Search results for ""Author Courtney Bender""

Book SynopsisAmerican spirituality - meaning astrology, yoga, and the huge number of other alternative strains of religion pursued by individuals outside of traditional organizations - is usually thought to be a product of the postmodern era. This title reveals that contemporary American spirituality has deep historic roots in the nineteenth century.Trade Review"Truly distinctive and distinguished. This is a remarkable book simply for recording these fascinating practitioners and helping readers understand their categories of experience in all their complexity. But her work does far more than merely record; it offers a compelling examination of how we may think anew about these categories and the people - metaphysicals and scholars alike - for whom they matter. Hilarious and humane all at once: it's a rare mix, and Bender hits the mark again and again." - R. Marie Griffith, Harvard Divinity School.

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Book SynopsisAmerican spirituality - meaning astrology, yoga, and the huge number of other alternative strains of religion pursued by individuals outside of traditional organizations - is usually thought to be a product of the postmodern era. This title reveals that contemporary American spirituality has deep historic roots in the nineteenth century.Trade Review"Truly distinctive and distinguished. This is a remarkable book simply for recording these fascinating practitioners and helping readers understand their categories of experience in all their complexity. But her work does far more than merely record; it offers a compelling examination of how we may think anew about these categories and the people - metaphysicals and scholars alike - for whom they matter. Hilarious and humane all at once: it's a rare mix, and Bender hits the mark again and again." - R. Marie Griffith, Harvard Divinity School.

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

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

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Book SynopsisHow do people practice religion in their everyday lives? Courtney Bender spent more than a year working as a volunteer for a non-profit organisation called God's Love We Deliver, helping to prepare food for people with AIDs, this volume tells the story of that time.

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

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Book SynopsisAn absorbing collection of essays on religious textures in Knausgaard's writings and our time. Min kamp, or My Struggle, is a six-volume novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard and one of the most significant literary works of the young twenty-first century. Published in Norwegian between 2009 and 2011, the novel presents an absorbing first-person narrative of the life of a writer with the same name as the author, in a world at once fully disillusioned and thoroughly enchanted. In 2015, a group of scholars began meeting to discuss the peculiarly religious qualities of My Struggle. Some were interested in Knausgaard's attention to explicitly religious subjects and artworks, others to what they saw as more diffuse attention to the religiousness of contemporary life. The group wondered what reading these textures of religion in these volumes might say about our times, about writing, and about themselves. The Abyss or Life Is Simple is the culmination of this collective endeavora collection of iTrade ReviewCourtney Bender is professor of religion at Columbia University. Jeremy Biles is associate professor of liberal arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Liane Carlson is an associate faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Joshua Dubler is associate professor of religion at the University of Rochester. Hannah C. Garvey is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. M. Cooper Harriss is associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan is professor of religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. Erik Thorstensen is research director at OsloMet.“A true work of collective criticism, The Abyss or Life Is Simple is a collection of personal, thorough, and innovative essays that illuminates aspects of Knausgaard that previously have been neglected by scholars. It is a treat for anyone interested in Knausgaard's writing and an exhibit of the benefits of collaboration and collectivism in the humanities.” -- Claus Elholm Andersen, University of Wisconsin–MadisonTable of ContentsIntroduction A Knausgaard Reading and Writing Collective 1 Keeping It All at Bay Courtney Bender 2 Love Tears Erik Thorstensen 3 Aesthetics of an Abused Child Liane Carlson 4 The Knausgaard Swarm Joshua Dubler 5 Angels Winnifred Fallers Sullivan 6 Incidentals (When the Slugs Come) (In the Cut) Jeremy Biles 7 Shaping Our Ends M. Cooper Harriss Outro Hannah C. Garvey Acknowledgments Index

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Book SynopsisTrade ReviewCourtney Bender is professor of religion at Columbia University. Jeremy Biles is associate professor of liberal arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Liane Carlson is an associate faculty member at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. Joshua Dubler is associate professor of religion at the University of Rochester. Hannah C. Garvey is a doctoral candidate in religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. M. Cooper Harriss is associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. Winnifred Fallers Sullivan is professor of religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. Erik Thorstensen is research director at OsloMet.“A true work of collective criticism, The Abyss or Life Is Simple is a collection of personal, thorough, and innovative essays that illuminates aspects of Knausgaard that previously have been neglected by scholars. It is a treat for anyone interested in Knausgaard's writing and an exhibit of the benefits of collaboration and collectivism in the humanities.” -- Claus Elholm Andersen, University of Wisconsin–MadisonTable of ContentsIntroduction A Knausgaard Reading and Writing Collective 1 Keeping It All at Bay Courtney Bender 2 Love Tears Erik Thorstensen 3 Aesthetics of an Abused Child Liane Carlson 4 The Knausgaard Swarm Joshua Dubler 5 Angels Winnifred Fallers Sullivan 6 Incidentals (When the Slugs Come) (In the Cut) Jeremy Biles 7 Shaping Our Ends M. Cooper Harriss Outro Hannah C. Garvey Acknowledgments Index

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

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