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“Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society” (Hunt, ed.)

This month, Brill releases “Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society” edited by Stephen Hunt (University of the West of England, Bristol). The publisher’s description follows:

The Handbook of Global Contemporary Christianity: Themes and Developments in Culture, Politics, and Society maps the transformations, as well as the continuities, of the largest of the major religions – engaging with the critical global issues which relate to the faith in a fast changing world. International experts in the area offer contributions focusing on global movements; regional trends and developments; Christianity, the state, politics and polity; and Christianity and social diversity. Collectively the contributors provide a comprehensive treatment of health of the religion as Christianity enters its third millennium in existence and details the challenges and dilemmas facing its various expressions, both old and new. The volume is a companion to the Handbook of Contemporary Global Christianity: Movements, Institutions, and Allegiance.

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“Rawls’s Political Liberalism” (Brooks & Nussbaum, eds.)

This May, Columbia University Press will release “Rawls’s Political Liberalism” edited by Thom Brooks (Durham University), and Martha Nussbaum (University of Chicago).  The publisher’s description follows:

Rawls's Political LiberalismWidely hailed as one of the most significant works in modern political philosophy, John Rawls’s Political Liberalism (1993) defended a powerful vision of society that respects reasonable ways of life, both religious and secular. These core values have never been more critical as anxiety grows over political and religious difference and new restrictions are placed on peaceful protest and individual expression.

This anthology of original essays suggests new, groundbreaking applications of Rawls’s work in multiple disciplines and contexts. Thom Brooks, Martha Nussbaum, Onora O’Neill (University of Cambridge), Paul Weithman (University of Notre Dame), Jeremy Waldron (New York University), and Frank Michelman (Harvard University) explore political liberalism’s relevance to the challenges of multiculturalism, the relationship between the state and religion, the struggle for political legitimacy, and the capabilities approach. Extending Rawls’s progressive thought to the fields of law, economics, and public reason, this book helps advance the project of a free society that thrives despite disagreements over religious and moral views.

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Jackson, “Political Agape”

This May, Eerdmans Publishing will release “Political Agape: Christian Love and Liberal Democracy” by Timothy P. Jackson (Emory University).  The publisher’s description follows:

Political AgapeWhat is the place of Christian love in a pluralistic society dedicated to “liberty and justice for all”? What would it mean to take both Jesus Christ and Abraham Lincoln seriously and attempt to translate love of God and neighbor into every quarter of life, including law and politics?

Timothy Jackson here argues that agapic love of God and neighbor is the perilously neglected civil virtue of our time — and that it must be considered even before justice and liberty in structuring political principles and policies. Jackson then explores what “political agape” might look like when applied to such issues as the death penalty, same-sex marriage, and adoption.

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“Religion and National Identities in an Enlarged Europe” (Spohn et al., eds.)

This May, Palgrave Macmillan will release “Religion and National Identities in an Enlarged Europe” edited by Willfried Spohn (University of Wroclaw, Poland), Matthias Koenig, and Wolfgang Knöbl (Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany).  The publisher’s description follows:

This volume analyzes the changing relationships between religion and national identity in the course of European integration. Presenting results from cross-national comparative research on elite discourse, media debates and public opinions in Germany, Poland, Greece and Turkey from 1990-2010, it examines how accelerated European integration and Eastern enlargement have affected religious markers of collective identity.

Critically engaging with secularist assumptions in the social scientific literatures on nationalism and European integration, the collection demonstrates that the Europeanization of collective identities does not necessarily imply reducing the salience of religion. Rather, the emergence of a European polity can prompt the reactive reaffirmation of religious nationalisms and lead to the re-embedding of religious components of collective identity within broader transnational frameworks. As the contributions in this book show, explaining such changing relationships between religion and national identity requires attention to long-standing civilizational traditions, short-term dynamics of symbolic boundary-making as well as institutional trajectories of state-church-relations.

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“Atheist Secularism and its Discontents” (Ngo & Quijada, eds.)

This May, Palgrave MacMillan will release “Atheist Secularism and its Discontents: A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia” edited by Tam T. T. Ngo (Max Plank Institute) and  Justine B. Quijada (Wesleyan University).  The publisher’s description follows:

Atheist Secularism and Its Discontents takes a comparative approach to understanding religion under communism, arguing that communism was integral to the global experience of secularism. Bringing together leading researchers whose work spans the Eurasian continent, it shows that defining, co-opting and appropriating religion was central to Communist political practices. Indeed, it is precisely because atheism was so central to the communist project that atheism’s others, superstition and religion, were essential to the communist experience. Although all forms of communism sought to eradicate or limit religion, this book demonstrates that religious life under such regimes was unexpectedly rich, and that throughout the communist and post-communist world religious and political imaginaries are intimately intertwined.

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Rahnema, “Shi’i Reformation in Iran: The Life and Theology of Shari’at Sangelaji”

In May, Ashgate Press will release “Shi’i Reformation in Iran: The Life and Theology of Shari’at Sangelaji” by Ali Rahnema (The American University of Paris). The publisher’s description follows:

Shi ‘ism caught the attention of the world as Iran experienced her revolution in 1979 and was subsequently cast in the mold of a monolithic discourse of radical political Islam. The spokespersons of Shi’i Islam, in or out of power, have not been the sole representatives of the faith. Nonconformist and uncompromising, the Shi‘i jurist and reformist Shari’at Sangelaji (1891–1944) challenged certain popular Shi‘i beliefs and the mainstream clerical establishment, guarding and propagating it. In Shi’i Reformation in Iran, Ali Rahnema offers a fresh understanding of Sangelaji’s reformist discourse from a theological standpoint, and takes readers into the heart of the key religious debates in Iran in the 1940s. Exploring Sangelaji’s life, theological position and disputations, Rahnema demonstrates that far from being change resistant, debates around why and how to reform the faith have long been at the heart of Shi’i Islam.

Drawing on the writings and sermons of Sangelaji, as well as interviews with his son, the book provides a detailed and comprehensive introduction to the reformist’s ideas. As such it offers scholars of religion and Middle Eastern politics alike a penetrating insight into the impact that these ideas have had on Shi’ism—an impact which is still felt today.

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“Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty” (Stack et al., eds.)

This May, Brill Academic Publishing will release “Religion as a Category of Governance and Sovereignty” edited by Trevor Stack (University of Aberdeen), Naomi Goldenberg (University of Ottawa), and Timothy Fitzgerald (University of Stirling).  The publisher’s description follows:

Religion as a CategoryReligious-secular distinctions have been crucial to the way in which modern governments have rationalised their governance and marked out their sovereignty – as crucial as the territorial boundaries that they have drawn around nations. The authors of this volume provide a multi-dimensional picture of how the category of religion has served the ends of modern government. They draw on perspectives from history, anthropology, moral philosophy, theology and religious studies, as well as empirical analysis of India, Japan, Mexico, the United States, Israel-Palestine, France and the United Kingdom.

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Smyth, “Toronto, the Belfast of Canada”

This May, University of Toronto Press will release “Toronto, the Belfast of Canada: The Orange Order and the Shaping of Municipal Culture” by William J. Smyth (National University of Ireland).  The publisher’s description follows:

TorontoIn late nineteenth-century Toronto, municipal politics were so dominated by the Irish Protestants of the Orange Order that the city was known as the “Belfast of Canada.” For almost a century, virtually every mayor of Toronto was an Orangeman and the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne was a civic holiday. Toronto, the Belfast of Canada explores the intolerant origins of today’s cosmopolitan city.

Using lodge membership lists, census data, and municipal records, William J. Smyth details the Orange Order’s role in creating Toronto’s municipal culture of militant Protestantism, loyalism, and monarchism. One of Canada’s foremost experts on the Orange Order, Smyth analyses the Orange Order’s influence between 1850 and 1950, the city’s frequent public displays of sectarian tensions, and its occasional bouts of rioting and mayhem.

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Berman, “Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit”

In May, the University of Chicago Press will release “Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit” by Lila Corwin Berman (Temple University). The publisher’s description follows:

In this provocative and accessible urban history, Lila Corwin Berman considers the role that Detroit’s Jews played in the city’s well-known narrative of migration and decline. Taking its cue from social critics and historians who have long looked toward Detroit to understand twentieth-century urban transformations, Metropolitan Jews tells the story of Jews leaving the city while retaining a deep connection to it. Berman argues convincingly that though most Jews moved to the suburbs, urban abandonment, disinvestment, and an embrace of conservatism did not invariably accompany their moves. Instead, the Jewish postwar migration was marked by an enduring commitment to a newly fashioned urbanism with a vision of self, community, and society that persisted well beyond city limits.

Complex and subtle, Metropolitan Jews pushes urban scholarship beyond the tenacious black/white, urban/suburban dichotomy. It demands a more nuanced understanding of the process and politics of suburbanization and will reframe how we think about the American urban experiment and modern Jewish history.

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Weller et al., “Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality”

In May, Bloomsbury Academic Publishing will release “Religion or Belief, Discrimination and Equality: Britain in Global Contexts” by Paul Weller (University of Derby), Kingsley Purdam (University of Manchester), Nazila Ghanea (University of Oxford), Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor (University of Derby).  The publisher’s description follows:

Religion Or BeliefIn recent years, controversial issues related to religion or belief, discrimination, equality and human rights have come to the fore, especially in the context of public debates around multiculturalism following the ‘social policy shock’ created by the impact of violent religious extremism. For example should there be restrictions on what people can wear in the work place based on their religious identity? Should religious organizations be exempt from aspects of equalities legislation which are not in line with their beliefs and values? How should non-religious identities be recognized?

In the context of increasing cultural and religion or belief diversity, it is vitally important for the future to understand the nature and extent of discrimination and unfair treatment on the grounds of religion or belief, and to assess the adequacy of policies, practices and laws designed to tackle this. This includes the overlap of religion or belief identities with other aspects of people’s identity including characteristics such as age, disability, race, sex and sexual orientation which can also be legally protected.

This volume is a benchmark publication on religion, discrimination and equality. It includes data and insights derived from the fieldwork, focus groups and questionnaire survey of a recent national research project in Britain. Its analysis presents a unique insight into continuity and change in people’s reported experience over a decade of equalities legislation and political and social change of unfair treatment on the basis of religion or belief. Grounded in empirical and contextualized data, its findings are placed in the context of European and international human rights law.

Its findings will be of special interest to both scholars and practitioners working in the specific fields of education, employment, the media, criminal justice and immigration, housing, health care, social services, and funding, as well as in the broader fields of religion or belief, the law and public policy.