You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Reading the Sacred Scriptures: From Oral Tradition to Written Documents and their Reception examines how the scriptures came to be written and how their authority has been constructed and reinforced over time. Highlighting the measures taken to safeguard the stability of oral accounts, this book demonstrates the care of religious communities to maintain with reverence their assembled parchments and scrolls. Written by leading experts in their fields, this collection chronicles the development of the scriptures from oral tradition to written documents and their reception. It features notable essays on the scriptures of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Confucianism, Daoism, Christianity, Islam, Sikhism, Shinto, and Baha'i. This book will fascinate anyone interested in the belief systems of the featured religions. It offers an ideal starting point from which undergraduate and postgraduate religious studies students, teachers and lecturers can explore religious traditions from their historical beginnings.
Psalms Through the Centuries: Volume Two provides the first ever extensive commentary on the Jewish and Christian reception history of the first two books of the Psalter (Psalms 1-41 and 42-72). It explores the various uses of the Psalms, over two millennia, in translation and commentary, liturgy and prayer, study and preaching, musical composition and artistic illustration, poetic and dramatic imitation, and contemporary discourse. With lavish illustrations, using examples from both music and art, Psalms Through the Centuries: Volume Two offers a detailed commentary on each psalm, with an extensive bibliography, a large glossary of terms, and helpful indices. It is an ideal resource both for students and scholars in the academy and for lay people and ministers in church and synagogue. Psalms Through the Centuries is published within the Wiley Blackwell Commentary series. Further information about this innovative reception history series is available at www.bbibcomm.info
The Sufi tradition remains one of the most mysterious and least understood systems of self-realization. This book demystifies the practice of the sohbet—an ad hoc discourse—as the central instructional tool in the globally influential Naqshbandi-Haqqani Order. It approaches the practice using categories of improvised music to establish a framework for analyzation. Its ritualized formal structure, illustrated via selected talks of Shaykh Nazim Adil al-Haqqani, discloses the underlying—and assumingly primary—function to provoke prolonged states of raised awareness in listeners and condition their sympathetic nervous system. In an extensive discussion based on several years of field research in Cyprus, the book relates this intention to similar practices in other traditional knowledge systems by proposing psychophysical interpretations based on psychology, biochemistry, neuroscience, or quantum physics. It will appeal to scholars and students of Sufism, Islamic studies, and comparative religion, as well as those interested in performance studies and improvised music, interpersonal communication, and education.
For generations, religion and music have been regarded as "universals," yet despite the fact that they have been frequently linked throughout history and topography, and despite the importance of music in the early stages of religious studies, their combined presence has not until now been considered a separate area of study and research. While there are well-developed fields of anthropology of religion, psychology of religion, and philosophy of religion, the widely recognized connections between religion and sound, chant, and music warrant comparable study. Drawing upon theories and methods in the study of both religion and music, referencing examples from world religious traditions, and addressing challenges posed by critics, this book envisions a unified field for religion and music: musicology of religion. Grounded in the scope and methods of phenomenology and comparative analysis, musicology of religion represents an innovative direction in interdisciplinary study, enriched by the social sciences, ethnomusicology, philosophy, theology, liturgical studies, and cognitive studies. As conceived, musicology of religion will spearhead new and creative paths in the study of religion.
As part of the historicizing corpus of seventh-century Irish writing, the Lives framed the narrative of the early saints as an effective weapon in contemporary political and ecclesiastical conflicts. Cogitosus’s Life of Brigit, Muirchú’s and Tírechán’s accounts of Saint Patrick, and Adomnán’s Life of Columba created the understanding of the history of early Ireland that has endured to this day. How did the writers accomplish this through their literary choices? The authors of Irish saints’ Lives used the literary form of hagiography (Christian biography), miracle stories, and an elaborate rhetorical style to present the words and actions of their subjects. These Lives created a narrative of early Irish history that supported the political/ecclesiastical elites by showing that their power derived from the actions of their patron saints.
The ancient Indian epic poem Ramayana has been disseminated throughout large tracts of Southeast Asia since the 9th century. Versions of the epic poem have come to adopt and reflect the unique characteristics of the countries and regions where it has gained cultural currency. The epic has been a source of popular themes in both traditional and contemporary art forms, including literature, performing arts, fine arts, and films. This book showcases Ramayana theater as a platform where the multiple meanings and senses of values are negotiated. It focuses on the relationships between the cultural representation and the various meanings of Ramayana theater, as well as other dramatic art forms. Fo...
This ground breaking book is unique in bringing together two perspectives on learning - sociocultural theory and neuroscience. Drawing on both perspectives, it foregrounds important developments in our understanding of what learning is, where and how learning occurs and what we can do to understand learning as an everyday process. Leading experts from both disciplines demonstrate how sociocultural ideas (such as the relevance of experience, opportunity to learn, environment, personal histories, meaning, participation, memory, and feelings of belonging) align with and reflect upon new understandings emerging from neuroscience concerning plasticity and neural networks. Among the themes critica...
"A vast and complex tradition foundational to East Asian civilizations, Confucianism continues to be a cultural force of global significance. The Oxford Handbook of Confucianism is a collection of 38 essays that explore the variety, complexity, and richness of Confucianism over time and across regions. These essays are written to be of value to the educated public while presenting new scholarship and fresh perspectives from leading scholars in Confucian studies. Using a range of critical approaches, the volume is divided into four parts. Confucianism presents unique problems to study and interpretation, and the introductory section offers three essays exploring the history and criticism of E...
There have been numerous publications in the last decades on the Bible in literature, film, and art. But until now, no reference work has yet appeared on the Bible as it appears in Western music. In The Bible in Music: A Dictionary of Songs, Works, and More, scholars Siobhán Dowling Long and John F. A. Sawyer correct this gap in Biblical reference literature, providing for the first time a convenient guide to musical interpretations of the Bible. Alongside examples of classical music from the Middle Ages through modern times, Dowling Long and Sawyer also bring attention to the Bible’s impact on popular culture with numerous entries on hymns, spirituals, musicals, film music, and contempor...
This must-have volume explores global developments in energy alternatives, focusing on nuclear energy, particularly the impact of the Fukushima nuclear crisis, as well as the politics and economics of energy alternatives. Primary sources and essays from international sources offer a truly panoramic view. Stellar essay sources include Yazeed Kamaldien, Integrated Regional Information Networks, Barack Obama, Young Il Choung, James Holloway, Yazeed Kamaldien, The Economist, and Siobhan Dowling.