How does religion maintain or challenge discourses on national identity? What are the roles that religion plays on all sides – from Islamophobia of the radical right to the Christian alliances on both sides of the Atlantic, to the Islamic beliefs and practices of European citizens as well as migrant communities – in the constitution of Fortress Europe? Are there any alliances shaping between belief and unbelief on either side of the battle for the future of Europe?These questions an...

This book acts as a bridge between the critical study of 'religion' and empirical studies of 'religion in the real world'. Chris Cotter presents a concise and up-to-date critical survey of research on non-religion in the UK and beyond, before presenting the results of extensive research in Edinburgh's Southside which blurs the boundary between 'religion' and 'non-religion'. In doing so, Cotter demonstrates that these are dynamic subject positions, and phenomena can occupy both at the same ...

The World Religions Paradigm has been the subject of critique and controversy in Religious Studies for many years. After World Religions provides a rationale for overhauling the World Religions curriculum, as well as a roadmap for doing so. The volume offers concise and practical introductions to cutting-edge Religious Studies method and theory, introducing a wide range of pedagogical situations and innovative solutions. An international team of scholars addresses the challenges p...

Focusing on the important relationship between the 'sacred' and the 'secular', this book demonstrates that it is not paradoxical to think in terms of both secular and sacred or neither, in different times and places. International experts from a range of disciplinary perspectives draw on local, national, and international contexts to provide a fresh analytical approach to understanding these two contested poles. Exploring such phenomena at an individual, institutional, or theoretical level...

Whether understood in a narrow sense as the popular works of a small number of (white male) authors, or as a larger more diffuse movement, twenty-first century scholars, journalists, and activists from all ‘sides’ in the atheism versus theism debate, have noted the emergence of a particular form of atheism frequently dubbed ‘New Atheism’. The present collection has been brought together to provide a scholarly yet accessible consideration of the place and impact of ‘New Atheism’ in the cont...

From the local to the global level, religion is – more than ever – an important and hotly debated part of modern life in the twenty-first century.From silver rings to ringtones and from clubs to headscarves, we often find the cultural role and discussion of religion in unexpected ways.Now in its second edition, Religion: The Basics remains the best introduction to religion and contemporary culture available. The new edition has been fully revised and updated, and i...

This Reader brings together a selection of key writings to explore the relationship between religion, media and cultures of everyday life. It provides an overview of the main debates and developments in this growing field, focusing on four major themes:Religion, spirituality and consumer cultureMedia and the transformation of religionThe sacred senses: visual, material and audio cultureReligion, and the ethics of media and cult...

This updated textbook unravels the complex issues related to methodology and theory in the study of religion. It equips students with the knowledge needed for the academic study of religion, explaining the history of the methodology, including ideas of key theorists, and discusses key issues in the field, such as gender, phenomenology, and the insider/outsider discourse.Updated throughout, additional material includes:-New chapter on colonialism and post-colonialism-N...

Many aspects of religion are puzzling these days. This 2003 book looks at ways of improving our understanding of religious change by strengthening the links between social theory and the social scientific study of religion. It clarifies the social processes involved in constructing religion and non-religion in public and private life. Taking illustrations of the importance of these boundaries from studies of secularisation, religious diversity, globalisation, religious movements and self-i...

The Routledge Companion to the Study of Religion is a major resource for courses in Religious Studies. It begins by explaining the most important methodological approaches to religion, including psychology, philosophy, anthropology and comparative study, before moving on to explore a wide variety of critical issues, such as gender, science, fundamentalism, ritual, and new religious movements. Written by renowned international specialists, this new edition:includes ei...

This timely book aims to change the way we think about religion by putting emotion back onto the agenda. It challenges a tendency to over-emphasise rational aspects of religion, and rehabilitates its embodied, visceral and affective dimensions. Against the view that religious emotion is a purely private matter, it offers a new framework which shows how religious emotions arise in the varied interactions between human agents and religious communities, human agents and objects of devotion, a...

"About time! Two key experts in the field remind us of the significance and power of religion as bio-political and bio-economic."- Beverley Skeggs, Goldsmiths, University of London"A welcome addition to a continuing body of work by two distinguished theorists of religion."- Grace Davie, University of Exeter"Mellor and Shilling cement their place at the pinnacle of the contemporary sociological theorisation of...