Bloomsbury The Bloomsbury Reader in Cultural Approaches to the Study of Religion

This is the first reader to gather primary sources from influential theorists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in one place, presenting the wide-ranging and nuanced theoretical debates occurring in the field of religious studies. Each chapter focuses on a major theorist and contains:· an introduction contextualizing their key ideas· one or two selections representative of the theorist’s innovative methodological approach(es)· discussion questions to extend and deepen reader engagement Divided in three sections, the first part includes foundational comparative debates:· Mary Douglas’s articulation of purity and impurity· Phyllis Trible’s methods of reading sacred texts· Wendy Doniger’s comparative mythology · Catherine Bell’s reimagining of religious and secular ritualThe second part focuses on methodological particularity: · Alice Walker's use of narrative · Charles Long’s critique of Eurocentricism· Caroline Walker Bynum’s emphasis on gender and materialityThe third section focuses on expanding boundaries:· Gloria Anzaldúa’s work on borders and languages· Judith Butler’s critique of gender and sex norms· Saba Mahmood’s expansion on the critique of colonialism’s secularizing demandsReflecting the cultural turn and extending the existing canon, this is the anthology instructors have been waiting for.For further detail on the theorists discussed, please consult Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods, edited by Sarah J. Bloesch and Meredith Minister. Review [An] important resource for any religious studies course that includes a theoretical dimension. --Nova ReligioServing as brief intellectual-biographical histories, these essays illumine the preoccupations and priorities that have motivated influential scholars’s work. While the text is not a required counterpart for the Reader, the editors note that its contributions profitably locate the span of its contents within personal and historiographical worlds, opening an aperture for students to further reflect on their own locations and the disciplinary contexts in which these texts are situated. It is also worth noting that these essays deserve careers of their own as documents of intellectual history and could be usefully assigned together or apart in graduate as well as undergraduate seminars. --Reading Religion About the Author Sheila Pontis is lecturer at Princeton University (USA), honorary research associate at UCL (UK), and partner at Sense Information Design. Since 2002, she teaches and facilitates workshops on information design, design research, ethnography, and design thinking in Argentina, Spain, the UK and the US. She has produced work for diverse organisations in the US, South America and Europe including Pfizer, TfL, Elsevier, Unilever and NHS. Michael Babwahsingh is an information designer and partner at Sense Information Design. His experience spans strategic design and innovation, branding, and communication design for corporate and non-profit clients. He has taught design thinking at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. Michael received a BA in Art and Graphic Design from Moravian College.