Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Soden, “Outsiders in a Promised Land”

This month, the Oregon State University Press releases “Outsiders in a Promised Land: Religious Activists in Pacific Northwest History,” by Dale Soden (Whitworth University).  The publisher’s description follows:

Outsiders in a Promised Land explores the role that religious activists have played in shaping the culture of the Pacific Northwest, particularly in Washington and Oregon, from the middle of the 19th century onward. The region’s earliest settlers came to work in the mines and forests, and a culture of saloons, gambling halls, and brothels grew up to serve them. When migration to the region intensified, newcomers with families and religious traditions often saw themselves as outsiders in opposition to the prevailing frontier culture.

As communities grew in population, early activists found common ground in a desire to protect women and children, and make their towns more hospitable to religious values. Protestants, Catholics, and Jews worked together to transform communities. Together they introduced public and private schools, health care institutions, libraries and orphanages, and lobbied for the prohibition of alcohol.

Beginning in the 1930s, religious activism played a crucial role in the emerging culture wars between liberals and conservatives. Liberals rallied around the protection of civil rights and the building of social safety nets, while conservatives decried the rise of secularism, liberalism, and communism. Today, religious activists of many faiths are deeply engaged in matters related to women’s and gay rights, foreign policy, and environmental protection.

Outsiders in a Promised Land is a meticulously researched, comprehensive treatment of religion in Pacific Northwest public life. The first book of its kind, it is destined to be an essential reference for scholars, activists, and religious leaders of all faiths.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Su, “Exporting Freedom”

In January, the Harvard University Press will release “Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power,” by Anna Su (University of Toronto).  The publisher’s description follows:

Religious freedom is widely recognized today as a basic human right, guaranteed by nearly all national constitutions. Exporting Freedom charts the rise of religious freedom as an ideal firmly enshrined in international law and shows how America’s promotion of the cause of individuals worldwide to freely practice their faith advanced its ascent as a global power.

Anna Su traces America’s exportation of religious freedom in various laws and policies enacted over the course of the twentieth century, in diverse locations and under a variety of historical circumstances. Influenced by growing religious tolerance at home and inspired by a belief in the United States’ obligation to protect the persecuted beyond its borders, American officials drafted constitutions as part of military occupations—in the Philippines after the Spanish–American War, in Japan following World War II, and in Iraq after 2003. They also spearheaded efforts to reform the international legal order by pursuing Wilsonian principles in the League of Nations, drafting the United Nations Charter, and signing the Helsinki Accords during the Cold War. The fruits of these labors are evident in the religious freedom provisions in international legal instruments, regional human rights conventions, and national constitutions.

In examining the evolution of religious freedom from an expression of the civilizing impulse to the democratization of states and, finally, through the promotion of human rights, Su offers a new understanding of the significance of religion in international relations.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Provost-Smith, “Holy War, Just War”

This month, I.B.Tauris releases “Holy War, Just War: Early Modern Christianity, Religious Ethics and the Rhetoric of Empire” by Patrick Provost-Smith (Harvard University).  The publisher’s description follows: 

The catastrophe of Iraq has forced us to revisit the validity of what constitutes a supposedly ‘just war’. In such critical circumstances, a sustained re-examination of the basis for contemporary just war theory is desperately urgent and required. This is what precisely Patrick Provost-Smith offers in this powerful and original re-evaluation of the topic. The author recognises that a coherent account of the ethics of modern warfare can only begin with history. He therefore explores the great sixteenth century debates about the nature of conflict, focusing on the Spanish conquistadors and their evangelisation of Mexico and Peru.He then shows how these debates were later appropriated by Spanish missionaries in the Philippines with a view to the conquest of China. In assessing previous discussions over ‘just wars’, and the shifting sands of the various logics that were applied to such conflicts, Provost-Smith puts a wholly new complexion on how current moral theory about war might be understood.

This is history in the best sense: the book makes a decisive contribution to current affairs through a profound grasp of how past ideas and rhetorics about conquest have shaped ongoing notions of western Christian superiority. It will be essential reading for all serious students of religious ethics, the history of ideas, and the history of politics and empire.

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Massoumi, “Muslim Women, Social Movements and the ‘War on Terror'”

In November, Palgrave Macmillan will release “Muslim Women, Social Movements and the ‘War on Terror’” by Narzanin Massoumi (University of Bath, UK). The publisher’s description follows:

On 15th February 2003, two million people marched in the streets of 9781137355645London to call on the British government not to go to war with Iraq. Though Britain did enter war, the movement did not rest in defeat. This book tells the story of what happened behind the scenes of this extraordinary mass movement, looking specifically at the political relationship between Muslim and leftist activists.

Crisis narratives about Muslims assume that they are only engaged with sectarian communalist forms of identity politics or that their supposed religious and social conservatism is incompatible with progressive values. Through telling this story, Massoumi looks closely at the role of identity politics within social movements, considering what this means in practice and whether we can meaningfully speak of identity politics. Arguing that identity politics can only be understood within the context of a wider social and political structure, this book analyses the conditions through which Muslim and leftist engagement emerges within this movement, and highlights the decisive leadership of Muslim women.

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Zhao, “The Confucian-Legalist State A New Theory of Chinese History”

In November, Oxford University Press will release “The Confucian-Legalist State A New Theory of Chinese History” by Dingxin Zhao (University of Chicago). The publisher’s description follows:

The Confucian-Legalist State analyzes the history of China between the 11th century BCE and 1911 under the guidance of a new theory of social change. It centers on two questions. First, how and why China was unified and developed into a bureaucratic empire under the state of Qin in 221 BCE? Second, how was it that, until the nineteenth century, the political and cultural structure of China that was institutionalized during the Western Han dynasty (206 BCE – 8 CE) showed great resilience, despite great changes in demography, socioeconomic structure, ethnic composition, market relations, religious landscapes, technology, and in other respects brought by rebellions or nomadic conquests? In addressing these two questions, author Dingxin Zhao also explains numerous other historical patterns of China, including but not limited to the nature of ancient China’s interstate relations, the logics behind the rising importance of imperil Confucianism during the Western Han dynasty and behind the formation of Neo-Confucian society during the Song dynasty (960-1279 CE), the changing nature of China’s religious ecology under the age of Buddhism and Neo-Confucianism, the pattern of interactions between nomads and sedentary Chinese empires, the rise and dominance of civilian government, and China’s inability to develop industrial capitalism without the coercion of Western imperialism.

 

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Zaman, “Islamic Traditions of Refuge in the Crises of Iraq and Syria”

In November, Palgrave Macmillan will release “Islamic Traditions of Refuge in the Crises of Iraq and Syria” by Tahir Zaman (Center for Research on Migration, Refugees & Belonging (CMRB) at the University of East London, UK, and SOAS, University of London, UK). The publisher’s description follows:

The intersection of migration and religion has received little systematic investigation in the social sciences with scant attention paid to the lived experiences of refugees. Weaving together narrative analysis within a Bourdieuian framework, this book addresses this shortcoming in the literature. The constraints and opportunities Iraqi refugees encounter in emplacing themselves indicate contesting notions of religion. The challenges of facing a protracted exile and a protection impasse in Syria mean Iraqi refugees are compelled to reflect upon their specific experiences of religion and to mobilize their understandings of religious traditions in innovative ways in order to construct inhabitable worlds – in the process refugees move beyond the management and care of institutional actors. The study has immediate relevance – contributing to our understanding of power relations in the humanitarian field. Continuities are drawn between the crises of Iraq and Syria to better illustrate the role of religion during displacement crises.

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Greene, “No Depression in Heaven: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta”

Next month, Oxford University Press will release “No Depression in Heaven: The Great Depression, the New Deal, and the Transformation of Religion in the Delta” by Alison Collis Greene (Mississippi State University). The publisher’s description follows:

In No Depression in Heaven, Alison Collis Greene demonstrates how the Great Depression and New Deal transformed the relationship between church and state. Grounded in Memphis and the Delta, this book traces the collapse of voluntarism, the link between southern religion and the New Deal, and the gradual alienation of conservative Christianity from the state.

At the start of the Great Depression, churches and voluntary societies provided the only significant source of aid for those in need in the South. Limited in scope, divided by race, and designed to control the needy as much as to support them, religious aid collapsed under the burden of need in the early 1930s. Hungry, homeless, and out-of-work Americans found that they had nowhere to turn at the most desolate moment of their lives.

Religious leaders joined a chorus of pleas for federal intervention in the crisis and a permanent social safety net. They celebrated the New Deal as a religious triumph. Yet some complained that Franklin Roosevelt cut the churches out of his programs and lamented their lost moral authority. Still others found new opportunities within the New Deal. By the late 1930s, the pattern was set for decades of religious and political realignment.

More than a study of religion and politics, No Depression in Heaven uncovers the stories of men and women who endured the Depression and sought in their religious worlds the spiritual resources to endure material deprivation. Its characters are rich and poor, black and white, mobile sharecroppers and wealthy reformers, enamored of the federal government and appalled by it. Woven into this story of political and social transformation are stories of southern men and women who faced the greatest economic disaster of the twentieth century and tried to build a better world than the one they inhabited.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

“Egypt’s Revolutions” (eds. Rougier and Lacroix)

In November, Palgrave Macmillan will release “Egypt’s Revolutions: Politics, Religion, and Social Movements,” edited by Bernand Rougier (Director, Centre d’Études et de Documentation Économiques, Juridiques et Sociales) and Stephane Lacroix (Sciences Po). The publisher’s description follows:

Where is Egypt headed? Did the people ‘bring down the government,’ as the thousands of demonstrators in Tahrir Square claimed in January 2011? What has taken place since the fall of the Mubarak regime the following month? Why was political Islam, although it triumphed in the first free elections ever held in Egypt, overwhelmingly rejected during massive demonstrations in June 2013? Is authoritarian rule making a final comeback since the bloody crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, Field Marshall al-Sisi’s rise to the presidency, and the arrest of revolutionary activists? Has the country become the first front in a regional counter-revolution backed by the Gulf monarchies? Can jihadist violence, which is more active than ever, contaminate the entire Islamist spectrum, beginning with the Muslim Brotherhood’s militant base, which is pondering what action to take while its leadership rots in prison? This volume is the first to describe the ongoing dynamics in the country since the outbreak of revolution. Written by Egyptian, American, and French specialists who have experienced Egypt’s turmoil first hand, it sheds light on a demographic, political and cultural giant whose upheavals and crises have sent ripples throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

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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Mocko, “Demoting Vishnu: Ritual, Politics, and the Unraveling of Nepal’s Hindu Monarchy”

In November, Oxford University Press will release “Demoting Vishnu: Ritual, Politics, and the Unraveling of Nepal’s Hindu Monarchy” by Anne T. Mocko (Concordia College). The publisher’s description follows:

At the turn of the millennium, Nepal was the world’s last remaining Hindu kingdom. Even the most skeptical of observers could hardly imagine that the institution of the monarchy could soon be in jeopardy. In 2001, however, Nepal’s popular King Birendra was killed in the royal palace. Though the crown passed to his brother Gyanendra, the monarchy would never fully recover. Nepal witnessed an anti-king uprising in April 2006 and over the course of two years, an interim administration systematically took over all the king’s duties and privileges. Most decisively, beginning in the summer of 2007 the government began blocking the king from participating in his many public rituals, sending the prime minister in his place instead.

Demoting Vishnu argues that Nepal’s dramatic political transformation from monarchy to republic was contested-and in key ways accomplished-through ritual performance. Mocko theorizes the role of public ritual in producing Nepal’s state ideology. She examines how royal ritual once authorized kings to serve as the privileged apex of national governance and shows how in the twenty-first century those rituals stopped serving the king and began instead to authorize rule by a party-based “head of state.” By co-opting state ritual, the king’s opponents were able to attack the monarchy’s social identity at its foundations, enabling the final legal dissolution of kingship in 2008 to take place without physically harming the king himself. All once-royal rituals continue to be performed, but now they are handled by the country’s president-a position created in 2008 to take over state ceremonial functions. Demoting Vishnu illustrates how upheaval in ritual contexts undermined the institutional logic of the monarchy by demonstrating in very public ways that kingship was contingent, opposable, and ultimately dispensable.