"This volume is an important contribution to current rethinking of the sociological categories of religion and the secular. As a whole the collection demonstrates the development of new perspectives and presents a number of highly relevant case studies...It is significant as part of a growing discourse aimed at re-addressing old issues in a fresh and highly insightful manner." - Bruce Kapferer, University of Bergen

While social scientists, beginning with Weber, envisioned a secularized world, religion today is forthrightly becoming a defining feature of life all around the globe. The...

Notions of magic and healing have been changing over past years and are now understood as reflecting local ideas of power and agency, as well as structures of self, subjectivity and affect. This study focuses on contemporary urban Russia and, through exploring social conditions, conveys the experience of living that makes magic logical. By following people's own interpretations of the work of magic, the author succeeds in unraveling the logic of local practice and local understanding of affliction, commonly used to diagnose the experiences of illness and misfortune.