Annotation "Religion and Global Culture draws together the work of a group of historians of religion whose concern is situating the contemporary study of religion within the cultural complexity of the modern world. Each of the volume's contributors has independently explored the implications of the work of leading historian of religion, Charles H. Long, who has located religion in the contacts and exchanges of the colonial and post-colonial periods. Together with Long, these scholars consider phenomena ranging from hierophanies of water in Tokyp and the civil and ritual activities of African Immigrant communities in the United States to the philosophy of Sankara and the regional reprecussions of multinational business. They invite a reconfiguration of the study of religion by localizing religion itself in the conflicted and cooperative relationships of the colonial and post-colonial periods."

Although the Great Anti-Cult Crusade links new religious movements to dangerous cults, brainwashing, and the need for deprogramming, Karla Poewe and Irving Hexham argue that many cults are the product of a dynamic interaction between folk religions and the teachings of traditional world religions. Drawing on examples from Africa, the United States, Asia, and Europe, they suggest that few new religions are really new. Most draw on rich, if localized, cultural traditions that are shaped anew by the influence of technological change and international linkages. With the widespread loss of belief in biblical mythology in the nineteenth century, new mythologies based on science and elements derived from various non-Western religious traditions emerged, leading to the growth and popularity of new religions and cults.

Gordon Mathews opens up the complex and debated topics of globalisation, culture and identity in a clear and lively style. His book will be an illuminating and valuable read to social and cultural anthropologists and students.

In this book leading social scientists from many countries analyze the extent to which we are seeing a globalization of culture. Is a unified world culture emerging? And if so, how does this relate to existing cultural divisions and to the autonomy of the nation state? Differing explanations are offered for trends towards global unification and their relation to an economic world-system. Will the intensification of global contact produce increasing tolerance of other cultures? Or will an integrating culture produce sharper reactions in the form of fundamentalist and nationalist movements? The contributors explore the emergence of `third cultures′, such as international law, the financial markets and media conglomerates, as elements which transcend the boundaries of the nation state. As well as examining the extent, causation and consequences of global homogenization, the authors consider its implication for the social sciences. Global Culture was published simultaneously as Volume 7, issues 2-3 of Theory, Culture & Society.

The worlds religions are becoming increasingly globalized. One can no longer equate particular faiths with corresponding geographic locations. Islam is as much a south or southeast Asian religion as it is a middle eastern one. And Christianity is growing by leaps and bounds in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, while it declines in Europe. In addition to these major population shifts, small communities of adherents of every religion are scattered across the globe, where they mingle with and adapt to local cultures.What are we to make of this new religious world? The Oxford Handbook of Global Religions offers a comprehensive look at world religious societies in their contemporary global diversity. Comprising 60 essays, each by a leading scholar, the volume focuses on communities rather than beliefs, symbols, or rites. Communities in the diaspora and at the periphery are covered, as well as the central geographic regions of all the major living religious traditions. It is organized into six sections: the Indic cultural region, the Buddhist/Confucian, the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim regions, and the African cultural region. In each section an introductory essay discusses the social development of that religious tradition historically. The other essays cover the basic social factsthe communitys size, location, organizational and pilgrimage centers, authority figures, patterns of governance, major subgroups and schismsas well as issues regarding boundary maintenance, political involvement, role in providing cultural identity, and encounters with modernity.The worlds religious communities are more diverse than ever before, and there is no other volume that covers the tremendous variety of faith communities discussed in this Handbook. This volume will be indispensable to anyone interested in contemporary religion.

This volume brings together over 25 articles by many of the most important authors who have worked on issues directly related to the theme of religion and globalization. An additional emphasis on culture flags the inclusion of the relation of religion to its wider social context and also permits questioning the boundaries of religion so as to avoid a strong bias in favour of the analysis of institutionalized religion. The key emphasis of the book, however, is the focus specifically on religion, a topic that is still largely ignored in the burgeoning literature on globalization. The articles are divided into five subthemes: theoretical issues; historical approaches to religion and globalization; forms and boundaries of religion; key issues (such as ecology and gender); and regional perspectives. Contributors: Afe Adogame, Elisabeth Arweck, Lori Beaman, Peter Beyer, John Boli, Gary Bouma, Dave Brewington, George Van Campbell, José Casanova, Paul Freston, Nobutaka Inoue, Laurel Kearns, Otto Maduro, Vasilios Makrides, Meredith McGuire, Vincenzo Pace, Rubina Ramji, James T. Richardson, Ole Riis, Roland Robertson, Marie-Andrée Roy, Shandip Saha, John H. Simpson, James V. Spickard, William Stahl, George Thomas, Bryan Turner, Margit Warburg, and Michael Wilkinson.

Presents entries A to L of a two-volume encyclopedia discussing religion around the globe, including biographies, concepts and theories, places, social issues, movements, texts, and traditions.

This lively textual symposium offers a collection of formative research on the culture of global psytrance (psychedelic trance). As the first book to address the diverse transnationalism of this contemporary electronic dance music phenomenon, the collection hosts interdisciplinary research addressing psytrance as a product of intersecting local and global trajectories. Contributing to theories of globalization, postmodernism, counterculture, youth subcultures, neotribes, the carnivalesque, music scenes and technologies, dance ritual and spirituality, chapters introduce psytrance in Goa, the UK, Israel, Japan, the US, Italy, Czech Republic, Portugal and Australia. As a global occurrence indebted to 1960s psychedelia, sharing music production technologies and DJ techniques with electronic dance music scenes, and harnessing the communication capabilities of the Internet, psytrance and its cultural implications are thoroughly discussed in this first scholarly volume of its kind.

A unique focus on the relationship between religion and political culture in the Third World using a comparative and thematic approach. Specific issues of religion-politics interaction in the Third World in recent times include: the rise of Islamic fundamentalist groups throughout the Middle East and other parts of the Muslim world; the political effects of the decline of Catholicism and the rapid growth of Protestant evangelical sects in Latin America; communal conflict between Hindu nationalist groups, and the politicisation of Buddhism in South East Asia. The common effect of such developments is to challenge existing forms of relationship between states and societies with religion used as a political resource.

Focused on the theme of the sociology of religion, this volume brings together essays by well-known scholars which examine the resurgence of religious identities in the Indian context. The contributors question many received notions, address critical problems, and raise important issues surrounding various current debates./-//-/The papers are divided into four sections. The first deals with religion, society and national identity. The next section is devoted to sects, cults, shrines and the making of traditions. The third section discusses religious conversion, while the last section provides a comparative perspective drawn from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States. /-//-/Tackling a subject of immense contemporary importance and demonstrating a sensitivity to the shifts and changes brought about in faith, identity and tradition, this volume will be of considerable interest to students of sociology, anthropology, religion, politics and history./-//-/This book is one of the Indian Sociological Society: Golden Jubilee Volumes.