Cultural Identity and Civil Society in Russia and Eastern Europe
In memory of Charles E. Timberlake, this volume by his colleagues and students explores liberalism, Orthodoxy, and civil society in Russia and Eastern Europe from the late imperial era to the post-Soviet period.
Manufacturing Otherness
Missionaries were key players in the “spiritual conquest” of the New World, imposing dominant values while also mediating between cultures. This book shows how Indigenous cultures entered these areas of negotiation to produce their own cultural subjectivity.
Sport and the Christian Religion
This book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of the sports-Christianity interface from Protestant and Catholic perspectives. It offers an important response to the ‘win-at-all-costs’ philosophy of modern sport for students, academics, and coaches.
This compendium analyses contemporary Jewishness within the constant dialectic between faithfulness to Jewish tradition and culture and adherence to modernity and democracy values. It highlights the contrasting experiences of societies in the Diaspora and in Israeli society.
The Birth of a Celestial Light
This book examines Iranian women who are neither conventionally religious nor secular, but explore spirituality. It investigates the feminist potential of the “Inter-universal Mysticism” movement for women seeking to transform their lives and construct their own selves.
Presence of the Cross in Public Spaces
This collection discusses the debate on the presence of the cross in the public space in a number of European states and it considers its potential effects. The analyses presented concern not only the established democracies of Western Europe, but also post-communist states.
In bringing together examples from different parts of the world, including both Western and Eastern societies, and focusing on separate determinants of individual, communal, political, and national Muslim identities, this edited volume offers a blueprint for identity studies.
Islamic Sisterhood
In a hostile post-9/11 America, why do young Muslim women choose to wear a headscarf? This book finds it’s not just devotion, but a way to cope with sexism, racism, and patriarchy from both their own ethnic community and the larger Western society.
This collection sets out the needs of social services for dealing with disadvantaged groups, and specifies the social services required for these communities and the role played by religious institutions in providing services to disadvantaged individuals.
Unfashionable Objections to Islamophobic Cartoons
Byrd critiques the political philosophy of Stéphane Charbonnier of Charlie Hebdo, showing how the new “Enlightenment Fundamentalism” of the political left contributes to the Islamophobic politics of Europe’s neo-fascist right.
New Media and the Mediatisation of Religion
New media has transformed religious practice and expression. This book offers a unique, Africa-centred perspective on how technology influences religious engagement, shapes discourses, and enables beliefs to reach a broader audience.
This collection of thirteen essays built around the question ‘what is the supernatural, and how, and why, has it changed over time?’ gives rise to a clear, comparative and diachronic study of the main characteristics of supernatural phenomena.
Based on the voices of 4,000 young people from 88 countries, this book reveals the values of Generations Y and Z. As the largest, best-educated, and most connected generation ever, today’s youth are creating a more democratic world and changing our future.
The Legend, Lore and Spirit of the Water Horse
This book explores the legends of the water horse in mythology, folklore, and art. It delves into the romance and mystery of water as a sacred, cleansing element and also as an untamed, disruptive force. How are these manifestations linked to the human psyche?
Moorings and Disembeddedness
This book follows Chinese international students in Norway who convert to evangelical Christianity. It explores the social isolation they find abroad and how religion helps them overcome it, empowering them to become the modern, globetrotting cosmopolites they aspire to be.