Bøger i Studies in Religion & Culture serien

Why do we travel? Ostensibly an act of leisure, travel finds us thrusting ourselves into jets flying miles above the earth, only to endure dislocations of time and space, foods and languages foreign to our body and mind, and encounters with strangers on whom we must suddenly depend. Travel is not merely a break from routine; it is its antithesis, a voluntary trading in of the security one feels at home for unpredictability and confusion. In Bewildered Travel Frederick Ruf argues that this confusion, which we might think of simply as a necessary evil, is in fact the very thing we are seeking when we leave home.Ruf relates this quest for confusion to our religious behavior. Citing William James, who defined the religious as what enables us to "e;front life,"e; Ruf contends that the search for bewilderment allows us to point our craft into the wind and sail headlong into the storm rather than flee from it. This view challenges the Eliadean tradition that stresses religious ritual as a shield against the world's chaos. Ruf sees our departures from the familiar as a crucial component in a spiritual life, reminding us of the central role of pilgrimage in religion. In addition to his own revealing experiences as a traveler, Ruf presents the reader with the journeys of a large and diverse assortment of notable Americans, including Henry Miller, Paul Bowles, Mark Twain, Mary Oliver, and Walt Whitman. These accounts take us from the Middle East to the Philippines, India to Nicaragua, Mexico to Morocco--and, in one threatening instance, simply to the edge of the author's own neighborhood. "e;What gives value to travel is fear,"e; wrote Camus. This book illustrates the truth of that statement.

Responsibility is the queen of modern virtues, Winston Davis argues, even if there is no consensus as to what responsibility means. These essays, by scholars of philosophy, anthropology, history, religious studies, classics and law, encompass conceptions of responsibility around the globe.

Langdon Gilkey's account of his experiences as a witness for the ACLU at the 1981 creationist trial in Little Rock, Arkansas. The book brings to life principal characters and anecdotes from the trial and translates the abstract religious concepts of the case into digestable language.

Assessing of the state of the study of myth, this text explores the possibilities for charting a methodological middle course that takes into account both the comparative and the contextual issues raised since 1985.

Ordinarily Sacred aims to illuminate the sacred quality of experience that on the surface appears mundane or secular. Through stories, metaphors, and images, the author claims, we discover the religious or the sacred in the activities of ordinary life - dreams, play and memory.

It is often assumed that the law and religion address different spheres of human life. This book challenges this assumption by presenting the reader with an urgent conversation between the law and religion that yields a constructive approach, both theoretically and practically, to the complex role of mercy in our legal process.

A chronicle of the emergence and development of religion as a field of intellectual inquiry, this volume is an extensive survey of world's fairs from the inaugural Great Exhibition in London to the Chicago Columbian Exposition and World's Parliament of Religions.

Responsibility is the queen of modern virtues, Winston Davis argues, even if there is no consensus as to what responsibility means. These essays, by scholars of philosophy, anthropology, history, religious studies, classics and law, encompass conceptions of responsibility around the globe.

Boredom matters, claims this text, because it represents a threat to spiritual life. It can undermine prayer and meditation and signal the failure of religious imagination. If it is engaged seriously, however, it can also be the point for philosophical reflection and spiritual insight.

Examining the role of the imagination in the modern and postmodern periods, this book looks at the fable as a narrative form that addresses the ultimate questions of how to live and why. It calls for a reconsideration of 'theory as thinking' for the future of philosophy, religious studies, and literature.

A critique of the widespread view that the task of philosophical theology is to overcome ontotheology. Robbins argues that ontotheology, far from being a problem to overcome, is instead the very condition of being and thought.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 provides a legal framework within which Native Americans can seek the repatriation of human remains and certain categories of cultural objects from federally funded institutions. This book analyzes the ways in which religious discourse is used to articulate repatriation claims.

Talking about the Victorian critic and public intellectual John Ruskin, this work recovers both Ruskin's critique of economic life and his public practice of moral imagination. It recasts interpretations of Ruskin's place in 19th-century literature and aesthetics, and challenges nostalgic diagnoses of the supposed historical loss of virtue ethics.

Based on a study of more than 350 narratives, this text explores literary and cinematic representations of American Indian captivity. The roles the captivity narrative has played in Western religious writings, theological claims, narrative strategies and reading practices are also examined here.

This book provides an approach to understanding the connection between martial arts and spirituality in such diverse disciplines as Japanese aikido, Chinese tai chi chuan, Hindu yoga, Christian asceticism, Zen Buddhism and Islamic Jihad.

Conservative religious figures routinely warn against the dangers of secularization, just as proponents of the modern secular state decry the theocratic tendencies of religion. Both sides assume that the sacred and the secular are diametrically opposed. This work calls such misbegotten assumptions into question. The problem lies elsewhere.

The ten essays assembled in this volume represent, in an interdisciplinary way, the work of scholars attempting to understand the decline of mourning practices and their associated rituals. The text is arranged in sections on cultural studies, architecture, history and psychology.

It is often assumed that the law and religion address different spheres of human life. This book challenges this assumption by presenting the reader with an urgent conversation between the law and religion that yields a constructive approach, both theoretically and practically, to the complex role of mercy in our legal process.

This text examines the work of a broad selection of authors in order to discover the reasons for their loss of faith and to analyse the ways they have interpreted that loss. For some the experience of deconversion led to another religious faith while others turned to atheism or agnosticism.