Modernities, Memory and Mutations
Modernities, Memory and Mutations

Author: Abby Day

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-03-03

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1317094484

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Grace Davie, one of the world’s most influential scholars in contemporary sociology of religion, has furthered a tradition developed by David Martin and others in comparative sociology of religion and modernity in European and international perspective. Davie’s writings on belief and belonging, particularly in a context outside active Church participation, have contributed important understandings of the cultural role of religion as memory and practice in contemporary European societies. Through her most recent work on new roles of religion in relation to the political, legal and welfare sectors of society, she has addressed debates on the resurgence of religion and the ’post-secular condition’. Modernities, Memory and Mutations presents an overview and critical engagement with contemporary themes in the sociology of religion which will inform current and forthcoming generations of scholars. Reflecting on how Grace Davie’s contributions have influenced their own work and wider debates in the field, leading international scholars engage with themes Davie has critically explored across religious studies and mainstream sociology evolving a new research agenda for sociology of religion.

Modern Sufis and the State
Modern Sufis and the State

Author: Katherine Pratt Ewing

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2020-08-25

Total Pages: 228

ISBN-13: 0231551460

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Sufism is typically thought of as the mystical side of Islam. In recent years, it has been held up as a supposedly peaceful alternative to the spread of forms of Islam associated with violence, an embodiment of democratic ideals of tolerance and pluralism. Are Sufis in fact as otherworldy and apolitical as this stereotype suggests? Modern Sufis and the State brings together a range of scholars, including anthropologists, historians, and religious-studies specialists, to challenge common assumptions that are made about Sufism today. Focusing on India and Pakistan within a broader global context, this book provides locally grounded accounts of how Sufis in South Asia have engaged in politics from the colonial period to the present. Contributors foreground the effects and unintended consequences of efforts to link Sufism with the spread of democracy and consider what roles scholars and governments have played in the making of twenty-first-century Sufism. They critique the belief that Salafism and Sufism are antithetical, offering nuanced analyses of the diversity, multivalence, and local embeddedness of Sufi political engagements and self-representations in Pakistan and India. Essays question the portrayal of Sufi shrines as sites of toleration, peace, and harmony, exploring cases of tension and conflict. A wide-ranging interdisciplinary collection, Modern Sufis and the State is a timely call to think critically about the role of public discourse in shaping perceptions of Sufism.

Memory and Religion from a Postsecular Perspective
Memory and Religion from a Postsecular Perspective

Author: Zuzanna Bogumił

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-02-27

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 1000543307

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The book argues that religion is a system of significant meanings that have an impact on other systems and spheres of social life, including cultural memory. The editors call for a postsecular turn in memory studies which would provide a more reflective and meaningful approach to the constant interplay between the religious and the secular. This opens up new perspectives on the intersection of memory and religion and helps memory scholars become more aware of the religious roots of the language they are using in their studies of memory. By drawing on examples from different parts of the world, the contributors to this volume explain how the interactions between the religious and the secular produce new memory forms and content in the heterogenous societies of the present-day world. These analyzed cases demonstrate that religion has a significant impact on cultural memory, family memory and the contemporary politics of history in secularized societies. At the same time, politics, grassroots movements and different secular agents and processes have so much influence on the formation of memory by religious actors that even religious, ecclesiastic and confessional memories are affected by the secular. This volume is ideal for students and scholars of memory studies, religious studies and history.

Irish Mormons
Irish Mormons

Author: Hazel O'Brien

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2023-06-06

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0252054393

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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is one of the international religions that have arrived from abroad to find adherents in Ireland. Drawing on fieldwork in two LDS communities, Hazel O’Brien explores how these adherents experience the Church in Ireland against the backdrop of the country’s increasingly complex religious identity. Irish Latter-day Saints live on the margins of the nation’s religious life and the worldwide LDS movement. Nonetheless, they create a sense of belonging for themselves by drawing on collective memories of both their Irishness and their faith. As O’Brien shows, Irish Latter-day Saints work to shift the understanding of Ireland’s religious landscape away from a predominant focus on Roman Catholicism. They also challenge Utah-based constructions of Mormonism in order to ensure their place in the Church’s powerful religious and cultural lineage. Examining the Latter-day Saint experience against one nation’s rapid social and religious changes, Irish Mormons blends participant observation and interviews with analysis to offer a rare view of the Latter-day Saints in contemporary Ireland.

Religions in the Modern World
Religions in the Modern World

Author: Linda Woodhead

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-01-13

Total Pages: 615

ISBN-13: 1317439600

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Religions in the Modern World: Traditions and Transformations, Third Edition is the ideal textbook for those coming to the study of religion for the first time, as well as for those who wish to keep up-to-date with the latest perspectives in the field. This third edition contains new and upgraded pedagogic features, including chapter summaries, key terms and definitions, and questions for reflection and discussion. The first part of the book considers the history and modern practices of the main religious traditions of the world, while the second analyzes trends from secularization to the rise of new spiritualities. Comprehensive and fully international in coverage, it is accessibly written by practicing and specialist teachers.

Grief, Identity, and the Arts
Grief, Identity, and the Arts

Author: Bram Lambrecht

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2022-11-28

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 9004158715

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Grief, Identity and the Arts addresses the interplay between grief and identity in a broad range of artistic disciplines, historical periods, and geographical areas.

Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity
Rethinking Church, State, and Modernity

Author: David Lyon

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2000-01-01

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 9780802082138

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The contributors consider how Canada's religious experience is distinctive in the modern world, somewhere between the largely secularized Europe and the relatively religious United States.

Sociology of Religion
Sociology of Religion

Author: Abby Day

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-12-30

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0429619170

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The first sociology of religion textbook to begin the task of diversifying and decolonizing the study of religion, Sociology of Religion develops a sociological frame that draws together the personal, political and public, showing how religion – its origins, development and changes – is understood as a social institution, influenced by and influencing wider social structures. Organized along sociological structures and themes, the book works with examples from a variety of religious traditions and regions rather than focusing in depth on a selection, and foregrounds cultural practice-based understandings of religion. It is therefore a book about ‘religion’, not ‘religions’, that explores the relationship of religion with gender and sexuality, crime and violence, generations, politics and media, ‘race’, ethnicity and social class, disease and disability – highlighting the position of religion in social justice and equality. Each chapter of this book is framed around concrete case studies from a variety of Western and non-Western religious traditions. Students will benefit from thinking about the discipline across a range of geographical and religious contexts. The book includes features designed to engage and inspire students: Up-to-date and comprehensive analysis of engaging and accessible material ‘Case Examples’: short summaries of empirical examples relating to the chapter themes Visually distinct boxes with bullet points, key words and phrases focusing on the context Questions suitable for private or seminar study Suggested class exercises for instructors to use Suggested readings and further readings/online resources at the end of each chapter Following a review and critique of early sociology of religion, the book engages with more contemporary issues, such as dissolving the secular/sacred binary and paying close attention to issues of epistemology, negotiations, marginalities, feminisms, identities, power, nuances, globalization, (post) (multiple) modernity (ies), emotion, structuration, reflexivity, intersectionality and urbanization. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students exploring the sociology of religion, religion and society, religious studies, theology, globalization and human geography.

Religious Literacy, Law and History
Religious Literacy, Law and History

Author: Alberto Melloni

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-12-07

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1351398660

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The book profiles some of the macro and micro factors that have impact on European religious literacy. It seeks to understand religious illiteracy and its effects on the social and political milieu through the framing of the historical, institutional, religious, social, juridical and educational conditions within which it arises. Divided into four parts, in the first one, One literacy, more literacies?, the book defines the basic concepts underpinning the question of religious illiteracy in Europe. Part II, Understanding illiteracies, debating disciplines?, highlights the theological, philosophical, historical and political roots of the phenomenon, looking at the main nodes that are both the reasons religious illiteracy is widespread and the starting points for literacy strategies. Part III, Building literacy, shaping alphabets, examines the mix of knowledge and competences acquired about religion and from religion at school as well as through the media, with a critical perspective on what could be done both in the schools and for the improvement of journalists’ religious literacy. Part IV, Views and experiences, presents the reader with the opportunity to learn from three different case studies: religious literacy in the media, religious illiteracy and European Islam, and a Jewish approach to religious literacy. Building on existing literature, the volume takes a scientific approach which is enriched by interdisciplinary and transnational perspectives, and deep entrenchment in historical methodology.

Mors Britannica
Mors Britannica

Author: Douglas J. Davies

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015-11-12

Total Pages: 437

ISBN-13: 0191040002

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A people's lifestyle is one thing, their death-style another. The proximity or distance between such styles says much about a society, not least in Britain today. Mors Britannica takes up this style-issue in a society where cultural changes involve distinctions between traditional religion, secularisation, and emergent forms of spirituality, all of which involve emotions, where fear, longing, and a sense of loss rise in waves when death marks the root embodiment of our humanity. These world-orientations, evident in older and newer ritual practices, engage death in the hope and desire that love, relationships, community, and human identity be not rendered meaningless. Yet both emotions and ritual have an uneasiness to them because 'death' is a slippery topic as the twenty-first century gets under way in Britain. In this work, Douglas J. Davies draws from a largely anthropological-sociological perspective, with consideration of history, literature, philosophy, psychology, and theology, to provide a window into British life and insights into the foundation links between individuals and society, across the spectrum of traditionally religious views through to humanist and secular alternatives. He considers memorial sites (from churchyards to roadside memorials); forms of corporeal disposal (from cremation to composting); and death rites in a range of religious and secular traditions.