Results by title
200 books match the query 'Sociology of Religion' and 18 start with r
Redeeming Time
Protestantism and Chicago's Eight-Hour Movement, 1866-1912William A. Mirola
University of Illinois Press, 2015
William A. Mirola explores how the city's eight-hour movement intersected with a Protestant religious culture that supported long hours to keep workers from idleness, intemperance, and secular leisure activities. Analyzing how both workers and clergy rewove working-class religious cultures and ideologies into strategic and rhetorical frames, Mirola shows how every faith-based appeal contested whose religious meanings would define labor conditions and conflicts. As he notes, the ongoing worker-employer tension transformed both how clergy spoke about the eight-hour movement and what they were willing to do, until intensified worker protest and employer intransigence spurred Protestant clergy to support the eight-hour movement even as political and economic arguments eclipsed religious framing.
A revealing study of an era and a movement, Redeeming Time illustrates the potential--and the limitations--of religious culture and religious leaders as forces in industrial reform.
Redescriptions
Toward a New Comparative ReligionRussell T. McCutcheon
Rutgers University Press, 2027
Although religion has long occupied the attention of scholars it has uniformly been assumed by them to be a special case, either to be nurtured and curated or explained away by developing theories specifically suited to it. This bracketing of our object of study has isolated the field and made it difficult for many to understand: Is religion a theological enterprise? Is it suited to the public university? Does it offend against some people’s sensibilities? Redescriptions: Toward a New Comparative Religion proposes a model for how to address this ambiguity by averring that the things scholars call religion are simply routine human doings that are therefore comparable to any other aspect of culture. The book offers a series of controlled experiments in which some novel conclusions about seemingly religious items—from myths of origins to memorials for the dead—are reached by placing them into some unexpected relationships of comparison.
Regulating Difference
Religious Diversity and Nationhood in the Secular WestMarian Burchardt
Rutgers University Press, 2020
Transnational migration has contributed to the rise of religious diversity and has led to profound changes in the religious make-up of society across the Western world. As a result, societies and nation-states have faced the challenge of crafting ways to bring new religious communities into existing institutions and the legal frameworks. Regulating Difference explores how the state regulates religious diversity and examines the processes whereby religious diversity and expression becomes part of administrative landscapes of nation-states and people’s everyday lives. Arguing that concepts of nationhood are key to understanding the governance of religious diversity, Regulating Difference employs a transatlantic comparison of the Spanish region of Catalonia and the Canadian province of Quebec to show how processes of nation-building, religious heritage-making and the mobilization of divergent interpretations of secularism are co-implicated in shaping religious diversity. It argues that religious diversity has become central for governing national and urban spaces.
This book is also freely available online as an open access digital edition.
Religion and Social Justice For Immigrants
Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette
Rutgers University Press, 2006
Religion has jumped into the sphere of global and domestic politics in ways that few would have imagined a century ago. Some expected that religion would die as modernity flourished. Instead, it now stares at us almost daily from the front pages of newspapers and television broadcasts. Although it is usually stories about the Christian Right or conservative Islam that grab headlines, there are many religious activists of other political persuasions that are working quietly for social justice. This book examines how religious immigrants and religious activists are working for equitable treatment for immigrants in the United States.
The essays in this book analyze the different ways in which organized religion provides immigrants with an arena for mobilization, civic participation, and solidarity. Contributors explore topics including how non-Western religious groups such as the Vietnamese Caodai are striving for community recognition and addressing problems such as racism, economic issues, and the politics of diaspora; how interfaith groups organize religious people into immigrant civil rights activists at the U.S.–Mexican border; and how Catholic groups advocate governmental legislation and policies on behalf of refugees.
Religion and Spirituality in Korean America
Edited by David K. Yoo and Ruth H. Chung
University of Illinois Press, 2007
Contributors: Ruth H. Chung, Jae Ran Kim, Jung Ha Kim, Rebecca Kim, Sharon Kim, Okyun Kwon, Sang Hyun Lee, Anselm Kyongsuk Min, Sharon A. Suh, Sung Hyun Um, and David K. Yoo
Religion and the Culture of Print in Modern America
Edited by Charles L. Cohen and Paul S. Boyer
University of Wisconsin Press, 2008
Religion and the Social Sciences
Basic and Applied Research PerspectivesJeff Levin
Templeton Press, 2018
To give this research the attention it deserves, editor Jeff Levin assembled a panel of preeminent social scientists and gave them a single directive: write the ultimate statement on religion from within their respective social science discipline or field. The result is this single volume, “state-of-the-science” compendium—a first of its kind for the study of religion.
Composed of ten essays, this book details the study of religion within nine basic and applied areas of social science. Along with a critical introduction to this subject, these essays include the expert contributions of:
- Kenneth I. Pargament & Julie J. Exline on psychology
- Anthony Gill on political science
- Charles M. North on economics
- Barry Hankins on history
- Annette Mahoney on family studies
- Byron R. Johnson on criminology
- Linda K. George on gerontology
- William H. Jeynes on education
- Jeff Levin on epidemiology
- An introduction to the history of the discipline’s or field’s religious research, as well as its most important people and published works.
- A comprehensive overview of key research findings and theories.
- A detailed research agenda to guide future scholars.
- An annotated bibliography of seminal works for the reader’s further consideration.
Religion is Not about God
How Spiritual Traditions Nurture our Biological Nature and What to Expect When They FailLoyal Rue
Rutgers University Press, 2006
Thousands of religious traditions have appeared over the course of human history but only a relative few have survived. Some speak of a myriad of gods, others of only one, and some recognize no gods at all. Volumes have been written attempting to prove the existence or nonexistence of supernatural being(s). So, if religion is not about God, then what is it about?
In this provocative book, Loyal Rue contends that religion, very basically, is about us. Successful religions are narrative (myth) traditions that influence human nature so that we might think, feel, and act in ways that are good for us, both individually and collectively. Through the use of images, symbols, and rituals, religion promotes reproductive fitness and survival through the facilitation of harmonious social relations. Drawing on examples from the major traditions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—Rue shows how each religion, in its own way, has guided human behavior to advance the twin goals of personal fulfillment and social coherence.
As all faiths are increasingly faced with a crisis of intellectual plausibility and moral relevance, this book presents a compelling and positive view of the centrality and meaning of religion.
Religion is Not about God
How Spiritual Traditions Nurture our Biological Nature and What to Expect When They FailLoyal Rue
Rutgers University Press, 2006
2006 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Thousands of religious traditions have appeared over the course of human history but only a relative few have survived. Some speak of a myriad of gods, others of only one, and some recognize no gods at all. Volumes have been written attempting to prove the existence or nonexistence of supernatural being(s). So, if religion is not about God, then what is it about?
In this provocative book, Loyal Rue contends that religion, very basically, is about us. Successful religions are narrative (myth) traditions that influence human nature so that we might think, feel, and act in ways that are good for us, both individually and collectively. Through the use of images, symbols, and rituals, religion promotes reproductive fitness and survival through the facilitation of harmonious social relations. Drawing on examples from the major traditions—Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism—Rue shows how each religion, in its own way, has guided human behavior to advance the twin goals of personal fulfillment and social coherence.
As all faiths are increasingly faced with a crisis of intellectual plausibility and moral relevance, this book presents a compelling and positive view of the centrality and meaning of religion.
Religion, Education and the American Experience
Reflections on Religion and the American Public LifeEdith L. Blumhofer
University of Alabama Press, 2002
This collection of provocative and timely essays addresses the ways in which religious and educational institutions have come to define one another and American culture and identity.
Education in America-public and private, from the elementary to the university level-is the subject of urgent, ongoing debates. School vouchers, home schooling, prayer in the classrooms, sex education in the schools, and evolution versus creationism are just a few of the touchstones and flashpoints that have ignited a national dialogue concerning the role of religion in U.S. educational institutions.
The ten major essays assembled here emerged from a series of conferences conducted by the Public Religion Project at the University of Chicago Divinity School, funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trust. Written by recognized leaders in the fields of education and religion, the essays address such issues as the role of religious studies programs in tax-supported public universities; the evolving role of the university chaplain; the impact of religious doctrine on literary scholarship and the natural sciences; the college president as a spiritual leader; the secularization of private colleges whose foundations rest in the spiritual mission of a specific church or denomination and, conversely, the obligations, if any, of colleges that have maintained distinct denominational identities toward pluralistic outreach and openness; and an examination of the home schooling movement.
A true "dialogue" designed to inspire readers to rethink, argue, act, and continually converse on the subject, Religion, Education, and the American Experience will appeal to educators, college and university administrators, and boards of trustees, as well as academic libraries and scholars of education and religious studies.
Religion, Media, and Marginality in Modern Africa
Felicitas Becker
Ohio University Press, 2018
In recent years, anthropologists, historians, and others have been drawn to study the profuse and creative usages of digital media by religious movements. At the same time, scholars of Christian Africa have long been concerned with the history of textual culture, the politics of Bible translation, and the status of the vernacular in Christianity. Students of Islam in Africa have similarly examined politics of knowledge, the transmission of learning in written form, and the influence of new media. Until now, however, these arenas—Christianity and Islam, digital media and “old” media—have been studied separately.
Religion, Media, and Marginality in Modern Africa is one of the first volumes to put new media and old media into significant conversation with one another, and also offers a rare comparison between Christianity and Islam in Africa. The contributors find many previously unacknowledged correspondences among different media and between the two faiths. In the process they challenge the technological determinism—the notion that certain types of media generate particular forms of religious expression—that haunts many studies. In evaluating how media usage and religious commitment intersect in the social, cultural, and political landscapes of modern Africa, this collection will contribute to the development of new paradigms for media and religious studies.
Contributors: Heike Behrend, Andre Chappatte, Maria Frahm-Arp, David Gordon, Liz Gunner, Bruce S. Hall, Sean Hanretta, Jorg Haustein, Katrien Pype, and Asonzeh Ukah.
Religion, Media, and the Marketplace
Clark, Lynn Schofield
Rutgers University Press, 2007
Religion is infiltrating the arena of consumer culture in increasingly visible ways. We see it in a myriad of forms-in movies, such as Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, on Internet shrines and kitschy Web "altars," and in the recent advertising campaign that attacked fuel-guzzling SUVs by posing the question: What would Jesus drive?
In Religion, Media, and the Marketplace, scholars in history, media studies, and sociology explore this intersection of the secular and the sacred. Topics include how religious leaders negotiate between the competing aims of the mainstream and the devout in the commercial marketplace, how politics and religious beliefs combine to shape public policy initiatives, how the religious "other" is represented in the media, and how consumer products help define the practice of different faiths.
At a time when religious fundamentalism in the United States and throughout the world is inseparable from political aims, this interdisciplinary look at the mutual influences between religion and the media is essential reading for scholars from a wide variety of disciplines.
Religion, Order, and Law
David Little
University of Chicago Press, 1984
Religious Change in Post-Mao China
Toward a New Sociology of ReligionYanfei Sun
University of Chicago Press, 2026
In Religious Change in Post-Mao China, sociologist Yanfei Sun examines the transformation of major religions and the broader religious ecology in China in the wake of the death of Mao Zedong. Drawing on two decades of research that integrates ethnographic, historical, and comparative methods, this book explores the remarkable rise of Protestantism, the challenges faced by Catholicism, the revival of Chinese popular religion, the complex dynamics of Chinese Buddhism, and the unrealized potential of new religious movements. Why do some religions thrive and others struggle in post-Mao China? Sun describes both the internal institutional factors that allow some religions to flourish and the wider sociopolitical context that supports or discourages religious expansion. She thereby introduces an ambitious theoretical framework—one whose applicability extends beyond China, offering a template for analyzing religious dynamics in other parts of the world.
A must-read for scholars of religious studies, sociology, and China studies, Religious Change in Post-Mao China not only provides critical insights into China’s evolving religious landscape but also offers a powerful lens for examining the forces behind religious change, both past and present.
Remembering Suffering and Resistance
Memory Politics and the Serbian Orthodox ChurchKarin Roginer Hofmeister
Central European University Press, 2024
Assessing issues related to the Orthodox Church from an academic, secular point of view is a sensitive matter. However, by tracing and interpreting the engagement of the Serbian Church with the memory of Serbian heroic victimhood in World War II through a kind of “methodological agnosticism,” this volume has managed to tackle the subtle topic in a very delicate and value-neutral way. Arguing that the search for a collective memory is particularly urgent in the face of societal uncertainty and that religious institutions often use their memory potential to reaffirm their public relevance, the book examines the motivations, forms, strategies, and outcomes of a wide range of mnemonic activities the Serbian Orthodox Church engaged in following the upheavals caused by the collapse of Yugoslav socialism, the violent dissolution of the country, and the fall of the Milošević regime. These activities, taking place within the memory fields framed by the post-socialist, post-conflict, and post-secular horizons, took liturgical and non-liturgical forms, often involving a hybrid fusion of the two. As a result of this mnemonic endeavor, the author argues, the Church was successful in reasserting its power and legitimacy in the public sphere of post-2000 Serbia.
Remixing Religion
Multiple Religious Belonging and Beyond – A Latourian ProposalAndré van der Braak
Amsterdam University Press, 2026
Revivalism and Cultural Change
Christianity, Nation Building, and the Market in the Nineteenth-Century United StatesGeorge M. Thomas
University of Chicago Press, 1989
"Subtle and complex. . . . Fascinating."—Randolph Roth, Pennsylvania History
"[Revivalism and Cultural Change] should be read with interest by those interested in religious movements as well as the connections among religion, economics, and politics."—Charles L. Harper, Contemporary Sociology
"Readers old and new stand to gain much from Thomas's sophisticated study of the macrosociology of religion in the United States during the nineteenth century. . . . He has given the sociology of religion its best quantitative study of revivalism since the close of the 1970s."—Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion
Robert H. Gardiner and the Reunification of Worldwide Christianity in the Progressive Era
John F. Woolverton
University of Missouri Press, 2005