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This pioneering volume offers an expansive introduction to the relatively new field of evolutionary studies in imaginative culture. Contributors from psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and the humanities probe the evolved human imagination and its artefacts. The book forcefully demonstrates that imagination is part of human nature. Contributors explore imaginative culture in seven main areas: Imagination: Evolution, Mechanisms and Functions Myth and Religion Aesthetic Theory Music Visual and Plastic Arts Video Games and Films Oral Narratives and Literature Evolutionary Perspectives on Imaginative Culture widens the scope of evolutionary cultural theory to include much of what “culture...
Why do people study religion? How have they studied it in the past? How do we study religion today? Is the academic study of religion the same as religious education? These and many other questions are addressed in this engaging introduction to the discipline of religious studies. Topics include Definitions of religion Perspectives in the study and teaching of religion How religion began to be studied: Traditional perspectives—philosophical and theological How people experience religion: Perspectives in the study of religious consciousness and perception—phenomenological and psychological Studying religion within communities: Social and cultural perspectives—anthropological, sociologic...
This book examines narratives of individual religious transformation in Western European literature and culture. Religious individuals, themes, experiences and communities are widely represented in diverse literature and culture, including literary texts and visual arts and media. Taking the subject of religious transformation as an angle from which to study constructions of religion, gender and race, this book reveals through various case studies what authors, documentary makers, film makers and playwrights consider to be important (possible) shifts between the old and the new, continuities and discontinuities, and the formation of the self. The chapters demonstrate how individual religious transformations are understood to be shaped by various intersections of difference, and point at the need to consider gender as always related to and co-constructing religion and race. This transdisciplinary and intimate study provides a fresh lens through which to examine pressing questions regarding the place and future of religion, gender and race in contemporary Western Europe.
The Cognitive Science of Religion introduces students to key empirical studies conducted over the past 25 years in this new and rapidly expanding field. In these studies, cognitive scientists of religion have applied the theories, findings and research tools of the cognitive sciences to understanding religious thought, behaviour and social dynamics. Each chapter is written by a leading international scholar, and summarizes in non-technical language the original empirical study conducted by the scholar. No prior or statistical knowledge is presumed, and studies included range from the classic to the more recent and innovative cases. Students will learn about the theories that cognitive scientists have employed to explain recurrent features of religiosity across cultures and historical eras, how scholars have tested those theories, and what the results of those tests have revealed and suggest. Written to be accessible to undergraduates, this provides a much-needed survey of empirical studies in the cognitive science of religion.
The past two decades have seen a growing interest in evolutionary and scientific approaches to religion. The Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Approaches to Religion is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting and emerging field. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the handbook pulls together scholarship in the following areas: evolutionary psychology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR) cultural evolution the complementarity of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science and cultural evolution Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including: Cliodynamics, cultural gr...
Anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse offers a sweeping account of how three ancient biases--conformism, religiosity, and tribalism--shaped humanity's past and imperil its future.
In both clinical and informal settings, psychedelics users often report they have undergone something profound and even life-altering. Yet there persists a confounding inability to articulate just what has been imparted. Informed by multidisciplinary emerging research, this book provides an account of the specifically educational aspects of psychedelics and how they can render us ready to learn. Drawing from indigenous peoples worldwide who typically revere these substances as "plant teachers" and from canonical thinkers in the western tradition such as Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Heidegger, the author proposes an original set of categories through which to understand the educational capabilities of "entheogens" (psychedelics with visionary qualities). It emerges that entheogens' real power lies not in destabilizing and decentering—"turning on and dropping out"—but as powerful aids in restoring and reenchanting our shared worlds.
There are few instances of a contemporary Western European society more firmly welded to religion than Ireland is to Catholicism. For much of the twentieth century, to be considered a good Irish citizen was to be seen as a good and observant Catholic. Today, the opposite may increasingly be the case. The Irish Catholic Church, once a spiritual institution beyond question, is not only losing influence and relevance; in the eyes of many, it has become something utterly desacralized. In this book, Hugh Turpin offers an innovative and in-depth account of the nature and emergence of "ex-Catholicism"—a new model of the good, and secular, Irish person that is being rapidly adopted in Irish societ...
This important book provides a comprehensive guide to understanding vaccine hesitancy, as well as the nuances of antivaccination claims. It is designed to give clinicians and other professionals targeted information to help them address vaccine hesitancy and antivaccination claims, as well as ways of responding to immunisation concerns. Alongside the scientific facts around vaccinations, it considers the historical foundations of modern vaccine scepticism, while offering key insights into the psychology behind vaccine hesitancy and the factors which influence an individual’s decision-making. Separating fact from fiction, the book explores the most well-known antivaccine myths, many of whic...