What are the relations between sociology and the different religions--Christianity with its various branches, Judaism, Islam, Oriental religions, sects and New Religious Movements? That is the question which this work, conceived on the occasion of the XXVth Conference of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion/Société Internationale de Sociologie des Religions (SISR), wishes to clarify.The book retraces the varied and troubled history of these relations and also reveals how in opening up its research to other religions besides the Christian, sociology is forced to redefine the very object of its field of study. What is the religious? This question, which until recently was considered impertinent, informs this book throughout.If confronts the necessity of rethinking theories and methodological approaches which, constructed in the context of 19th and early 20th century Western Europe, prove to be rather inadequate for encompassing contemporary religious phenomena and religious manifestations in other contexts. To these new theoretical and methodological demands is added, for the sociologist, a deontological imperative, which takes on all the more importance today as the religious provokes passionate social debate.

A journal of philosophy covering epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of logic, and philosophy of mind.

This book analyses the dynamics of the emerging networks of individuals, organizations, technologies and publications by which means information was exchanged across and through all kinds of borders and boundaries in this period. It extends the frame within which historical discourse about information can take place by bringing together scholars not only from different disciplines but also from different national and linguistic backgrounds. It will be of interest to scholars and students of information history and the emergence of the information society as well as to social and cultural historians concerned with the late 19th and early 20th century.

The period in Europe known as the Belle Epoque was a time of vibrant and unsettling modernization in social and political organization, in artistic and literary life, and in the conduct and discoveries of the sciences. These trends, and the emphasis on internationalization that characterized them, necessitated the development of new structures and processes for discovering, disseminating, manipulating and managing access to information. This book analyses the dynamics of the emerging networks of individuals, organizations, technologies and publications by which means information was exchanged across and through all kinds of borders and boundaries in this period. It extends the frame within which historical discourse about information can take place by bringing together scholars not only from different disciplines but also from different national and linguistic backgrounds. As a result the volume offers new and surprising ways of looking at the historical period of the Belle Epoque. It will be of interest to scholars and students of information history and the emergence of the information society as well as to social and cultural historians concerned with the late 19th and early 20th century.

An international journal of general philosophy.