and Empire: Jesuit Art in China during the Papacy of Benedict XIV 18. Tommaso Manfredi: Academic Practice and Roman Architecture during the Reign of Benedict XIV

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Book SynopsisHonorable Mention, 2019 Barbara T. Christian Literary Award, given by the Caribbean Studies AssociationWinner, 2017 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, presented by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion section of the American Anthropological AssociationFinalist, 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions presented by the Journal of Africana ReligionsAn examination of the religious importance of food among Caribbean and Latin American communitiesBefore honey can be offered to the Afro-Cuban deity Ochún, it must be tasted, to prove to her that it is good. In African-inspired religions throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, such gestures instill the attitudes that turn participants into practitioners. Acquiring deep knowledge of the diets of the gods and ancestors constructs adherents' identities; to learn to fix the gods' favorite dishes is to be seTrade ReviewReligion in the Kitchenis the product of Pe´rez longstanding interest in the religious phenomena of Black Atlantic communities, and builds on a number of prior projects, revisiting, revising, and creating a thoughtful and fascinating ethnographic text . . . [W]ill fascinate both the academic community and the interested layperson. * Journal of Religious History *[A] major contribution to the scholarship of Black Atlantic traditions, bringing much needed attention to cooking, talking, and the women and gay men who do both . . . With an accessible introduction and opening chapters, Pe´rezs careful, erudite analysis offers methodological direction and a theoretical vocabulary for all scholars interested in the intersection of everyday practice with religious subject formation. * Nova Religio *[W]ell crafted, theoretically engaging, and insightful . . . Pérez adroitly maps those interstitial spaces often historically relegated solely to women and their labor. This book provides a rare view into the liminal space of the Lucumí cloister and the coded dialogues therein . . . By queering her analysis inReligion in the Kitchen, Pérez substantively and subtly illuminates the temple-house communitys cohesion across its various subject positions . . . The role and signification of who cooks, what they cook, for whom they are cooking, who gets to eat and why suddenly opens up new avenues for inquiry and analysis under Pérezs gaze. * Food, Culture & Society *Chapter three is my favorite in the book . . . a prime example of Geertzs model of thick description as applied to religion and food. Readers will no doubt find themselves comparing Pe´rezs work to that of Karen McCarthy Brown (2001) inMama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, which has become a classic in the field. Pe´rezs questions and conclusions are different than Browns, but I suspect that likeMama Lola, Pe´rezs Religion in the Kitchen will become a go-to book for the study of Afro-Caribbean traditions in the USA. * Material Religion *With clear description and sharp analysis Pérez highlights ways in which cookingand its related activities such as conversationis the stuff of religious engagement and a symbol of connection between humanity and divinity. Anyone concerned with better understanding how ordinary spaces and practices take on religious significance will value this book. -- Anthony Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religion, Rice UniversityA deeply researched, contextually rich and ambitious intervention into the literature on Black Atlantic religions. While most scholars of Santería and other Black Atlantic traditions have focused on initiation as the paradigmatic site where religious values are inculcated and religious subjects are `reborn, Pérez directs her attention to a more prosaicand unjustly overlookedsetting: the kitchen. By cooking for the orishas, Pérez asserts, participants are themselves being cooked; that is, they are being socialized into the complex world of Santería aesthetics and ethics. In focusing on the informal spaces and behind-the-scenes work so fundamental to the molding of religious subjects and the perpetuation of Black Atlantic religious forms, Pérez opens up a whole world. Compelling as an ethnography and theoretically astute, Religion in the Kitchenoffers a thought-provoking analysis of how religious norms are internalized and reproduced. A stunning achievement. -- Kelly E. Hayes, author of Holy Harlots: Femininity, Sexuality and Black Magic in BrazilReligion in the Kitchenby Elizabeth Pérez is a stunning achievement, both for its methodological sophistication and its timely focus . . . Situating her analysis within multiple academic venues, including anthropology, history, and the arts, Pérez engages a methodological turn that is of inestimable value to scholars of religion. How fitting that a text about cooking and conversation sets a special place at the table for Africana traditions . . .Religion in the Kitchenis hearty and satisfying fare, served with academic rigor, the 'special sauce' for acuity and balance in the study of religion. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *Here is a new approach to the syncretic black religions of the Atlantic world. Though Pérez's research site was a Cuban Lucumi (also called Santería) temple in Chicago, her insights and conclusions apply far beyond . . . Research on the aesthetics of everyday life is burgeoning everywhere and not only in philosophy, as this fine example demonstrates. * Choice *Pérez's reorientation of seemingly mundane gastronomical activities towardreligiousfunctionality in an effort to present a different approach to the study of Black Atlanticreligionmakes this book invaluable to scholars and students interested in African diasporicreligionsand anthropology/history ofreligion. * Religious Studies Review *A pleasure to read. The lucid writing … illuminates the spaces in the back of the house, where so much of the crucial work of making food and making family takes place. -- New West Indian Guide

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Book SynopsisHonorable Mention, 2019 Barbara T. Christian Literary Award, given by the Caribbean Studies AssociationWinner, 2017 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, presented by the Society for the Anthropology of Religion section of the American Anthropological AssociationFinalist, 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions presented by the Journal of Africana ReligionsAn examination of the religious importance of food among Caribbean and Latin American communitiesBefore honey can be offered to the Afro-Cuban deity Ochún, it must be tasted, to prove to her that it is good. In African-inspired religions throughout the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States, such gestures instill the attitudes that turn participants into practitioners. Acquiring deep knowledge of the diets of the gods and ancestors constructs adherents' identities; to learn to fix the gods' favorite dishes is to be seTrade ReviewReligion in the Kitchenis the product of Pe´rez longstanding interest in the religious phenomena of Black Atlantic communities, and builds on a number of prior projects, revisiting, revising, and creating a thoughtful and fascinating ethnographic text . . . [W]ill fascinate both the academic community and the interested layperson. * Journal of Religious History *[A] major contribution to the scholarship of Black Atlantic traditions, bringing much needed attention to cooking, talking, and the women and gay men who do both . . . With an accessible introduction and opening chapters, Pe´rezs careful, erudite analysis offers methodological direction and a theoretical vocabulary for all scholars interested in the intersection of everyday practice with religious subject formation. * Nova Religio *[W]ell crafted, theoretically engaging, and insightful . . . Pérez adroitly maps those interstitial spaces often historically relegated solely to women and their labor. This book provides a rare view into the liminal space of the Lucumí cloister and the coded dialogues therein . . . By queering her analysis inReligion in the Kitchen, Pérez substantively and subtly illuminates the temple-house communitys cohesion across its various subject positions . . . The role and signification of who cooks, what they cook, for whom they are cooking, who gets to eat and why suddenly opens up new avenues for inquiry and analysis under Pérezs gaze. * Food, Culture & Society *Chapter three is my favorite in the book . . . a prime example of Geertzs model of thick description as applied to religion and food. Readers will no doubt find themselves comparing Pe´rezs work to that of Karen McCarthy Brown (2001) inMama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn, which has become a classic in the field. Pe´rezs questions and conclusions are different than Browns, but I suspect that likeMama Lola, Pe´rezs Religion in the Kitchen will become a go-to book for the study of Afro-Caribbean traditions in the USA. * Material Religion *With clear description and sharp analysis Pérez highlights ways in which cookingand its related activities such as conversationis the stuff of religious engagement and a symbol of connection between humanity and divinity. Anyone concerned with better understanding how ordinary spaces and practices take on religious significance will value this book. -- Anthony Pinn, Agnes Cullen Arnold Professor of Humanities and Professor of Religion, Rice UniversityA deeply researched, contextually rich and ambitious intervention into the literature on Black Atlantic religions. While most scholars of Santería and other Black Atlantic traditions have focused on initiation as the paradigmatic site where religious values are inculcated and religious subjects are `reborn, Pérez directs her attention to a more prosaicand unjustly overlookedsetting: the kitchen. By cooking for the orishas, Pérez asserts, participants are themselves being cooked; that is, they are being socialized into the complex world of Santería aesthetics and ethics. In focusing on the informal spaces and behind-the-scenes work so fundamental to the molding of religious subjects and the perpetuation of Black Atlantic religious forms, Pérez opens up a whole world. Compelling as an ethnography and theoretically astute, Religion in the Kitchenoffers a thought-provoking analysis of how religious norms are internalized and reproduced. A stunning achievement. -- Kelly E. Hayes, author of Holy Harlots: Femininity, Sexuality and Black Magic in BrazilReligion in the Kitchenby Elizabeth Pérez is a stunning achievement, both for its methodological sophistication and its timely focus . . . Situating her analysis within multiple academic venues, including anthropology, history, and the arts, Pérez engages a methodological turn that is of inestimable value to scholars of religion. How fitting that a text about cooking and conversation sets a special place at the table for Africana traditions . . .Religion in the Kitchenis hearty and satisfying fare, served with academic rigor, the 'special sauce' for acuity and balance in the study of religion. * Journal of the American Academy of Religion *Here is a new approach to the syncretic black religions of the Atlantic world. Though Pérez's research site was a Cuban Lucumi (also called Santería) temple in Chicago, her insights and conclusions apply far beyond . . . Research on the aesthetics of everyday life is burgeoning everywhere and not only in philosophy, as this fine example demonstrates. * Choice *Pérez's reorientation of seemingly mundane gastronomical activities towardreligiousfunctionality in an effort to present a different approach to the study of Black Atlanticreligionmakes this book invaluable to scholars and students interested in African diasporicreligionsand anthropology/history ofreligion. * Religious Studies Review *A pleasure to read. The lucid writing … illuminates the spaces in the back of the house, where so much of the crucial work of making food and making family takes place. -- New West Indian Guide

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities, award by by the Council of Graduate SchoolsExplores the role of jazz celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williams as representatives of African American religion in the twentieth centuryBeginning in the 1920s, the Jazz Age propelled Black swing artists into national celebrity. Many took on the role of race representatives, and were able to leverage their popularity toward achieving social progress for other African Americans. In Lift Every Voice and Swing, Vaughn A. Booker argues that with the emergence of these popular jazz figures, who came from a culture shaped by Black Protestantism, religious authority for African Americans found a place and spokespeople outside of traditional Afro-Protestant institutions and religious life. Popular Black jazz professionalssuch as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williamsinherited religious authority though they were not Trade ReviewBooker offers a fresh and innovative perspective on twentieth-century African American religious history and culture by highlighting how Black jazz professionals functioned as “race representatives” in American public life and as agents in shaping and transforming the landscape of African American religious life. Mobilizing a host of unconventional sources for religious studies, Lift Every Voice and Swing presents a fascinating and original portrait of the dynamic relationship between popular culture and Black religious life. -- Judith Weisenfeld, author of New World A Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great MigrationIn this vividly imagined, carefully researched, and musically written book, Vaughn Booker argues for jazz as the vector by which African American spiritual authority moved beyond black church life to saturate all of American culture, and from there to command the shape, feel, and sound of the long twentieth century. A book this fresh about religion in the lives and works of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams would by itself be a remarkable achievement. But Lift Every Voice and Swing is more: a demonstration of the power of their artistry to move and change the world. -- Tracy Fessenden, Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State UniversityLift Every Voice and Swing is entirely original and groundbreaking. By way of incisive archival research and superb cultural analysis, Vaughn A. Booker has shown that there was a religiosity to the creation of jazz music and that some jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams, represented alternative sources of spiritual authority and religious ways of being throughout the long twentieth century. Convincingly overturning notions of the innate secularity of jazz, Booker has provoked a powerful rethinking of African American religious history and the means by which we tell that history. -- Wallace Best, Princeton UniversityWhile Booker is an unconventional music researcher, readers benefit from his lifting up of the unspoken, unsung, and unswung flows of multi-faceted, religious jazz lives…His expansive inclusion of various types of texts makes our reading of these great figures richer by amplifying the musical meaning found in their envoiced and religio-socially swinging lives. * American Religion *Booker’s fluency in religious and music history is formidable. His book is dense with ideas expressed in prose that will reward both scholars and general readers with an interest in twentieth-century religion, American music, African American studies, and history. * The Journal of African American History *

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Book SynopsisWinner of the 2022 Gustave O. Arlt Award in the Humanities, award by by the Council of Graduate SchoolsExplores the role of jazz celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williams as representatives of African American religion in the twentieth centuryBeginning in the 1920s, the Jazz Age propelled Black swing artists into national celebrity. Many took on the role of race representatives, and were able to leverage their popularity toward achieving social progress for other African Americans. In Lift Every Voice and Swing, Vaughn A. Booker argues that with the emergence of these popular jazz figures, who came from a culture shaped by Black Protestantism, religious authority for African Americans found a place and spokespeople outside of traditional Afro-Protestant institutions and religious life. Popular Black jazz professionalssuch as Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, and Mary Lou Williamsinherited religious authority though they were not Trade Review"Booker offers a fresh and innovative perspective on twentieth-century African American religious history and culture by highlighting how Black jazz professionals functioned as “race representatives” in American public life and as agents in shaping and transforming the landscape of African American religious life. Mobilizing a host of unconventional sources for religious studies, Lift Every Voice and Swing presents a fascinating and original portrait of the dynamic relationship between popular culture and Black religious life." -- Judith Weisenfeld, author of New World A Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration"In this vividly imagined, carefully researched, and musically written book, Vaughn Booker argues for jazz as the vector by which African American spiritual authority moved beyond black church life to saturate all of American culture, and from there to command the shape, feel, and sound of the long twentieth century. A book this fresh about religion in the lives and works of Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams would by itself be a remarkable achievement. But Lift Every Voice and Swing is more: a demonstration of the power of their artistry to move and change the world." -- Tracy Fessenden, Director of Strategic Initiatives in the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict, Arizona State University"Lift Every Voice and Swing is entirely original and groundbreaking. By way of incisive archival research and superb cultural analysis, Vaughn A. Booker has shown that there was a religiosity to the creation of jazz music and that some jazz musicians, such as Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams, represented alternative sources of spiritual authority and religious ways of being throughout the long twentieth century. Convincingly overturning notions of the innate secularity of jazz, Booker has provoked a powerful rethinking of African American religious history and the means by which we tell that history." -- Wallace Best, Princeton University"While Booker is an unconventional music researcher, readers benefit from his lifting up of the unspoken, unsung, and unswung flows of multi-faceted, religious jazz lives…His expansive inclusion of various types of texts makes our reading of these great figures richer by amplifying the musical meaning found in their envoiced and religio-socially swinging lives." * American Religion *"Booker’s fluency in religious and music history is formidable. His book is dense with ideas expressed in prose that will reward both scholars and general readers with an interest in twentieth-century religion, American music, African American studies, and history." * The Journal of African American History *

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Book SynopsisShari?a and Life examines the degree of individual discretion and flexibility Muslims apply when reconciling the challenges of everyday life with their religious beliefs.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations and Tables Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Introduction 1. The Religious Law of Muslim Minorities 2. Across a Wasati-Salafi Spectrum 3. The Mustafti is the Mufti 4. There’s Shariʿa, and There’s Life 5. A Mission with Few Missionaries Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisDrawing on five years of field studies in pragmatic- and dogmatic-inclined mosques across Europe, Shari?a and Life explores how Muslims engage with shari?a norms in general, and specifically with the challenges they face as Muslims living in majority non-Muslim societies. The book examines how fatwas (advice on shari?a-related matters) are quested, negotiated, paraphrased, contested, or ignored in mosques, on the internet, and elsewhere. It also analyses individual strategies, external to religio-legal discourse, through which Muslims mitigate conflicts between interpretations of shari?a and everyday life. Among the issues discussed in the book are financial transactions, education, the workplace, sports, electoral participation, Christmas greetings, proselytizing, and the legitimacy of choosing to live in a non-Muslim country. Shifting the focus from the authors and texts of fatwas to their recipients, Shari?a and Life gives voice to those often left voiTable of ContentsList of Illustrations and Tables Acknowledgments Note on Transliteration Introduction 1. The Religious Law of Muslim Minorities 2. Across a Wasati-Salafi Spectrum 3. The Mustafti is the Mufti 4. There’s Shariʿa, and There’s Life 5. A Mission with Few Missionaries Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume brings together an ecumenical team of scholars to present key theological concepts related to worship to help readers articulate their own theology of worship. Contributors explore the history of theology's impact on worship practices across the Christian tradition, highlighting themes such as creation, pneumatology, sanctification, and mission. The book includes introductions by N. T. Wright and Nicholas Wolterstorff. A forthcoming volume will address the historical foundations of worship.Table of ContentsContentsPreface by the Editors Khalia J. Williams and Mark A. LamportSeries Introduction Nicholas WolterstorffIntroduction N. T. WrightPart 1: Biblical Practices of Worship: Exegetical and Biblical Theology1. Old Testament and Worship Andrew E. Hill2. New Testament and Worship Pheme PerkinsPart 2: Theological Principles of Worship: Systematic and Historical Theology3. Creation and Worship W. David O. Taylor4. God and Worship Don E. Saliers5. Humanity and Worship Ronald T. Michener6. Christology and Worship Bruce T. Morrill7. Pneumatology and Worship Khalia J. Williams8. Eschatology and Worship Maurice Lee9. Ecclesiology and Worship Rhodora E. Beaton10. Mission and Worship Eugene R. Schlesinger11. Mystery and Worship Ivana Noble12. Sanctification and Worship Lizette Larson-MillerPart 3: Cultural Possibilities for Worship: Practical and Apologetical Theology13. Cultural Considerations and Sacred Significance of Time in Worship Anne McGowan14. Ecology and Worship Teresa Berger15. Individualism and Community within Worship Practices E. Byron (Ron) Anderson16. Secularization and Worship James K. Wellman Jr.17. Christian Worship in the Context of Other World Religions Peter C. PhanEpilogue: Pursuing a Theology of Worship Martyn PercyIndex

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Book SynopsisScholars tend to call them 'rites of passage'. Most people prefer to speak of them as life cycle events or milestones. Jews like to speak of simchas, when there's something (a birth, bar or bat mitzvah, or wedding, for example) to celebrate. Whatever we call them and however we commemorate them, these are key moments for individuals and for the families and communities of which they are a part. This volume offers new insights into rituals as old as the Hebrew Bible and as new as the twenty-first century in contexts as familiar as the American Midwest and as exotic as Karaism. In the process, they examine and frequently affirm some of the rituals that have traditionally been associated with these events. At the same time, readers are invited to cast a critical eye on the ways in which these customs have developed in recent years. The authors, who include congregational leaders as well as scholars, also affirm the need to expand or enhance existing ceremonies to include groups whose needs have not traditionally been addressed. These groups include women and children with disabilities. In this way, the articles in this volume are of practical value for those seeking to transform their own religious experiences or those of their community.

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Book SynopsisIn his comparative study of four Tamil resettlements, Clothey examines the rituals that have traveled with these South Indian communities - Hindu, Muslim, and Christian - and how these practices perpetuate or modify the heritages these groups claim for themselves in their new environs. Clothey looks specifically at settlements in the cities of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Singapore; Mumbai, India; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Describing such settlements as communities living on boundaries, Clothey explores how their existence illustrates divisions between ethnic, local, and global identities; between generations; and between imagined pasts and uncertain futures. He contends that one of the most visible ways expatriated communities negotiate these boundaries is through the use of ritual - the building of shrines and temples, the use of festivals and performances, and the enactment of ancient ceremonies.

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Book SynopsisWomen Mystics and Sufi Shrines in India combines historical data with years of ethnographic fieldwork to investigate women's participation in the culture of Sufi shrines in India and the manner in which this participation both complicates and sustains traditional conceptions of Islamic womanhood. Kelly Pemberton's fieldwork offers an assessment of the contemporary circumstances under which a woman may be recognized as a spiritual authority or guide--despite official denial of such status--and an examination of the discrepancies between the commonly held belief that women cannot perform in the public setting of shrines and her own observations of women doing precisely that. She demonstrates that the existence of multiple models of master and disciple relationships have opened avenues for women to be recognized as spiritual authorities in their own right. Specifically Pemberton explores the work of performance, recitation, and ritual mediation carried out by women connected with Sufi orders through kinship and spiritual ties, and she maps shifting ideas about women's involvement in public ritual events in a variety of contexts, circumstances, and genres of performance. She also highlights the private petitioning of saints, the Prophet, and God performed by poor women of low social standing in Bihar Sharif. These women are often perceived as being exceptionally close to God yet are compelled to operate outside the public sphere of major shrines.

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Book SynopsisFamily devotions can be hard to schedule and plan--and doing so in a meaningful way can be especially difficult during the days and weeks leading up to Christmas. As you guide your family through this season, Anticipating His Arrival helps you and your family remember his first advent on Christmas and prepare for his second coming, celebrating and anticipating both events.Each day's Scripture reading includes discussion questions with accompanying responses to make it easy for you to engage the themes of preparation, anticipation, joy, and incarnation throughout the season of Advent. The reading schedule--which begins the first Sunday of Advent and ends on Christmas Day--has been adapted from the Revised Common Lectionary and includes devotions for all three years in the liturgical cycle, with every year drawing on the Synoptic Gospels.Trade ReviewHaving used Anticipating His Arrival around the dinner table with my family, I look forward to making use of it again this year and am delighted to see this devotional in print for a wider audience. Too often, devotionals centered around the Christmas season lack the anticipatory nature that Advent is meant to invoke. Brannan's cycle of preparation, anticipation, joy, and incarnation--combined with a rich selection of passages that span the width of the Scriptures--makes this a devotional that will serve and enrich many families. --H. Daniel Zacharias, Ph.D., assistant professor of New Testament studies, Acadia Divinity College"During the time of Advent, many people reflect on the coming of the Lord and His incarnation. In Anticipating His Arrival, Rick Brannan has thoughtfully reflected upon OT and NT Bible passages that will surely stir the hearts and minds of God's people. This family guide is an easy and brief way to prepare for the Advent season by being led through Bible passages and thoughtful questions on select Scriptures. Using the Revised Common Lectionary, families are guided through this devotional material for a three-year lectionary cycle. This will become a wonderful addition to the traditions of my family each year."--Shawn J. Wilhite, assistant professor of Christian studies, California Baptist University

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