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This book challenges the traditional idea that religions can be understood primarily as texts to be interpreted, decoded, or translated. In More Than Belief, Manuel A. Vásquez argues for a new way of studying religions, one that sees them as dynamic material and historical expressions of the practices of embodied individuals who are embedded in social fields and ecological networks. He sketches the outlines of this approach through a focus on body, practices, and space. In order to highlight the centrality of these dimensions of religious experience and performance, Vásquez recovers materialist currents within religious studies that have been consistently ignored or denigrated. Drawing on state-of-the-art work in fields as diverse as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, critical theory, environmental studies, cognitive psychology, and the neurosciences, Vásquez offers a groundbreaking new way of looking at religion.
Annotation. An exploration of how globalization affects the evolving roles of religion in the Americas.
Barcelona detective Pepe Carvalho’s radical past catches up with him when a powerful businessman—a patron of artists and activists—is found dead after going missing for a year. In search of the spirit of Paul Gauguin, Stuart Pedrell—eccentric Barcelona businessman, construction magnate, dreamer, and patron of poets and painters—disappeared not long after announcing plans to travel to the South Pacific. A year later he is found stabbed to death at a construction site in Barcelona. Gourmand gumshoe Pepe Carvalho is hired by Pedrell’s wife to find out what happened. Carvalho, a jaded former communist, must travel through circles of the old anti-Franco left wing on the trail of the killer. But with little appetite for politics, Carvalho also leads us on a tour through literature, cuisine, and the criminal underbelly of Barcelona in a typically brilliant twist on the genre by a Spanish master.
The explosion of the Evangelical movement in Latin America beginning in the last half of the 20th century has changed the face of a continent. Many men have redefined themselves through a religious conversion to Evangelicalism, which challenges notions of machismo. This book explores why they would choose to do so. While they abandon drinking, promiscuity, domestic violence, and aggression, Evangelical converts maintain a strict set of gender roles, which they perceived as a divine mandate. This dramatic change is made possible through the device of an Evangelical Worldview, experienced and lived as cosmic narrative that obligates a Christian masculinity.
After a visit to Argentina, Spain's most famous detective Pepe Carvalho is back in his beloved Barcelona and is swiftly embroiled in a murderous scandal amid the murky politics of 21st century Catalonia. When the son of a rich financier is murdered, Carvalho is called upon to investigate his mysterious death. In his quest for the killer, Carvalho has to infiltrate the world of Satanism and religious sects.The bon vivant detective also faces problems in his personal life, torn as he is between two women - his on-off partner Charo, and her eternal hesitations, and the enigmatic Yes, a lover from his youth. The professional and personal merge and a devastating betrayal leaves Carvalho fighting for his life.As ever, Montalbán astutely reflects on the current political situation in Europe with the added bonus of delicious Catalan recipes. This is Montalbán at the top of his game.
In what is destined to prove the definitive text for the present generation on the political, economic, and social structure of Colombia, Jorge Pablo Osterling explores the enigmatic nature of this special, even critical, anchor to the northern tier of South America. In many ways, Colombia is a huge success story: it is one of the oldest, most stable, functioning democracies; the land is blessed with rich and diversified resources and products; and its foreign debt has been kept in check as a consequence of sound economic management.But despite its positive social, cultural, economic, and political indicators, Colombia has been a nation beset by serious problems: overt corruption and unemplo...