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Anthropologists of religion study themes central to the understanding of humanity, such as the power of ritual, the authority of language, and the exemplary character of myth. This Handbook brings together leading specialists to explain the historical and intellectual background to how anthropologists approach religion, and to show why its study remains a dynamic means of reflecting on contemporary life around the globe. Each chapter combines overviews of a given topic with original observations, and the Handbook is structured for ease of teaching. Five sections guide the reader on different routes through the field, helping to provoke further questions on historical and intellectual approaches; 'Indigenous' religions; 'World' religions; enduring themes; and emergent themes. The aim is to help students and researchers recognize how and why the field has been organized in certain ways, but also to make them feel confident enough to challenge its assumptions and to consider directions it might go in the future. This Handbook provides an excellent introduction to some of the most important elements of anthropology, including the discipline's emphases on comparison, embodied experience, and scepticism toward taken-for-granted categories. It also shows how religious practices remain entangled with some of the pressing themes and questions of our time, including how we perceive and treat our environment, ways in which we deal with religious and cultural differences, and the religious dimensions of virtual and mediated means of communication.
List of contents
- Introduction: On the Virtues of 'Reading Across'
- Section 1: Approaches
- 1: Alexander Riley: The French Tradition
- 2: Ivan Strenski: Victorian Anthropologies of Religion: Their Puzzles and Problems
- 3: Matt Tomlinson: Cultural Analysis
- 4: Courtney Handman: Linguistic Approaches
- 5: Peter Stromberg: Narrative Analysis
- 6: Christopher Stephan and C. Jason Throop: Phenomenological Analysis
- 7: Joseph Webster: Approaches through Materiality
- 8: Carles Salazar: Cognitive Approaches
- 9: Brian M. Howell: Insiders and Outsiders in the Anthropology of Christianity
- Section 2: The Study of 'Indigenous Religions'
- 10: Joseph Hellweg and Dianna Bell: Person, Cosmos, and Power in the Anthropology of Religions in Africa: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Theory and Ethnography
- 11: Aprecida Vilaça: An Unstable 'Religion': Shamanism, Perspectivism, and 'Perpetual Disequilibrium' in Amazonia
- 12: John Barker and Dan Jorgensen: Melanesia
- 13: Robert W. Hefner: An Anthropology of Religion and Modernity Across Eastern Asia
- 14: Carolyn Schwarz: Religions of Aboriginal Australia
- 15: Meaghan Weatherdon and Pamela E. Klassen: The Study of Indigenous Religions in North America
- Section 3: 'World Religions' Revisited
- 16: Jonathan Mair: The Anthropology of Buddhism
- 17: David N. Gellner: Living with Polytropy and Hierarchy: The Anthropology of Hinduism
- 18: Anne Vallely: Jainism
- 19: Magnus Marsden: The Anthropology of Islam
- 20: Don Seeman and Nehemia A. Stern: Anthropology, Judaism, and Jews
- 21: Ruy Llera Blanes and Annelin Eriksen: Arguing with Christianity: Pentecostalism as a Challenge for Anthropology
- Section 4: Enduring Themes
- 22: Isak Niehaus: Magic and Witchcraft: Changing Anthropological Interpretations
- 23: Andrew J. Strathern and Pamela J. Stewart: Ritual: Revivals and Excursions
- 24: Jon P. Mitchell: Belief
- 25: Sonja Luehrmann: The Secular and the Sacred
- 26: James S. Bielo: Religion and Science
- 27: Anna I. Corwin and Jessica Hardin: Religion and Medicine: Productive Contrasts and their Limitations
- 28: Nicholas H.A. Evans: Morality
- 29: Susan J. Rasmussen: Spirit Possession and Religion: Excavating the Unexpected in an Uneasy Relationship
- 30: Morten Axel Pedersen: Shamanism
- 31: Britt Halvorson: Religion and Economies: Four Cultural Articulations and Their Insights
- 32: Susan Sared: Gender and Religion
- 33: Deborah Van Heerken: Myth
- 34: Pnina Werbner and Richard Werbner: Charisma
- 35: Jacob R. Hickman and Joseph Webster: Millenarianism
- Section 5: Emergent Themes
- 36: Ursula Rao: Religion and the Public Sphere
- 37: Jon Bialecki: Virtual Religion
- 38: Knut Rio: Religion, Globalization, and Universalism
- 39: Tom Boylston: Religion and Media (Human Communication, with a Loop in it)
- 40: Julia L. Cassaniti: Emotion in the Anthropology of Religion
- 41: Allen Abramson: Plural Entirety: Anthropology, Cosmology, and the 'Unnatural' Study of Human Worlds
About the author
Simon Coleman is Chancellor Jackman Professor at the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto. Previously, he has worked at the Universities of Cambridge, Durham, and Sussex. He is a specialist in both pilgrimage and Pentecostalism, and has carried out fieldwork in Sweden, Nigeria, and the UK. Simon is a former editor of the
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.
Joel Robbins is Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He is a specialist in the anthropology of Christianity, the study of ethics, values, and ritual, and anthropological theory. He is former editor of the journal
Anthropological Theory and of the book series
The Anthropology of Christianity.
