Thinking about religion
Subtitle: a reader
By: edited by Ivan Strenski.
Contributors: Strenski, Ivan.
Publisher: Blackwell Pub.; Blackwell Publishing Limited
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Malden, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 256
ISBN-13: 9781405121668; 9781405121675
Subjects: Religion.
Description: "This concise reader creates a mix of classic and contemporary responses to issues in the study of religion, ideal for those coming to the subject for the first time. Pairing pivotal theorists and theories of religion alongside cutting-edge criticism from both their contemporaries and modern-day scholars, this collection enables students to gain a balanced understanding of the diverse methods, theories, and theorists involved." "The major historical and methodological developments in the study of religion in the West are traced through the works of leading theorists including Herbert of Cherbury, David Hume, Georges Sorel, Baruch de Spinoza, Friedrich Max Muller, Edward Burnett Tylor, William Robertson Smith, James Frazer, Bronislaw Malinowski, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud, and Emile Durkheim. Each of these primary figures meets their critical match in contributions from contemporary scholars designed to raise questions - both for and against - their approach and work." "Along with Ivan Strenski's textbook, Thinking about Religion: An Historical Introduction to Theories of Religion, this reader offers a complete resource for introductory students of religious studies." --Book Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The quest for natural religion; title: Biblical criticism and the critique of religion; title: The shock of the old : Max Müller's search for the soul of Europe; title: The shock of the "savage" : Edward Burnett Tylor, evolution and spirits; title: Evolution in the religion of the Bible : William Robertson Smith; title: Setting the eternal templates of salvation : James George Frazer; title: From evolution to religious experience : phenomenology of religion; title: Religious experience creates the world of the modern economy : Max Weber; title: Tales from the underground : Freud and the psychoanalytic origins of religion; title: Malinowski and functionalism : religion is what religion does; title: Seeing the sacred with the social eye : Émile Durkheim's "religious sociology"; title: Mircea Eliade : the "worm of doubt" turns.