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The Sociology of Religion
Most Sociology of Religion texts are decidedly staid and uninteresting, covering "contemporary" developments which are only contemporary only from a disciplinary perspective. They are not contemporary if viewed from the perspective of the religion's practioners (in religious and non-religious settings). The textbooks that attempt to be interesting to undergraduate students often fall short because they either try to cover too much in an encyclopedic format, or sacrifice a sociological perspective for a personal one. Many use real-life examples only superficially to illustrate concepts. Lundskow's approach is the opposite—students will learn the facts of religion in its great diversity, all...
Spaces and Borders
People observe and transgress religious borders when they relate with faith and other faiths, when they shape communities, when they make decisions. A group of researchers have joined an inquiry into the forces of religious closure and openness in present-day Central and Eastern Europe. The volume is a result of a research community constituted within the REVACERN project – Religion and Values in Central and Eastern Europe Research Network, supported by the 6th framework program of the European Union. Chapters are structured in three sections, focusing on individual experiences of religion and spirituality, on religious elites, and on the interaction of religion with politics. Sociology, political science and history are triangulated to render a clear understanding of the individual experiences of religion and secularity, and of the strategic choices of religious and political elites, taking readers along an exploration of religious identity and otherness.
The Devil's Party
Twelve scholars present cutting-edge research from the emerging field of Satanism studies. The topics covered range from early literary Satanists like Blake and Shelley, to the Californian Church of Satan of the 1960s, to the radical developments within the Satanic milieu in recent decades. The book will be an invaluable resource for everyone interested in Satanism as a philosophical or religious position of alterity rather than as an imagined other.
Minority Churches as Media Settlers
How do minority Christian churches adapt to and negotiate with the changes brought about by deep mediatization? How do they use their media to present themselves to their followers and the general public? This book aims to answer these questions by investigating how minority organizations of two different Christian traditions in the UK and Poland – the Seventh-day Adventist Church and the Orthodox Churches – use their own media to position themselves in their social, religious, and political environments. Based on the analyses of media practices, media content, and interview material, the study develops the new concept of media settlers, which pertains to religious organizations that use...
Intersecting Religion and Sexuality
Intersecting Religion and Sexuality: Sociological Perspectives outlines what an intersectional analysis can offer research into religion and sexuality. It draws on various research projects which focus on different facets of this topic, such as queer sexualities, unmarried motherhood, and heterosexuality.
Cosmologies of Suffering
The edited volume elaborates on a range of themes that emerged during a workshop of the 8th biennial of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Vienna in 2004. Among these themes are: the paradoxical permanence of ‘transition’ in post-communist countries, the accompanying persistence of social suffering and the structural conditions that give rise to it. A final theme focuses on the resources that people mobilize to cope with suffering and trauma. Ways of coping manifest a stance towards agency shared by sufferers from diverse post-communist regions, such as ethnically divided Croatia, politically and economically unstable Zimbabwe, relatively more peaceful countries such as Hungary, Poland and Slovenia, and, finally, two religiously unique areas in Siberia, Russia. Ethnographic accounts from these diverse settings testify that agency has often involved relinquishing reliance on one’s self and turning towards a power higher than the self, whether this is conceptualized through the lens of transcendence, religion, or cosmology.
The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements
The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements both covers the current state of the field and breaks new ground. Its contributors, drawn form both sociology and religious studies, are leading figures in the study of NRMs.
Public Discourses About Homosexuality and Religion in Europe and Beyond
This volume addresses three things many people do not discuss candidly with strangers or mere acquaintances: God, sex, and politics. These can easily become topics of fierce debate, particularly when taken together, as has been the case with same-sex marriage legislation, the Vatican’s criticism of “gender ideology,” or the repeatedly asserted claim that Islam, homosexuality, and gender equality are essentially incompatible. This volume investigates what is at stake in these constructions of religion and homosexuality in public discourses. Starting with the Netherlands as a special case study, it proceeds with contributions on other predominantly postsecular countries in central, northern, and southern Europe as well as several postcommunist and postcolonial countries “beyond Europe.” Combining contemporary and historical perspectives and approaches from both the humanities and the social sciences, the contributors explore how national and European identities are constructed and contested in debates on religion and homosexuality. Chapter 2 and Chapter 8 of this book are available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.
New Age Spirituality
New Age and holistic beliefs and practices - sometimes called the "new spirituality" - are widely distributed across modern global society. The fluid and popular nature of new age makes these movements a very challenging field to understand using traditional models of religious analysis. Rather than treating new age as an exotic specimen on the margins of 'proper' religion, "New Age Spirituality" examines these movements as a form of everyday or lived religion. The book brings together an international range of scholars to explore the key issues: insight, healing, divination, meditation, gnosis, extraordinary experiences, and interactions with gods, spirits and superhuman powers. Combining discussion of contemporary beliefs and practices with cutting-edge theoretical analysis, the book repositions new age spirituality at the forefront of the contemporary study of religion.
