Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Birge, “Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan”

In June, the Harvard University Press will release “Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan: Cases from the Yuan dianzhang,” by Bettine Birge (University of Southern California).  The publisher’s description follows:

The Mongol conquest of China in the thirteenth century and Khubilai Khan’s founding of the Yuan dynasty brought together under one government people of 9780674975514-lgdifferent languages, religions, and social customs. Chinese law evolved rapidly to accommodate these changes, as reflected in the great compendium Yuan dianzhang (Statutes and Precedents of the Yuan Dynasty). The records of legal cases contained in this seminal text, Bettine Birge shows, paint a portrait of medieval Chinese family life—and the conflicts that arose from it—that is unmatched by any other historical source.

Marriage and the Law in the Age of Khubilai Khan reveals the complex, sometimes contradictory inner workings of the Mongol-Yuan legal system, seen through the prism of marriage disputes in chapter eighteen of the Yuan dianzhang, which has never before been translated into another language. The text includes court testimony—recorded in the vivid vernacular of people from all social classes—in lawsuits over adultery, divorce, rape, wife-selling, marriages of runaway slaves, and other conflicts. It brings us closer than any other source to the actual Mongolian speech of Khubilai and the great khans who succeeded him as they struggled to reconcile very different Mongol, Muslim, and Chinese legal traditions and confront the challenges of ruling a diverse polyethnic empire.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Broyde, “Sharia Tribunals, Rabbinical Courts, and Christian Panels”

In June, the Oxford University Press will release “Sharia Tribunals, Rabbinical Courts, and Christian Panels: Religious Arbitration in America and the West,” by Michael Broyde (Emory University).  The publisher’s description follows:

This book explores the rise of private arbitration in religious and other values-oriented communities, and it argues that secular societies should use secular legal 9780190640286.jpgframeworks to facilitate, enforce, and also regulate religious arbitration. It covers the history of religious arbitration; the kinds of faith-based dispute resolution models currently in use; how the law should perceive them; and what the role of religious arbitration in the United States should be. Part One examines why religious individuals and communities are increasingly turning to private faith-based dispute resolution to arbitrate their litigious disputes. It focuses on why religious communities feel disenfranchised from secular law, and particularly secular family law. Part Two looks at why American law is so comfortable with faith-based arbitration, given its penchant for enabling parties to order their relationships and resolve their disputes using norms and values that are often different from and sometimes opposed to secular standards. Part Three weighs the proper procedural, jurisdictional, and contractual limits of arbitration generally, and of religious arbitration particularly. It identifies and explains the reasonable limitations on religious arbitration. Part Four examines whether secular societies should facilitate effective, legally enforceable religious dispute resolution, and it argues that religious arbitration is not only good for the religious community itself, but that having many different avenues for faith-based arbitration which are properly limited is good for any vibrant pluralistic democracy inhabited by diverse faith groups.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Durham & Thayer, “Religion, Pluralism, and Reconciling Difference”

In August, Routledge will release “Religion, Pluralism, and Reconciling Difference,” by W. Cole Durham, Jr. (Brigham Young University)  and Donlu Thayer (Brigham Young University).  The publisher’s description follows:

Religion, Pluralism, and Reconciling Difference brings together vital and thoughtful contributions treating aspects of mounting worldwide tensions concerning the routlogorelationship between religious diversity and social harmony. Religious pluralism can contribute to tensions in employment, media coverage of religion, and public life generally. Experts from North and South America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East address these issues and suggest not only how social institutions can reduce tensions, but also how religious pluralism itself can bolster needed civil society.

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“The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity” (Dawson, ed.)

In April, Routledge will release “The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity: National Contexts, Global Issues,” edited by Andrew Dawson (Lancaster University).  The publisher’s description follows:

The Politics and Practice of Religious Diversity engages with one of the most characteristic features of modern society. An increasingly prominent 9781138791817and potentially contentious phenomenon, religious diversity is intimately associated with contemporary issues such as migration, human rights, social cohesion, socio-cultural pluralisation, political jurisdiction, globalisation, and reactionary belief systems.

This edited collection of specially-commissioned chapters provides an unrivalled geographical coverage and multidisciplinary treatment of the socio-political processes and institutional practices provoked by, and associated with, religious diversity. Alongside chapters treating religious diversity in the ‘BRIC’ countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, are contributions which discuss Australia, Finland, Mexico, South Africa, the UK, and the United States.

This book provides an accessible, distinctive and timely treatment of a topic which is inextricably linked with modern society’s progressively diverse and global trajectory. Written and structured as an accessible volume for the student reader, this book is of immediate interest to both academics and laypersons working in mainstream and political sociology, sociology of religion, human geography, politics, area studies, migration studies and religious studies.

Posted on by Christina Vlahos

Edwards, “Religions of the Constantinian Empire”

This month, Oxford University Press releases “Religions of the Constantinian Empire,” by Mark Edwards (University of Oxford).  The publisher’s description follows:

Religions of the Constantinian Empire provides a synoptic review of Constantine’s relation to all the cultic and theological traditions of the Empire during the period9780199687725 from his seizure of power in the west in 306 CE to the end of his reign as autocrat of both east and west in 337 CE. Divided into three parts, the first considers the efforts of Christians to construct their own philosophy, and their own patterns of the philosophic life, in opposition to Platonism. The second assembles evidence of survival, variation or decay in religious practices which were never compulsory under Roman law. The “religious plurality” of the second section includes those cults which are represented as demonic burlesques of the sacraments by Firmicus Maternus. The third reviews the changes, both within the church and in the public sphere, which were undeniably prompted by the accession of a Christian monarch. In this section on “Christian polyphony,” Mark Edwards expertly moves on from this deliberate petrifaction of Judaism to the profound shift in relations between the church and the civic cult that followed the Emperor’s choice of a new divine protector.

The material in the first section will be most familiar to the historian of philosophy, that of the second to the historian of religion, and that of the third to the theologian. All three sections make reference to such factors as the persecution under Diocletian, the so-called “edict of Milan,”the subsequent legislation of Constantine, and the summoning of the council of Nicaea. Edwards does not maintain, however, that the religious and philosophical innovations of this period were mere by-products of political revolution; indeed, he often highlights that Christianity was more revolutionary in its expectations than any sovereign could afford to be in his acts.This authoritative study provides a comprehensive reference work for those studying the ecclesiastical and theological developments and controversies of the fourth century.

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Lee, “Recognizing the Non-religious: Reimagining the Secular”

This month, Oxford University Press releases “Recognizing the Non-religious: Reimagining the Secular” by Lois Lee (University College London). The publisher’s description follows:

In recent years, the extent to which contemporary societies are secular has come under scrutiny. At the same time, many countries, especially in Europe, have increasingly large nonaffiliate, ‘subjectively secular’ populations, whilst nonreligious cultural movements like the New Atheism and the Sunday Assembly have come to prominence. Making sense of secularity, irreligion, and the relationship between them has therefore emerged as a crucial task for those seeking to understand contemporary societies and the nature of modern life.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in southeast England, Recognizing the Nonreligious develops a new vocabulary, theory and methodology for thinking about the secular. It distinguishes between separate and incommensurable aspects of so-called secularity as insubstantial – involving merely the absence of religion – and substantial – involving beliefs, ritual practice, and identities that are alternative to religious ones. Recognizing the cultural forms that present themselves as nonreligious therefore opens up new, more egalitarian and more theoretically coherent ways of thinking about people who are ‘not religious’. It is also argued that recognizing the nonreligious allows us to reimagine the secular itself in new and productive ways.

This book is part of a fast-growing area of research that builds upon and contributes to theoretical debates concerning secularization, ‘desecularization’, religious change, postsecularity and postcolonial approaches to religion and secularism. As well as presenting new research, this book gathers insights from the wider studies of nonreligion, atheism, and secularism in order to consolidate a theoretical framework, conceptual foundation and agenda for future research.

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“Religious Literacy in Policy and Practice” (Dinham & Francis, eds.)

This month, Policy Press at the University of Bristol released “Religious Literacy in Policy and Practice” edited by Adam Dinham (University of London) and Matthew Francis (Lancaster University). The publisher’s description follows:

It has long been assumed that religion is in decline in the West: however it continues to have an important yet contested role in individual lives and in society at large. Furthermore half a century or so in which religion and belief were barely talked about in public has resulted in a pressing lack of religious literacy, leaving many ill-equipped to engage with religion and belief when they encounter them in daily life – in relationships, law, media, the professions, business and politics, among others. This valuable book is the first to bring together theory and policy with analysis and expertise on practices in key areas of the public realm to explore what religious literacy is, why it is needed and what might be done about it. It makes the case for a public realm which is well equipped to engage with the plurality and pervasiveness of religion and belief, whatever the individual’s own stance. It is aimed at academics, policy-makers and practitioners interested in the policy and practice implications of the continuing presence of religion and belief in the public sphere.

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“Christianity and Religious Plurality” (Methuen et al., eds.)

In May, the Ecclesiastical History Society will release “Christianity and Religious Plurality” edited by Charlotte Methuen (University of Glasgow), Andrew Spicer (Oxford Brookes University), and John Wolffe (The Open University). The publisher’s description follows:

This, the fifty-first volume of Studies in Church History, takes as its theme ‘Christianity and Religious Plurality’. The focus is on exploring the practical experience of Christians, who have often existed in a world of manifold belief systems and religious practices. Under the Presidency of Professor John Wolffe, the summer conference and winter volume brought together a fascinating series of lectures and communications, a selection of which are collected in this peer-reviewed volume. Three main areas of engagement emerge: contexts where Christianity was a minority faith, whether in the earliest years of the church, in the Mongol empire of the thirteenth century or under Ottoman rule in the fifteenth, or in contemporary Iraq, Egypt and Indonesia; responses to religious minorities in predominantly Christian societies, such as early-modern Malta or nineteenth- and twentieth-century London; and finally, Christian encounters with other religions in situations where no single tradition was obviously dominant. Offering an unusual perspective on Christian encounters with other faiths, this volume will appeal to students of religious studies and those interested in the cultural contexts in which Christianity has existed – and indeed continues to exist.

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Ellethy, “Islam, Context, Pluralism and Democracy: Classical and Modern Interpretations”

In December, Routledge Press released “Islam, Context, Pluralism and Democracy: Classical and Modern Interpretations” by Yaser Ellethy (VU University, Amsterdam). The publisher’s description follows:

Islam, Context, Pluralism and Democracy aspires to clarify the tensions and congruences between the revelational and the rational, the text and the context, the limits and the horizons of contextualization in Islam, as these emanate from the Islamic interpretative tradition.

This book examines classical and modern Muslim interpretations with regard to the concepts of diachronic development, pluralism and democracy based on Arabic-Islamic sources and literature. Focusing on the parameters of semantic changes, methods of interpretation and cultural variables, it shows how this interpretative tradition offers a diversity of ideas and approaches that can be utilized in contemporary debates concerning the socio-political contextualization of Islamic genuine thought. However, within this diversity, Islam presents generic principles and core values as ‘moral paradigms’ that can deal with such modern challenges. Based on the analysis of core Islamic texts and key-terms related to the discussed issues, mainly from the Quran and the Sunnah, and the broader Arabic-Islamic literature, it explores the boundaries of the mutable and constant in the Islamic worldview.

Presenting classical Muslim interpretations and scholars as possible interlocutors in debates over the compatibility of Islam with challenges of modernity, this book is essential reading for researchers and postgraduates interested in Islamic Studies, Philosophy of Religion and Political Science.

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Garelli, “Religion Italian Style: Continuities and Changes in a Catholic Country”

This month, Ashgate Publishing releases “Religion Italian Style: Continuities and Changes in a Catholic Country” by Franco Garelli (University of Turin, Italy). The publisher’s description follows:

Italy’s traditional subcultures – Communist, Socialist, Liberal, Republican, Right-wing – have largely dissolved and yet Catholics have retained their vitality and solidity. How can the vast majority of Italians continue to maintain some connection with Catholicism? How much is the Italian situation influenced by the closeness of the Vatican?

Examining the religious condition of contemporary Italy, Religion Italian Style argues that the relationship between religion and society in Italy has unique characteristics when compared with what is happening in other European Catholic Countries. Exploring key topics and religious trends which question how the population feel – from the laity and the role of religions in the public sphere, to moral debates, forms of religious pluralism, and new spiritualities – this book questions how these affect religious life, and how intricately religion is interwoven with the nation’s fabric and the dynamics of the whole society.