Through a close examination of four Melanesian religious traditions, Whitehouse identifies a set of recurrent interconnections between styles of religious transmission, systems of memory, and patterns of political association. He argues that these interconnections may shed light on a variety of general problems in history, archaeology, and social theory.
Through a close examination of four Melanesian religious traditions, Whitehouse identifies a set of recurrent interconnections between styles of relig...
Religions_whatever else they may be_are configurations of cultural information reproduced across space and time. Beginning with this seemingly obvious fact of religious transmission, Harvey Whitehouse goes on to construct a testable theory of how religions are created, passed on, and changed. At the center of his theory are two divergent 'modes of religiosity: ' the imagistic and the doctrinal. Drawing from recent advances in cognitive science, Whitehouse's theory shows how religions tend to coalesce around one of these two poles depending on how religious behaviors are remembered. In the...
Religions_whatever else they may be_are configurations of cultural information reproduced across space and time. Beginning with this seemingly obvious...
Religions--whatever else they may be--are configurations of cultural information reproduced across space and time. Beginning with this seemingly obvious fact of religious transmission, Harvey Whitehouse goes on to construct a testable theory of how religions are created, passed on, and changed. At the center of his theory are two divergent 'modes of religiosity: ' the imagistic and the doctrinal. Drawing from recent advances in cognitive science, Whitehouse's theory shows how religions tend to coalesce around one of these two poles depending on how religious behaviors are remembered. In the...
Religions--whatever else they may be--are configurations of cultural information reproduced across space and time. Beginning with this seemingly obvio...
The international conference from which these 11 papers are taken, on modes of religiosity, was held in December 2001 at Cambridge University; it was the first of three, and the proceedings of the others are presented in other volumes in the series. Mostly anthropologists explore such topics as divergent modes of religiosity in West Africa, the doc
The international conference from which these 11 papers are taken, on modes of religiosity, was held in December 2001 at Cambridge University; it was ...
Ethnographers of religion have created a vast record of religious behavior from small-scale non-literate societies to globally distributed religions in urban settings. This work features a range of ethnographers who grapple critically with Harvey Whitehouse's theory of two divergent modes of religiosity.
Ethnographers of religion have created a vast record of religious behavior from small-scale non-literate societies to globally distributed religions i...
This collection examines new psychological evidence for the modal theory and attempts to synthesize this theory with other theories of cognition and religion.
This collection examines new psychological evidence for the modal theory and attempts to synthesize this theory with other theories of cognition and r...
This collection examines new psychological evidence for the modal theory and attempts to synthesize this theory with other theories of cognition and religion.
This collection examines new psychological evidence for the modal theory and attempts to synthesize this theory with other theories of cognition and r...
Historians bound by their singular stories and archaeologists bound by their material evidence don't typically seek out broad comparative theories of religion. But recently Harvey Whitehouse's "modes of religiosity" theory has been attracting many scholars of past religions. Based upon universal features of human cognition, Whitehouse's theory can provide useful comparisons across cultures and historical periods even when limited cultural data is present. In this groundbreaking volume scholars of cultures from prehistorical hunter-gatherers to 19th century Scandinavian Lutherans evaluate...
Historians bound by their singular stories and archaeologists bound by their material evidence don't typically seek out broad comparative theories of ...
In a further development of the nature-nurture debate, this collection of articles questions how the human mind influences the content and organization of culture. In the study of mental activity, can the effects of evolution and history be teased apart?
Evolutionary psychologists argue that cultural transmission is constrained by our genetic inheritance. Few social and cultural anthropologists have found this argument to be relevant to their work and many would doubt its validity. This book uniquely pitches the arguments for innatism against ethnographic perspectives that call into...
In a further development of the nature-nurture debate, this collection of articles questions how the human mind influences the content and organiza...
In a further development of the nature-nurture debate, this collection of articles questions how the human mind influences the content and organization of culture. In the study of mental activity, can the effects of evolution and history be teased apart?
Evolutionary psychologists argue that cultural transmission is constrained by our genetic inheritance. Few social and cultural anthropologists have found this argument to be relevant to their work and many would doubt its validity. This book uniquely pitches the arguments for innatism against ethnographic perspectives that call into...
In a further development of the nature-nurture debate, this collection of articles questions how the human mind influences the content and organiza...
