Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Sociology of Religion

This volume is the first comprehensive and in-depth discussion written in English of the Confucian tradition in the context of the intellectual history of Korea. It deals with the historical, social, political, philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Korean Confucianism, arguably the most influential intellectual tradition, ethical and religious practice, and political-ideological system in Korea. This volume analyzes the unique aspects of the Korean development of the Confucian tradition by examining the role of Confucianism as the ruling ideology of the Choson Dynasty (1302-1910). It...

The Dao Companion to Japanese Confucian Philosophy will be part of the handbook series Dao Companion to Chinese Philosophy, published by Springer. This series is being edited by Professor Huang Yong, Professor of Philosophy at Kutztown University and Editor of Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy. This volume includes original essays by scholars from the U.S., Europe, Japan, and China, discussing important philosophical writings by Japanese Confucian philosophers. The main focus, historically, will be the early-modern period (1600-1868), when much original...

The concept of religious freedom is the favoured modern human rights concept, with which the modern world hopes to tackle the phenomenon of religious pluralism, as our modern existence in an electronically shrinking globe comes to be increasingly characterised by this phenomenon. To begin with, the concept of religious freedom, as embodied in Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, seems self-evident in nature. It is the claim of this book, however, that although emblematic on the one hand, the concept is also problematic on the other, and the implications of the concept...

Polygamy and plural marriage have become front-and-center issues in Europe, Canada, and the United States, notably on two religious fronts: among some splinter groups of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and in Islam. "Polygamy in the Monogamous World: Multicultural Challenges for Western Law and Policy" takes both groups into account as it provides a careful examination of legal polygamy in non-Western countries and plural unions in North America. Comparing these similar, but legally distinct forms of union, it offers a fresh perspective on how Western countries should...

Norget also considers the intimate relationship that is perceived to exist between the living and the dead in Oaxacan popular culture. She argues that popular death rituals,...

In Comparative Perspectives on Judaisms and Jewish Identities author Stephen Sharot uses his work published in journals and collected volumes over the past thirty-five years to examine a range of Jewish communities across both time and geography. Sharot's sociological analyses consider religious developments and identities in diverse Jewish communities from Imperial China and Renaissance Italy to contemporary Israel and the United States. As Sharot examines these groups, other religions enter into the discussion as well, not only as major elements in the environments of Jewish communities...

As humans, it is our trust in something larger than ourselves that invests our lives with meaning and value. We hope that outside the boundaries of everyday living there lies something greater. As Doug Cowan argues, science fiction is "the" genre of possibility and hope, a principal canvas on which writers, artists, and filmmakers have sketched their visions of this transcendent potential for generations. In "Sacred Space," he leads readers in a compelling exploration of how this transcendence is manifested in science-fiction cinema and television of today.

From the millennial dreams of...

In the 1990s, Marilyn Agee developed one of the most well-known amateur evangelical websites focused on the -End Times-, The Bible Prophecy Corner. Around the same time, Lambert Dolphin, a retired Stanford physicist, started the website Lambert's Library to discuss with others online how to experience the divine. While Marilyn and Lambert did not initially correspond directly, they have shared several correspondents in common. Even as early as 1999 it was clear that they were members of the same online network of Christians, a virtual church built around those who embraced a common...

Human beings necessarily understand their social worlds in moral terms, orienting their lives, relationships, and activities around socially-produced notions of right and wrong.

Morality is sociologically understood as more than simply helping or harming others; it encompasses any way that individuals form understandings of what behaviors are better than others, what goals are most laudable, and what "proper" people believe, feel, and do. Morality involves the explicit and implicit sets of rules and shared understandings that keep human social groups intact. Morality includes both the...

Human beings necessarily understand their social worlds in moral terms, orienting their lives, relationships, and activities around socially-produced notions of right and wrong.

Morality is sociologically understood as more than simply helping or harming others; it encompasses any way that individuals form understandings of what behaviors are better than others, what goals are most laudable, and what "proper" people believe, feel, and do. Morality involves the explicit and implicit sets of rules and shared understandings that keep human social groups intact. Morality includes both the...

In sharp contrast to Western developments post-communist Europe experienced a spectacular religious revival after 1989. Previously marginalized believers and churches became accepted and active participants of social life. Several successive surveys of three international projects studied religious revival and variations of religiosity, the social image of religious people and their specific private and public behaviour in the period between 1991 and 2008. The present volume is the first ever cross-national and cross-denominational comparative analysis of these results.