Religion in 50 More Words: A Redescriptive Vocabulary provides a succinct historical, social, and political examination of some of the key words used in the modern study of religion. Differing from the first volume’s more theoretical focus, this volume analyzes more common first order descriptive terms that are used throughout the field, inviting readers to theorize their traditional vocabulary. Topics covered include: • Atheism/Theism • Conversion • Cult • Evil • Fundamentalism • Idol • Magic • Pilgrimage • Ritual • Sacrifice Religion in 50 More Words submits such terms to a critical interrogation and subsequent redescription. This paves the way for a collective and more critical reframing of the field. The volume, along with Religion in 50 Words, provides an indispensable resource for students and academics working in the field of religious studies and cognate disciplines.

Religion in 50 Words: A Critical Vocabulary is the first of a two-volume work that seeks to transform the study of religion by offering a radically critical perspective. It does so by providing a succinct and critical examination of the key words used in the modern study of religion. Arranged alphabetically, the book explores the historic roots, varied uses, and current significance and utility of the technical terms used within the current field of religious studies. These are the terms that both students and scholars routinely deploy to think about, describe, and analyze data—sometimes without realizing that they are themselves technical tools in need of attention. Among the topics covered: Belief Critical Culture Definition Environment Gender Ideology Lived religion Material religion Orthodoxy Politics Race Sacred/profane Secular Theory This book submits all of its terms to a critical interrogation and subsequent re-description, thereby allowing a collective reframing of the field. This volume is an indispensable resource for students and academics working in religious studies.

A letter printed in the pages of The New York times in 2007 acknowledged differences between Christianity and Islam but contended that "righteousness and good works" should be the only areas in which the two compete. That letter and a collaborative Christian response appear in this volume, which includes subsequent dialogue between Muslim and Christian scholars.

The work of Elliot R. Wolfson has profoundly influenced the fields of Jewish studies as well as philosophy and religion more broadly. His radically new approaches have created pioneering ways of analyzing texts and thinking about religion through the lens of gender, sexuality, and feminist theory. The contributors to New Paths in Jewish and Religious Studies: Essays in Honor of Professor Elliot R. Wolfson, many of whom are internationally renowned scholars, hearken from diverse fields. Each has learned from and collaborated with Wolfson as student or colleague, and each has expanded the new scholarly directions initiated by Wolfson’s groundbreaking work. Wolfson’s scholarship gives us innovative ways to think about Judaism and a fresh understanding of religion. Not only a scholar, Wolfson is one of the most important Jewish thinkers of our day. Chapters are grouped according to the categories of religion, Jewish thought and philosophy, and a focused section on Kabbalah, Wolfson’s primary specialization. The volume concludes with a bibliography of Wolfson’s published work and a selection of his poetry.

For generations, religion and music have been regarded as "universals," yet despite the fact that they have been frequently linked throughout history and topography, and despite the importance of music in the early stages of religious studies, their combined presence has not until now been considered a separate area of study and research. While there are well-developed fields of anthropology of religion, psychology of religion, and philosophy of religion, the widely recognized connections between religion and sound, chant, and music warrant comparable study. Drawing upon theories and methods in the study of both religion and music, referencing examples from world religious traditions, and addressing challenges posed by critics, this book envisions a unified field for religion and music: musicology of religion. Grounded in the scope and methods of phenomenology and comparative analysis, musicology of religion represents an innovative direction in interdisciplinary study, enriched by the social sciences, ethnomusicology, philosophy, theology, liturgical studies, and cognitive studies. As conceived, musicology of religion will spearhead new and creative paths in the study of religion.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Religion is the first to bring together an extensive interdisciplinary engagement with the multiple ways in which the concepts and practices of translation and religion intersect. The book engages a number of scholarly disciplines in conversation with each other, including the study of translation and interpreting, religion, philosophy, anthropology, history, art history, and area studies. A range of leading international specialists critically engage with changing understandings of the key categories ‘translation’ and ‘religion’ as discursive constructs, thus contributing to the development of a new field of academic study, translation and religion. The twenty-eight contributions, divided into six parts, analyze how translation constructs ideas, texts or objects as 'sacred' or for ‘religious purposes’, often in competition with what is categorized as ‘non-religious.’ The part played by faith communities is treated as integral to analyses of the role of translation in religion. It investigates how or why translation functions in re-constructing and transforming religion(s) and for whom and examines a range of ‘sacred texts’ in translation—from the written to the spoken, manuscript to print, paper to digital, architectural form to objects of sacred art, intersemiotic scriptural texts, and where commentary, exegesis and translation interweave. This Handbook is an indispensable scholarly resource for researchers in translation studies and the study of religions.

Dialogues on Religion—and its Study creatively revives a time-honored genre by offering a series of new speeches on religion (its definition, description, comparison, and explanation) between two old friends who periodically meet throughout the year. Eventually working their way to examining why we tend to call part of our world and our experiences religious, nonspecialist readers can eavesdrop on their conversations, gaining entry to a series of timely, interesting, and sometimes surprisingly complex topics—which all begins with one of them coming across a curious news story on their phone. Treating these dialogues as if they were found objects, the book then also joins in a long tradition of critical editions by offering a scholarly introduction to the speeches along with a detailed commentary on both the technical items mentioned as well as the various cultural references that our speakers find to be familiar and then use to think through material that’s rather new—at the same time providing clues as to their identities and location. Written in the vernacular, with a helpful postface that some may wish to read first, Dialogues on Religion—and its Study is original, engaging, and at times funny while always meeting readers where they sometimes are: just a little intrigued by something they’ve discovered and wishing that they could discuss it with a good friend, maybe meeting for coffee or over breakfast at a diner.