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Bokhari, “Voices of Jihad: New Writings on Radical Islam”

In December, I.B.Tauris will release “Voices of Jihad: New Writings on Radical Islam” by Kamran Bokhari (Howard University). The publisher’s description follows:

The 21st century has seen an unprecedented radicalisation of Muslims across the world. In some cases, this has led to terror and violence. Yet as the West pours huge military resources into the ‘war on terror’, we still know very little about the ideology which drives the terrorists. Now, for the first time, Kamran Bokhari has made it possible to hear and to digest today’s militant Islam in its own words. He presents a range of ideologues from across the globe, including Bin Laden’s own deputy, Ayman Zawahari. Bokhari’s carefully contextualised selection introduces us to radical Islamist thinking on a range of issues such as their perception of Western concepts of democracy, their scepticism towards the Middle East peace process and how to deal with the West. For anyone who wants to understand the phenomenon of contemporary militant Islam, or who wants to know what motivates terrorist thinking, this book is essential reading.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Religion and Modernity in the Himalaya” (eds. Sijapati and Birkenholtz)

In December, Routledge will release “Religion and Modernity in the Himalaya,” edited by Megan Adamson Sijapati (Gettysburg College) and Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).  The publisher’s description follows:

Religion has long been a powerful cultural, social, and political force in the Himalaya. Increased economic and cultural flows, growth in tourism, and new forms of governance and media, however, have brought significant changes to the religious traditions of the region in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

This book presents detailed case studies of lived religion in the Himalaya to offer intra-regional perspectives on the ways in which lived religions are being re-configured or re-imagined in modernity. Based on original fieldwork, this book documents understudied forms of religion in the region and presents unique perspectives on the phenomenon and experience of religion, discussing why, when, and where practices, discourses, and the category of religion itself, are engaged by varying communities in the region. It yields fruitful insights into both the religious traditions and lived human experiences of Himalayan peoples in the modern era.

Presenting new research and perspectives on the Himalayan region, this book should be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian Studies, Religious Studies, and Modernity.

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Cevik, “Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond”

In November, Palgrave Macmillan will release “Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond: Religion in the Modern World” by Neslihan Cevik (University of Virginia). The publisher’s description follows:

Muslimism, a term identified by Neslihan Cevik in this book, refers to a new9781137565273 Islamic form in Turkey at the turn of the century. Muslimism neither rejects nor submits to modernity but actively engages it through Islamic categories and practices. Cevik conceptualizes “cultural sites of hybridity” in which people use Islam to shape their practice of modernity. These include settings ranging from Islamic fashion to entrepreneurship, civic associations, and political formations that reflect a new Islamic liberal political ethos. Through observations and interviews, Cevik documents Muslimist discourse. This book addresses questions of how religions respond to modernity and globalization, providing a new starting point for discussions of democracy and Islam in the region.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Democracy, Culture, Catholicism” (Schuck and Crowley-Buck eds.)

In November, the Fordham University Press will release “Democracy, Culture, Catholicism: Voices from Four Continents,” edited by Michael J. Schuck (Loyola University of Chicago) and John Crowley-Buck (Loyola University of Chicago).  The publisher’s description follows:

Compiling scholarly essays from a unique three-year Democracy, Culture and Catholicism International Research Project, Democracy, Culture, Catholicism richly articulates the diverse and dynamic interplay of democracy, culture, and Catholicism in the contemporary world. The twenty-five essays from four extremely diverse cultures—those of Indonesia, Lithuania, Peru, and the United States—explore the relationship between democracy and Catholicism from several perspectives, including historical and cultural analysis, political theory and conflict resolution, social movements and Catholic social thought.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Spreading Buddha’s Word in East Asia” (eds. Wu and Chia)

In December, the Columbia University Press will release “Spreading Buddha’s Word in East Asia: The Formation and Transformation of the Chinese Buddhist Canon,” edited by Jiang Wu (University of Arizona) and Lucille Chia (University of California at Riverside).  The publisher’s description follows:

A monumental work in the history of religion, the history of the book, the study of politics, and bibliographical research, this volume follows the making of the Chinese Buddhist canon from the fourth century to the digital era. Approaching the subject from a historical perspective, the book ties the religious, social, and textual practices of canon formation to the development of East Asian Buddhist culture and opens up the study of Chinese Buddhist texts to readers interested in the evolution of Chinese writing in general and the Confucian and Daoist traditions in particular.

The collection undertakes extensive readings of major scriptural catalogs from the early manuscript era as well as major printed editions, including the Kaibao Canon, Qisha Canon, Goryeo Canon, and Taisho Canon. Contributors add fascinating depth to such understudied issues as the historical process of compilation, textual manipulation, physical production and management, sponsorship, the dissemination of various editions, cultic activities surrounding the canon, and the canon’s reception in different East Asian societies. The Chinese Buddhist canon is one of the most enduring textual traditions in East Asian religion and culture, and through this exhaustive, multifaceted effort, an essential body of work becomes part of a new, versatile narrative of East Asian Buddhism that has far-reaching implications for world history.

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Thomas, “Evangelising the Nation”

This month, Rutledge releases  “Evangelising the Nation: Religion and the Formation of Naga Political Identity” by John Thomas (Indian Institute of Technology). The publisher’s description follows:

Northeast India has witnessed several nationality movements during the 20th century. The oldest and one of the most formidable has been that of the Nagas — inhabiting the hill tracts between the Brahmaputra river in India and the Chindwin river in Burma (now Myanmar). Rallying behind the slogan, ‘Nagaland for Christ’, this movement has been the site of an ambiguous relation between a particular understanding of Christianity and nation-making.

This book, based on meticulous archival research, traces the making of this relation and offers fresh perspectives on the workings of religion in the formation of political and cultural identities among the Nagas. It tracks the transmutations of Protestantism from the United States to the hill tracts of Northeast India, and its impact on the form and content of the nation that was imagined and longed for by the Nagas. The volume also examines the role of missionaries, local church leaders, and colonial and post-colonial states in facilitating this process.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Rugh, “Christians in Egypt”

In November, Palgrave-MacMillan will release “Christians in Egypt: Strategies and Survival,” by Andrea B. Rugh (Middle East Institute, Washington, D.C.).  The publisher’s description follows:

Christians in the Middle East have come under increasing pressure in recent years with the rise of radical Islam. Nowhere is this truer than in Egypt, where the large Coptic Christian community has traditionally played an important role in the country’s history and politics. This book examines Christian responses to sectarian pressures in two contexts: nationally as Church leaders deal with Egyptian presidents and locally as a community of poor Christians cope in a mostly-Muslim quarter of Cairo. This intensive study, based on the author’s five years of research in Bulaq, looks at existential questions surrounding the role of religion in poor communities. The book concludes with a review of strategies Egyptian Christians have used to improve their minority status, showing that although expressed differently, both Church leaders and members of the Bulaq community ultimately have worked toward similar goals. The study suggests that under the al-Sisi Government, Christians may be emerging into a more active period after a relative quiescence before the events of the 2011 Uprising.

Posted on by Marc O. DeGirolami

In the mail: Witte’s “Western Case for Monogamy Over Polygamy”

I was pleased to receive Professor John Witte’s new volume, released earlier this year, The Western Case for Monogamy Over PolygamyWitte, Monogamy and Polygamy, in which, with at least half an eye cocked at the coming legal contests over polygamous marriage, John explores the following questions:

What is the Western tradition’s case for monogamy over polygamy, and is that case still convincing in a post-modern and globalized world? Are there sufficiently compelling reasons to relax Western laws against polygamy, and is this a desirable policy given the global trends away from polygamy and given the social, economic, and psychological conditions that often attend its practice? Or, are there sufficiently compelling reasons, reconstructed in part from the tradition, to maintain and even strengthen these anti-polygamy measures, in part as an effort to hasten the global demise of this practice?

I’ve only had a chance to glance at the book but from that quick scan, it appears that the primary justifications advanced in the book as a historical matter for monogamy over polygamy relate to “joint parental investment in children” and ensuring “that men and women are treated with equal dignity and respect within the domestic sphere,” the latter logic of which, the book claims, “applies to dyadic same-sex couples, who have gained increasing rights in the West in recent years, including the right to marry and to parent in some places.”

The book is immensely and richly detailed and comprehensive, with chapters including “From Polygamy to Monogamy in Judaism,” “The Case for Monogamy Over Polygamy in the Church Fathers,” “Polygamy in the Laws of State and Church in the First Millennium,” “Polygamous Experiments in Early Protestantism,” and “The Liberal Enlightenment Case Against Polygamy.”

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Covington-Ward, “Gesture and Power”

In December, Duke University Press will release “Gesture and Power: Religion, Nationalism, and Everyday Performance in Congo,” by Yolanda Covington-Ward (University of Pittsburgh).  The publisher’s description follows:

In Gesture and Power Yolanda Covington-Ward examines the everyday embodied practices and performances of the BisiKongo people of the Lower Congo to show how their gestures, dances, and spirituality are critical in mobilizing social and political action. Conceiving of the body as the center of analysis, a catalyst for social action, and as conduit for the social construction of reality, Covington-Ward focuses on specific flash points in the last ninety years of Congo’s troubled history, when embodied performance was used to stake political claims, foster dissent, and enforce power. In the 1920s Simon Kimbangu started a Christian prophetic movement based on spirit-induced trembling, which swept through the Lower Congo, subverting Belgian colonial authority. Following independence, dictator Mobutu Sese Seko required citizens to dance and sing nationalist songs daily as a means of maintaining political control. More recently, embodied performance has again stoked reform, as nationalist groups such as Bundu dia Kongo advocate for a return to precolonial religious practices and non-Western gestures such as traditional greetings. In exploring these embodied expressions of Congolese agency, Covington-Ward provides a framework for understanding how embodied practices transmit social values, identities, and cultural history throughout Africa and the diaspora.

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Ansari, “Islam and Nationalism in India”

In November, Routledge will release “Islam and Nationalism in India: South Indian Contexts” by M.T. Ansari (University of Hyderabad, India). The publisher’s description follows:

Islam in India, as elsewhere, continues to be seen as a remainder in its refusal to “conform” to national and international secular-modern norms. Such a general perception has also had a tremendous impact on the Muslims of the Indian subcontinent, who as individuals and communities have been shaped and transformed over centuries of socio-political and historical processes, by eroding their world-view and steadily erasing their life-worlds.

This book traces the spectral presence of Islam across narratives to note that difference and diversity, demographic as well as cultural, can be espoused rather than excised or exorcized. Focusing on Malabar – home to the Mappila Muslim community in Kerala, South India – and drawing mostly on Malayalam sources, the author investigates the question of Islam from various angles by constituting an archive comprising popular, administrative, academic, and literary discourses. The author contends that an uncritical insistence on unity has led to a formation in which “minor” subjects embody an excess of identity, in contrast to the Hindu-citizen whose identity seemingly coincides with the national. This has led to Muslims being the source of a deep-seated anxiety for secular nationalism and the targets of a resurgent Hindutva in that they expose the fault-lines of a geographically and socio-culturally unified nation.

An interdisciplinary study of Islam in India from the South Indian context, this book will be of interest to scholars of modern Indian history, political science, literary and cultural studies, and Islamic studies.