Full Description
"A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion" is a collection of some of the most significant classic and contemporary writings within the anthropology of religion. Editor Michael Lambek has taken care to avoid deifying the category of religion and the various topics often subsumed within it. Indeed, a major contribution by anthropologists has been to challenge these kinds of categories, which stem from Western thought and language, Christianity, and ethnocentric views of non-Western people. This reader includes material whose theme is 'religion' in a straightforward and obvious sense, as well as contributions that expand how we might look at religion - and the horizons of what we mean by 'religion' - linking it to broader questions of culture and politics. Designed for maximum utility, this volume includes a general introduction as well as an extensive bibliography indexed according to both ethnographic region and religious topics and practices, in order to enhance its accessibility. Each section and individual entry in the volume includes brief prefatory remarks by the editor and suggestions for further reading.
Contents
Acknowledgments.General Introduction.Part IUnderstanding and Debate:Opening Frameworks:Introduction.1. Religion in Primitive Culture: Edward Burnett Tylor.2. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Emile Durkheim.3. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism: Max Weber.4. Religion as a Cultural System: Clifford Geertz.Skeptical Rejoinders:Introduction.5. Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough: Ludwig Wittgenstein.6. Religion, Totemism and Symbolism: W. E. H. Stanner.7. Christians as Believers: Malcolm Ruel.8. The Construction of Religion as an Anthropological Category: Talal Asad.Part II: Poiesis: The Composition of Religious Worlds:Signs and Symbols:Introduction.9. The Logic of Signs and Symbols: Susanne K. Langer.10. The Problem of Symbols: E. E. Evans-Pritchard.11. On Key Symbols: Sherry B. Ortner.12. The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol: Eric Wolf.Structure, Function, and Interpretation:Introduction.13. Myth in Primitive Psychology: Bronislaw Malinowski.14. Folk Dialectics of Nature and Culture: Marshall Sahlins.15. Land Animals, Pure and Impure: Mary Douglas.16. A Jivaro Version of Totem and Taboo: Claude Levi-Strauss.17. Text-Building, Epistemology, and Aesthetics in Javanese Shadow Theatre: Alton Becker.Moral Inversions and Spaces of Disorder:Introduction.18. The Winnebago Trickster Figure: Paul Radin.19. Witchcraft and Sexual Relations: An Exploration in the Social and Semantic Implications of the Structure of Belief: Raymond C. Kelly.20. The Politics and Poetics of Transgression: Peter Stallybrass and Allon White.Conceptualizing the Cosmos.Introduction.21. Closure and Multiplication: An Essay on Polynesian Cosmology and Ritual Alfred Gell.22. Cosmological Deixis and Amerindian Perspectivism: Eduardo Viveiros de Castro.Part III: Praxis: Religious Action:The Movement in Ritual: Emergence:Introduction.23. The Control of Experience: Symbolic Action: Godfrey Lienhardt.24. Form and Meaning of Magical Acts: Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah.25. Liminality and Communitas: Victor Turner.Religion and Personal Experience:Introduction.26. Fate in Relation to the Social Structure: Meyer Fortes.27. Medusa's Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and Religious Experience: Gananath Obeyesekere.28. Spirits and Selves in Northern Sudan: The Cultural Therapeutics of Possession and Trance: Janice Boddy.29. The Poetics of Time in Mayan Divination: Dennis Tedlock.What Ritual Does: The Foundations of Order:Introduction.30. The Disconnection between Power and Rank as a Process: Maurice Bloch.31. Enactments of Meaning: Roy A. Rappaport.Part IV: Historical Dynamics: Power, Modernity, and Change:Capitalism, Colonialism, Christianity, and Conflict:Introduction.32. The Genesis of Capitalism amongst a South American Peasantry: Devil's Labor and the Baptism of Money: Michael Taussig.33. The Colonization of Consciousness: John and Jean Comaroff.Religious Ethics and Politics in the State and the Transnational Scene:Introduction.34. Civil Religion in America: Robert N. Bellah.35. "Using the Past to Negate the Present": Ritual Ethics and State Rationality in Ancient China: Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang.36. Passional Preaching, Aural Sensibility, and the Islamic Revival in Cairo: Charles Hirschkind.37. Moral Landscapes: Ethical Discourses among Orthodox and Diaspora Jains: Anne Vallely.Part V: Research Tools:A Guide to the Literature. Bibliography. Index.
