Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion

Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion

Author: Brian K. Smith

Publisher: Motilal Banarsidass Publishe

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9788120815322

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The classical Vedic texts that deal with large-scale sacrificial ritual and those writings that deal with domestic ritual have traditionally been treated as unrelated. The former are devoted to the explication of rituals that are dominated by wealthy male elites; the latter concern humble private ceremonies more open to famale participation. Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual and Religion argues that there is in fact, a fundamental connection between these two large and important bodies of Indic religious literature.


Book Synopsis Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion by : Brian K. Smith

Download or read book Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion written by Brian K. Smith and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishe. This book was released on 1998 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classical Vedic texts that deal with large-scale sacrificial ritual and those writings that deal with domestic ritual have traditionally been treated as unrelated. The former are devoted to the explication of rituals that are dominated by wealthy male elites; the latter concern humble private ceremonies more open to famale participation. Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual and Religion argues that there is in fact, a fundamental connection between these two large and important bodies of Indic religious literature.


Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice

Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice

Author: Catherine Bell

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 1992-01-30

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780199760381

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Ritual studies today figures as a central element of religious discourse for many scholars around the world. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Catherine Bell's sweeping and seminal work on the subject, helped legitimize the field. In this volume, Bell re-examines the issues, methods, and ramifications of our interest in ritual by concentrating on anthropology, sociology, and the history of religions. Now with a new foreword by Diane Jonte-Pace, Bell's work is a must-read for understanding the evolution of the field of ritual studies and its current state.


Book Synopsis Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice by : Catherine Bell

Download or read book Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice written by Catherine Bell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-01-30 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual studies today figures as a central element of religious discourse for many scholars around the world. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Catherine Bell's sweeping and seminal work on the subject, helped legitimize the field. In this volume, Bell re-examines the issues, methods, and ramifications of our interest in ritual by concentrating on anthropology, sociology, and the history of religions. Now with a new foreword by Diane Jonte-Pace, Bell's work is a must-read for understanding the evolution of the field of ritual studies and its current state.


What is Religion?

What is Religion?

Author: Idinopulos

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-09-24

Total Pages: 190

ISBN-13: 9004379045

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What is Religion? consists of fourteen essays written by a selection of scholars who represent a wide spectrum of approaches to the acedamic study of religion. Each of the essays is an effort not only to take stock of the present controversy concerning appropriate methodologies for the study of religion, but also to take one giant step beyond that to formulate a precise definition of religion. Given the considerable confusion today about what it is exactly that religious studies scholars take to be their subject matter when they presume to professionally teachabout religion, this volume provides a much needed forum for leading scholars to debate and clarify what professors of religious studies understand as the central object or objects under their scrunity.


Book Synopsis What is Religion? by : Idinopulos

Download or read book What is Religion? written by Idinopulos and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2018-09-24 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is Religion? consists of fourteen essays written by a selection of scholars who represent a wide spectrum of approaches to the acedamic study of religion. Each of the essays is an effort not only to take stock of the present controversy concerning appropriate methodologies for the study of religion, but also to take one giant step beyond that to formulate a precise definition of religion. Given the considerable confusion today about what it is exactly that religious studies scholars take to be their subject matter when they presume to professionally teachabout religion, this volume provides a much needed forum for leading scholars to debate and clarify what professors of religious studies understand as the central object or objects under their scrunity.


The Robert Bellah Reader

The Robert Bellah Reader

Author: Robert N. Bellah

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2006-10-09

Total Pages: 565

ISBN-13: 0822388138

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Perhaps best known for his coauthored bestselling books Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, Robert N. Bellah is a truly visionary leader in the social study of religion. For more than four decades, he has examined the role of religion in modern and premodern societies, attempting to discern how religious meaning is formed and how it shapes ethical and political practices. The Robert Bellah Reader brings together twenty-eight of Bellah’s seminal essays. While the essays span a period of more than forty years, nearly half of them were written in the past decade, many in the past few years. The Reader is organized around four central concerns. It seeks to place modernity in theoretical and historical perspective, drawing from major figures in social science, historical and contemporary, from Aristotle and Rousseau through Durkheim and Weber to Habermas and Mary Douglas. It takes the United States to be in some respects the type-case of modernity and in others the most atypical of modern societies, analyzing its common faith in individual freedom and democratic self-government, and its persistent paradoxes of inequality, exclusion, and empire. The Reader is also concerned to test the axiomatic modern assumption that rational cognition and moral evaluation, fact and value, are absolutely divided, arguing instead that they overlap and interact much more than conventional wisdom in the university today usually admits. Finally, it criticizes modernity’s affirmation that faith and knowledge stand even more utterly at odds, arguing instead that their overlap and interaction, obvious in every premodern society, animate the modern world as well. Through such critical and constructive inquiry this Reader probes many of our deepest social and cultural quandaries, quandaries that put modernity itself, with all its immense achievements, at mortal risk. Through the practical self-understanding such inquiry spurs, Bellah shows how we may share responsibility for the world we have made and seek to heal it.


Book Synopsis The Robert Bellah Reader by : Robert N. Bellah

Download or read book The Robert Bellah Reader written by Robert N. Bellah and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2006-10-09 with total page 565 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps best known for his coauthored bestselling books Habits of the Heart and The Good Society, Robert N. Bellah is a truly visionary leader in the social study of religion. For more than four decades, he has examined the role of religion in modern and premodern societies, attempting to discern how religious meaning is formed and how it shapes ethical and political practices. The Robert Bellah Reader brings together twenty-eight of Bellah’s seminal essays. While the essays span a period of more than forty years, nearly half of them were written in the past decade, many in the past few years. The Reader is organized around four central concerns. It seeks to place modernity in theoretical and historical perspective, drawing from major figures in social science, historical and contemporary, from Aristotle and Rousseau through Durkheim and Weber to Habermas and Mary Douglas. It takes the United States to be in some respects the type-case of modernity and in others the most atypical of modern societies, analyzing its common faith in individual freedom and democratic self-government, and its persistent paradoxes of inequality, exclusion, and empire. The Reader is also concerned to test the axiomatic modern assumption that rational cognition and moral evaluation, fact and value, are absolutely divided, arguing instead that they overlap and interact much more than conventional wisdom in the university today usually admits. Finally, it criticizes modernity’s affirmation that faith and knowledge stand even more utterly at odds, arguing instead that their overlap and interaction, obvious in every premodern society, animate the modern world as well. Through such critical and constructive inquiry this Reader probes many of our deepest social and cultural quandaries, quandaries that put modernity itself, with all its immense achievements, at mortal risk. Through the practical self-understanding such inquiry spurs, Bellah shows how we may share responsibility for the world we have made and seek to heal it.


Between Jerusalem and Benares

Between Jerusalem and Benares

Author: Hananya Goodman

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2016-03-22

Total Pages: 362

ISBN-13: 1438404379

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This book stands at the crossroads between Jerusalem and Benares and opens a long awaited conversation between two ancient religious traditions. It represents the first serious attempt by a group of eminent scholars of Judaic and Indian studies to take seriously the cross-cultural resonances among the Judaic and Hindu traditions. The essays in the first part of the volume explore the historical connections and influences between the two traditions, including evidence of borrowed elements and the adaptation of Jewish Indian communities to Hindu culture. The essays in the second part focus primarily on resonances between particular conceptual complexes and practices in the two traditions, including comparative analyses of representations of Veda and Torah, legal formulations of dharma and halakhah, and conceptions of union with the Divine in Hindu Tantra and Kabbalah.


Book Synopsis Between Jerusalem and Benares by : Hananya Goodman

Download or read book Between Jerusalem and Benares written by Hananya Goodman and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2016-03-22 with total page 362 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book stands at the crossroads between Jerusalem and Benares and opens a long awaited conversation between two ancient religious traditions. It represents the first serious attempt by a group of eminent scholars of Judaic and Indian studies to take seriously the cross-cultural resonances among the Judaic and Hindu traditions. The essays in the first part of the volume explore the historical connections and influences between the two traditions, including evidence of borrowed elements and the adaptation of Jewish Indian communities to Hindu culture. The essays in the second part focus primarily on resonances between particular conceptual complexes and practices in the two traditions, including comparative analyses of representations of Veda and Torah, legal formulations of dharma and halakhah, and conceptions of union with the Divine in Hindu Tantra and Kabbalah.


Negotiating Rites

Negotiating Rites

Author: Ute Husken

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 0199812292

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Ritual has been long viewed as an undisputed and indisputable part of (especially religious) tradition, performed over and over in the same ways: stable in form, meaningless, preconcieved, and with the aim of creating harmony and enabling a tradition's survival. The authors represented in this collection argue, however, that this view can be seriously challenged and that ritual's embeddedness in negotiation processes is one of its central features.


Book Synopsis Negotiating Rites by : Ute Husken

Download or read book Negotiating Rites written by Ute Husken and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ritual has been long viewed as an undisputed and indisputable part of (especially religious) tradition, performed over and over in the same ways: stable in form, meaningless, preconcieved, and with the aim of creating harmony and enabling a tradition's survival. The authors represented in this collection argue, however, that this view can be seriously challenged and that ritual's embeddedness in negotiation processes is one of its central features.


The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim

The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim

Author: Jeffrey C. Alexander

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2005-05-26

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 113982662X

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Long recognised as a foundational figure in the development of social scientific thought, Emile Durkheim's work has been the subject of intense debate over the years. This authoritative and comprehensive collection of essays re-examines the impact of Durkheim's thought, considering the historical contexts of his work as well as evaluating his ideas in relation to current issues and controversies. Eminent authorities in the field have contributed to this up-to-date overview, giving the reader - both students and academics - a chance to engage directly with leading figures in the field about contemporary trends, ideas and dilemmas. This volume reflects the cross-disciplinary application of Durkheim's theories and will interest scholars of anthropology, political science, cultural studies and philosophy, as well as sociology. This is a landmark volume that redefines the relevance of Durkheim to the human sciences in the twenty-first century.


Book Synopsis The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim by : Jeffrey C. Alexander

Download or read book The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim written by Jeffrey C. Alexander and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2005-05-26 with total page 446 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Long recognised as a foundational figure in the development of social scientific thought, Emile Durkheim's work has been the subject of intense debate over the years. This authoritative and comprehensive collection of essays re-examines the impact of Durkheim's thought, considering the historical contexts of his work as well as evaluating his ideas in relation to current issues and controversies. Eminent authorities in the field have contributed to this up-to-date overview, giving the reader - both students and academics - a chance to engage directly with leading figures in the field about contemporary trends, ideas and dilemmas. This volume reflects the cross-disciplinary application of Durkheim's theories and will interest scholars of anthropology, political science, cultural studies and philosophy, as well as sociology. This is a landmark volume that redefines the relevance of Durkheim to the human sciences in the twenty-first century.


Religions of the World [6 volumes]

Religions of the World [6 volumes]

Author: J. Gordon Melton

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2010-09-21

Total Pages: 3788

ISBN-13: 1598842048

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This masterful six-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts. Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices is an extraordinary work, bringing together the scholarship of some 225 experts from around the globe. The encyclopedia's six volumes offer entries on every country of the world, with particular emphasis on the larger nations, as well as Indonesia and the Latin American countries that are traditionally given little attention in English-language reference works. Entries include profiles on religion in the world's smallest countries (the Vatican and San Marino), profiles on religion in recently established or disputed countries (Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh), as well as profiles on religion in some of the world's most remote places (Antarctica and Easter Island). Religions of the World is unique in that it is based in religion "on the ground," tracing the development of each of the 16 major world religious traditions through its institutional expressions in the modern world, its major geographical sites, and its major celebrations. Unlike other works, the encyclopedia also covers the world of religious unbelief as expressed in atheism, humanism, and other traditions.


Book Synopsis Religions of the World [6 volumes] by : J. Gordon Melton

Download or read book Religions of the World [6 volumes] written by J. Gordon Melton and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-09-21 with total page 3788 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This masterful six-volume encyclopedia provides comprehensive, global coverage of religion, emphasizing larger religious communities without neglecting the world's smaller religious outposts. Religions of the World, Second Edition: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices is an extraordinary work, bringing together the scholarship of some 225 experts from around the globe. The encyclopedia's six volumes offer entries on every country of the world, with particular emphasis on the larger nations, as well as Indonesia and the Latin American countries that are traditionally given little attention in English-language reference works. Entries include profiles on religion in the world's smallest countries (the Vatican and San Marino), profiles on religion in recently established or disputed countries (Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh), as well as profiles on religion in some of the world's most remote places (Antarctica and Easter Island). Religions of the World is unique in that it is based in religion "on the ground," tracing the development of each of the 16 major world religious traditions through its institutional expressions in the modern world, its major geographical sites, and its major celebrations. Unlike other works, the encyclopedia also covers the world of religious unbelief as expressed in atheism, humanism, and other traditions.


Embodying the Vedas

Embodying the Vedas

Author: Borayin Larios

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2017-04-10

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 3110517329

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Popularly Hinduism is believed to be the world’s oldest living religion. This claim is based on a continuous reverence to the oldest strata of religious authority within the Hindu traditions, the Vedic corpus, which began to be composed more than three thousand years ago, around 1750–1200 BCE. The Vedas have been considered by many as the philosophical cornerstone of the Brahmanical traditions (āstika); even previous to the colonial construction of the concept of “Hinduism.” However, what can be pieced together from the Vedic texts is very different from contemporary Hindu religious practices, beliefs, social norms and political realities. This book presents the results of a study of the traditional education and training of Brahmins through the traditional system of education called gurukula as observed in 25 contemporary Vedic schools across the state of Maharasthra. This system of education aims to teach Brahmin males how to properly recite, memorize and ultimately embody the Veda. This book combines insights from ethnographic and textual analysis to unravel how the recitation of the Vedic texts and the Vedic traditions, as well as the identity of the traditional Brahmin in general, are transmitted from one generation to the next in contemporary India.


Book Synopsis Embodying the Vedas by : Borayin Larios

Download or read book Embodying the Vedas written by Borayin Larios and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2017-04-10 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popularly Hinduism is believed to be the world’s oldest living religion. This claim is based on a continuous reverence to the oldest strata of religious authority within the Hindu traditions, the Vedic corpus, which began to be composed more than three thousand years ago, around 1750–1200 BCE. The Vedas have been considered by many as the philosophical cornerstone of the Brahmanical traditions (āstika); even previous to the colonial construction of the concept of “Hinduism.” However, what can be pieced together from the Vedic texts is very different from contemporary Hindu religious practices, beliefs, social norms and political realities. This book presents the results of a study of the traditional education and training of Brahmins through the traditional system of education called gurukula as observed in 25 contemporary Vedic schools across the state of Maharasthra. This system of education aims to teach Brahmin males how to properly recite, memorize and ultimately embody the Veda. This book combines insights from ethnographic and textual analysis to unravel how the recitation of the Vedic texts and the Vedic traditions, as well as the identity of the traditional Brahmin in general, are transmitted from one generation to the next in contemporary India.


The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics

The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics

Author: William Schweiker

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 640

ISBN-13: 1405144440

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Written by internationally renowned scholars, this Companion maps the moral teachings of the world’s religions, and also charts new directions for work in the field of religious ethics. Now available in paperback, this is a rich resource for understanding the moral teachings and practices of the world’s religions Includes detailed discussions of issues in moral theory Offers extensive treatment of the world’s major religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese religions and African religions Compares the ways in which the religions provide resources for addressing current moral challenges in areas such as ecology, economics, global dynamics, religious war, human rights and other topics.


Book Synopsis The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics by : William Schweiker

Download or read book The Blackwell Companion to Religious Ethics written by William Schweiker and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 640 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by internationally renowned scholars, this Companion maps the moral teachings of the world’s religions, and also charts new directions for work in the field of religious ethics. Now available in paperback, this is a rich resource for understanding the moral teachings and practices of the world’s religions Includes detailed discussions of issues in moral theory Offers extensive treatment of the world’s major religious traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Chinese religions and African religions Compares the ways in which the religions provide resources for addressing current moral challenges in areas such as ecology, economics, global dynamics, religious war, human rights and other topics.