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 observ...

This volume explores how different forms of Christianity shape people's visions of pasts and futures, and how the transcendent is brought into human time. Beyond conventional discussions around breaks with the past in Christian conversion and future ruptures announced in prophecy, the volume reveals previously unexplored ways in which Christians work with concepts of time and its articulation with divinity, subjectivity, agency, and personal, social, and political change. By developing Col...

**Finalist, Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Analytical-Descriptive Studies, given by the American Academy of ReligionA groundbreaking reframing of religious pilgrimage**Pious processions. Sites of miraculous healing. Journeys to far-away sacred places. These are what are usually called to mind when we think of religious pilgrimage. Yet while pilgrimage can include journeying to the heart of sacred shrines, it can also occur in apparently mundane plac...

How do urbanization and development intersect with religious dynamics to shape contemporary African cityscapes? To answer this timely question, contributors from across Europe, North America and Africa are brought together to explore mega-cities including Lagos, Cape Town, Dar es Salaam and Kinshasa as powerful venues for the creation and implementation of religious models of urbanization and development.This book interrogates how religious socio-spatial models and strategies engag...

This book explores cathedrals, past and present, as spaces for religious but also wider cultural practices. Contributors from history, anthropology, sociology, and religious studies trace major continuities and shifts in the location of cathedrals within religious, civic, urban, and economic landscapes of pre- and post-Reformation Christianity.While much of the focus is on England, other European and global contexts are referenced as authors explore ways in which cathedrals have be...

This book takes the concept of repetition beyond older anthropological debates over habit, structure, or cultural continuity and demonstrates its value in attempts to comprehend the temporal, spatial and ideological fields in which contemporary social scientists must operate.Repetition has an ambiguous value in human societies. It may contribute to desired social and cultural reproduction or, equally, represent experiences of being trapped in cycles of routine and stasis. In this b...

Many accounts of tourism have adopted an almost paradigmatic visual model of the gaze. This collection presents an expanded notion of spectatorship with a more dynamic sense of embodied and performed engagement with places. The approach resonates with ideas in anthropology, sociology, and geography on performance, invented traditions, constructed places and traveling cultures. Contributions highlight the often contradictory, contested and paradoxical constructions of landscape and communit...

A Fun Gift Book for Anyone Who’s Totally Over Modern Dating Culture!“Filled with witty illustrations, interactive checklists, and quizzes that will delight anyone who's been spurned by the modern dating scene . . . Get it for your friend who's deleted and re-downloaded Tinder more times than you can count, your unlucky-in-love work wife, or yourself. Then spend February 14 laughing about it with a nice, big glass of wine and the peace of mind that comes with knowin...

Pilgrimage has always had a tendency to follow—and sometimes create—trade routes. This volume explores how wider factors behind transnational and global mobility have impacted on pilgrimage activity across the world, and examines the ways in which pilgrimage relates to migration, diaspora, and political cooperation or conflict across nation-states. Furthermore, it brings together case studies that explore forms of mobility where pilgrimage is juxtaposed, complements, or is in intimate asso...

The phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism and evangelicalism around the world in recent decades has forced us to rethink what it means to be religious and what it means to be global. The success of these religious movements has revealed tensions and resonances between the public and the private, the religious and the cultural, and the local and the global. This volume provides a wide ranging and accessible, as well as ethnographically rich, perspective on what has become a truly global relig...

The phenomenal growth of Pentecostalism and evangelicalism around the world in recent decades has forced us to rethink what it means to be religious and what it means to be global. The success of these religious movements has revealed tensions and resonances between the public and the private, the religious and the cultural, and the local and the global. This volume provides a wide ranging and accessible, as well as ethnographically rich, perspective on what has become a truly global relig...

The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Anthropology is an invaluable guide and major reference source for students and scholars alike, introducing its readers to key contemporary perspectives and approaches within the field. Written by an experienced international team of contributors, with an interdisciplinary range of essays, this collection provides a powerful overview of the transformations currently affecting anthropology. The volume both addresses the concerns of the discip...