Description:
This edited collection harnesses a diversity of interpretivist perspectives to provide a panoramic view of the production, experiences, contexts, and meanings of religion.
Scholars from the US, South Asia and Europe explore religious phenomena using ethnographic, comparative historical, psychosocial, and critical theoretical approaches. Each chapter addresses foundational themes in the study of religion - from identity, discourse and power to ritual, emotion, and embodiment. Authors examine dynamic intersections of race, gender, history, and the present within the religious traditions of Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism, as well as among the non-religious.
Cutting boldly across religious traditions and paradigms, the book investigates areas of harmony and contradiction across different interpretive lenses to achieve a richer understanding of the meanings of religion.
Brief description: Vikash Singh is Associate Professor of Sociology at Montclair State University.
Review Quotes:
"Scholars of religion too often speak only to narrow academic circles. But this valuable collection of essays shows that good scholarship is also attentive to how people in the real world interpret their faith." Robert Wuthnow, Princeton University