Social groups: religious groups and communities Books

This book offers a sociological analysis of the Renaissance, focusing on the concept of grace, and the unity that exists between its various meanings: theological, anthropological (gift-giving, Mauss; and sociability, Simmel), and aesthetical (beauty and...

The world continues to be threatened by non-state, religiously-rationalized violence. While some fail to the see the connections between the United States' intervention in the Middle East and this ongoing threat, the non-state perpetrators of terror...

Recent revelations about government surveillance of citizens have led to questions about whether there should be better defined boundaries around privacy. Should government officials have the right to specifically target certain groups for extended...

Richly told and deeply troubling, this book collects personal narratives of Muslim immigrants to the United States who were racially profiled, detained indefinitely, and mistreated following the September 11 attacks. From descriptions of physical abuse...

The language of a thousand years of European Jewish civilization that was decimated in the Nazi Holocaust, Yiddish has emerged as a vehicle for young people to engage with their heritage and identity. Although widely considered an endangered language,...

Debates about Islam and Muslim societies have intensified in the last four decades, triggered by the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and, later, by the events of 9/11. Too often present in these debates are wrongheaded assumptions about the attachment of...

Muslims in 21st Century Europe explores the interaction between native majorities and Muslim minorities in various European countries with a view to highlighting different paths of integration of immigrant and native Muslims. Starting with a critical...

Mysticism in the French Tradition introduces key philosophical undercurrents and trajectories in French thought that underpin and arise from this engagement, as well as considering earlier French contributions to the development of mysticism. Bringing...

Examining the global experiences, challenges and achievements of Muslim women participating in physical activities and sport, this important new study makes a profound contribution to our understanding of both contemporary Islam and the complexity and...

Exploring the literature of environmental moral dilemmas from the Hebrew Bible to modern times, this book argues the necessity of cross-disciplinary approaches to environmental studies, as a subject affecting everyone, in every aspect of life. Moral...

Between 2015 and 2020 the Labour Party was riven by allegations that the party had tolerated antisemitism.For the Labour right, and some in the media, the fact that such allegations could be made was proof of a moral collapse under Jeremy Corbyn's...

Despite President George W. Bush's assurances that Islam is a peaceful religion and that all good Muslims hunger for democracy, confusion persists and far too many Westerners remain convinced that Muslims and terrorists are synonymous. In the aftermath...

A delightfully unconventional tale of a people, their place in the world, and the fascinating language that held them together.Yiddish is an unlikely survivor of the ages, much like the Jews themselves. Incorporating antique German dialects and elements...

How can a fictional text adequately or meaningfully represent the events of the Holocaust? Drawing on philosopher Stanley Cavell's ideas about "acknowledgment" as a respectful attentiveness to the world, Emily Miller Budick develops a penetrating...

How have Jews reshaped their identities as Jews in the face of the radical newness called America? Julian Levinson explores the ways in which exposure to American literary culture-in particular the visionary tradition identified with Ralph Waldo Emerson...

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz exposes and challenges the common assumptions about whom and what Jews are, by presenting in their own voices, Jews of color from the Iberian Peninsula, Asia, Africa, and India. Drawing from her earlier work on Jews and whiteness,...

Although the rule of the Omani sultanate in Tanzania came to an end following the Zanzibar Revolution in 1964, the legacy of its empire still exists today, along with its distinctive religious identity. The Ibadhi Muslims of Omani descent, who are...

Muslim Societies in Africa provides a concise overview of Muslim societies in Africa in light of their role in African history and the history of the Islamic world. Roman Loimeier identifies patterns and peculiarities in the historical, social, economic,...

Sexual abuse scandals, declining attendance, a meltdown in the number of priests and nuns, the closing of many parishes and parochial schools--all have shaken American Catholicism. Yet conservatives have increasingly dominated the church hierarchy. In...

Jews and Judaism in Modern China explores and compares the dynamics at work in two of the oldest, intact and starkly contrasting civilizations on earth; Jewish and Chinese. The book studies how they interact in modernity and how each civilization views...

The Father of Jewish Mysticism offers an incisive look at the early life and writings of Gershom Scholem (1897-1982), the father of modern Jewish mysticism and a major 20th-century Jewish intellectual. Daniel Weidner offers the first full-length study,...

Amidst claims of threats to national identities in an era of increasing diversity, should we be worried about the upsurge in religious animosity in the United States, as well as Europe? This book explores how French society is divided along conflicts...

Know this, may Allah have mercy on you to worship one Allah (and "Tawheed" (not sharing in that worship) (monotheism) is called. This is what all the Rasools (messengers) Has been the religion of, by teaching which Allah Ta'alaSent messengers to his...

This book intends to serve as a conversational, colorful, engaging, and provocative introduction to the sociology of religion for undergraduates. Written in lively prose, this volume aims to introduce students to the major themes, problems and goals of...

The Jewish Chinese Nexus explores through a collection of articles the nexus between two of the oldest, intact, starkly contrasting and most interesting civilizations on earth; Jews and Chinese. This volume studies how they are interacting in modernity;...

This book offers an innovative theoretical and empirical analysis of integration in EU foreign and interior policies across the three pillars, from the Maastricht Treaty to the Treaty of Nice.

This book analyzes the concurrent trends that since the fall of Suharto in 1998, Indonesia has made a successful democratic transition, but at the same time has been plagued by Islamist terrorism and sectarian violence.

Winner of The Iranian World Prize for the Book of the Year 2007 in the Philosophy and Mysticism category.This new and original text provides a timely re-examination of Islamic thought, presenting a stark contrast to the more usual conservative view. The...

This book provides a critical and decolonial analysis of gender and development theory and practice in religious societies through the presentation of a detailed ethnographic study of conjugal violence in Ethiopia. For researchers and practitioners of...

Inspired by the current political moment around the globe in which uprisings, protests, revolutions, and movements are on the rise, this book examines the intersections between the Bible and activism. It does this by showcasing intersectional readings of...

The ubiquity of friendship in human culture contributes to the fallacy that ideas about friendship have not changed and remained consistent throughout history. It is only when we begin to inquire into the nature and significance of the concept in...

Ashkenazi Jews have the highest known population risk of carrying specific mutations in the high-risk breast cancer genes, BRCA1 and BRCA2. So what does it mean to be told you have an increased risk of genetic breast cancer because you are of Ashkenazi...

The book brings forth various perspectives on the Israeli "homeland" (moledet) from various known Israeli intellectuals such as Boaz Evron, Menachem Brinker, Jacqueline Kahanoff and more. Binding together various academic fields to deal with the question...

Studying Muslim fundamentalisms, this book compares key movements, examining their commonalities, differences, and intricate relations, as well as their achievements and failures. Muslim fundamentalisms have the sympathy of approximately half of the...

The essays in this anthology study Israeli television, its different forms of representation, audiences and production processes, past and present, examining Israeli television in both its local, cultural dynamics, and global interfaces.The book looks at...

Israel's cultural space is frequently studied as if it were synonymous with the Hebrew-Israeli one. But within the borders of Israel, a fascinating culture was (and continues to be) created in many languages other than Hebrew, reflecting its reality from...