Thirty years after the Iranian Revolution and more than a decade since the events of 2001, the time is right to examine what the discourse on fundamentalism has achieved and where it might head from here. In this volume editors Simon A. Wood and David Harrington Watt offer eleven interdisciplinary perspectives framed by the debate between advocates and critics of the concept of fundamentalism that investigate it with regard to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. The essays are integrated through engagement with a common selection of texts on fundamentalism and a common set of questions about...

How do pious Shia Muslim women nurture and sustain their religious lives? How do their experiences and beliefs differ from or overlap with those of men? What do gender-based religious roles and interactions reveal about the Shia Muslim faith? In Partners of Zaynab, Diane D'Souza presents a rich ethnography of urban Shia women in India, exploring women's devotional lives through the lens of religious narrative, sacred space, ritual performance, leadership, and iconic symbols.
Religious scholars have tended to devalue women's religious expressions, confining them to the periphery of a...

Hindu Ritual at the Margins explores Hindu forms of ritual activity in a variety of "marginal" contexts. The contributors collectively examine ritual practices in diaspora; across gender, ethnic, social, and political groups; in film, text, and art; in settings where ritual itself or direct discussion of ritual is absent; in contexts that create new opportunities for traditionally marginalized participants or challenge the received tradition; and via theoretical perspectives that have been undervalued in the academy. In the first of three sections, contributors explore the ways in which Hindu...