From Routledge: “Catholics are not Christians. They worship Mary. They do whatever the pope says. They cannot divorce. They eat fish on Fridays. These flawed but common statements reflect a combined ignorance of and fascination with Catholicism and the Catholic Church. Catholicism Today: An Introduction to the Contemporary Catholic Church aims to familiarize its readers with contemporary Catholicism. The book is designed to address common misconceptions and frequently-asked questions regarding the Church, its teachings, and the lived experience of Catholics in modern societies worldwide. Opening with a concise historical overview of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, the text explores the core beliefs and rituals that define Catholicism in practice, the organization of the Church and the Catholic calendar, as well as the broad question of what it means to be Catholic in a variety of cultural contexts. The book ends with a discussion of the challenges facing the Church both now and in the coming decades. Also included are two short appendices on Eastern Catholicism and Catholicism in the United States.”

From Cambridge University Press: The Cambridge Companion to American Islam offers a scholarly overview of the state of research on American Muslims and American Islam. The book presents the reader with a comprehensive discussion of the debates, challenges, and opportunities that American Muslims have faced through centuries of American history. This volume also covers the creative ways in which American Muslims have responded to the myriad serious challenges that they have faced and continue to face in constructing a religious praxis and complex identities that are grounded in both a universal tradition and the particularities of their local contexts. The book introduces the reader to some of the many facets of the lives of American Muslims that can only be understood in their interactions with Islam’s entanglement in the American experiment.

Posted in Faculty Publications on July 3, 2014. Bookmark the permalink.

From University of Toronto Press: “The Mystical Science of the Soul explores the unexamined influence of medieval discourses of science and spirituality on recogimiento, the unique Spanish genre of recollection mysticism that served as the driving force behind the principal developments in Golden Age mysticism. Building on recent research in medieval optics, physiology, and memory in relation to the devotional practices of the late Middle Ages, Jessica A. Boon probes the implications of an ‘embodied soul’ for the intellectual history of Spanish mysticism. Boon proposes a fundamental rereading of the key recogimiento text Subida del Monte Sión (1535/1538), which melds the traditionally distinct spiritual techniques of moral self-examination, Passion meditation, and negative theology into one cognitively adept path towards mystical union. She is also the first English-language scholar to treat the author of this influential work – the Renaissance physician Bernardino de Laredo, a pivotal figure in the transition from medieval to early modern spirituality on the Iberian peninsula and a source for Teresa of Avila’s mystical language.”

From the University of Hawaii Press: “This tightly written, thoroughly researched, and timely book sheds new light on important questions of contemporary Japanese life. It is ultimately about how Japanese people think and feel about pets and other kinds of animals and, in turn, what pets and their people tell us about life and death in Japan today. Ambros’ compelling exploration of the necrogeography and religious politics of pet mortuary rites will take the field in a new direction. It is the first work I know of to deal so fully with one of the most distinctly Japanese aspects of this issue: ritualized mourning for dead animals. Bones of Contention will be read by scholars of anthropology, history, and religious studies both inside and outside of Japanese studies as well as by those with an interest in animals, pets, and pet-keeping.” —Ian Miller, Harvard University

Posted in Faculty Publications on June 25, 2014. Bookmark the permalink.