Arts and Humanities Commons^™

[Introduction To] Religion And The Medieval And Early Modern Global Marketplace, Scott Oldenburg, Kristin M.S. Bezio

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Religion and the Medieval and Early Modern Global Marketplace brings together scholars from a variety of disciplines to examine the intersection, conflict, and confluence of religion and the market before 1700.

Each chapter analyzes the unique interplay of faith and economy in a different locale: Syria, Ethiopia, France, Iceland, India, Peru, and beyond. In ten case studies, specialists of archaeology, art history, social and economic history, religious studies, and critical theory address issues of secularization, tolerance, colonialism, and race with a fresh focus. They chart the tensions between religious and economic thought in specific locales or texts, the complex ways …

[Introduction To] On Agamben, Arendt, Christianity, And The Dark Arts Of Civilization, Peter I. Kaufman

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Many progressives have found passages in Augustine's work that suggest he entertained hopes for meaningful political melioration in his time. They also propose that his “political theology” could be an especially valuable resource for “an ethics of democratic citizenship” or for “hopeful citizenship” in our times. Peter Kaufman argues that Augustine's “political theology” offers a compelling, radical alternative to progressive politics. He chronicles Augustine's experiments with alternative polities, and pairs Augustine's criticisms of political culture with those of Giorgio Agamben and Hannah Arendt.

This book argues that the perspectives of pilgrims (Augustine), refugees (Agamben), and pariahs (Arendt) are better staging …

[Introduction To] Feeding The Flock: The Foundations Of Mormon Thought: Church And Praxis, Terryl L. Givens

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Feeding the Flock, the second volume of Terryl L. Givens's landmark study of the foundations of Mormon thought and practice, traces the essential contours of Mormon practice as it developed from Joseph Smith to the present. Despite the stigmatizing fascination with its social innovations (polygamy, communalism), its stark supernaturalism (angels, gold plates, and seer stones), and its most esoteric aspects (a New World Garden of Eden, sacred undergarments), as well as its long-standing outlier status among American Protestants, Givens reminds us that Mormonism remains the most enduring-and thriving-product of the nineteenth-century's religious upheavals and innovations. Because Mormonism is founded …

[Introduction To] Darkness Falls On The Land Of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings In Eighteenth-Century New England, Douglas L. Winiarski

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This sweeping history of popular religion in eighteenth-century New England examines the experiences of ordinary people living through extraordinary times. Drawing on an unprecedented quantity of letters, diaries, and testimonies, Douglas Winiarski recovers the pervasive and vigorous lay piety of the early eighteenth century. George Whitefield's preaching tour of 1740 called into question the fundamental assumptions of this thriving religious culture. Incited by Whitefield and fascinated by miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit--visions, bodily fits, and sudden conversions--countless New Englanders broke ranks with family, neighbors, and ministers who dismissed their religious experiences as delusive enthusiasm. These new converts, the progenitors …

[Introduction To] Authority And Identity In Medieval Islamic Historiography: Persian Histories From The Peripheries, Mimi Hanaoka

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Intriguing dreams, improbable myths, fanciful genealogies, and suspect etymologies. These were all key elements of the historical texts composed by scholars and bureaucrats on the peripheries of Islamic empires between the tenth and fifteenth centuries. But how are historians to interpret such narratives? And what can these more literary histories tell us about the people who wrote them and the times in which they lived? In this book, Mimi Hanaoka offers an innovative, interdisciplinary method of approaching these sorts of local histories from the Persianate world. By paying attention to the purpose and intention behind a text's creation, her book …

[Introduction To] The Columbia Sourcebook Of Mormons In The United States, Terryl Givens, Reid L. Nielson

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This anthology offers rare access to key original documents illuminating Mormon history, theology, and culture in the United States from the nineteenth century to today. Brief introductions describe the theological significance of each text and its reflection of the practices, issues, and challenges that have defined and continue to define the Mormon community. These documents balance mainstream and peripheral thought and religious experience, institutional and personal perspective, and theoretical and practical interpretation, representing pivotal moments in LDS history and correcting decades of misinformation and stereotype.

The authors of these documents, male and female, not only celebrate but speak critically and …

[Introduction To] Religion Around Shakespeare, Peter Iver Kaufman

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For years scholars and others have been trying to out Shakespeare as an ardent Calvinist, a crypto-Catholic, a Puritan-baiter, a secularist, or a devotee of some hybrid faith. In Religion Around Shakespeare, Peter Kaufman sets aside such speculation in favor of considering the historical and religious context surrounding his work. Employing extensive archival research, he aims to assist literary historians who probe the religious discourses, characters, and events that seem to have found places in Shakespeare’s plays and to aid general readers or playgoers developing an interest in the plays’ and playwright’s religious contexts: Catholic, conformist, and reformist. Kaufman …

[Introduction To] Believing And Acting: The Pragmatic Turn In Comparative Religion And Ethics, G. Scott Davis

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How should religion and ethics be studied if we want to understand what people believe and why they act the way they do? In the 1980s and '90s postmodernist worries about led to debates that turned on power, truth, and relativism. Since the turn of the century scholars impressed by 'cognitive science' have introduced concepts drawn from evolutionary biology, neurosciences, and linguistics in the attempt to provide 'naturalist' accounts of religion. Deploying concepts and arguments that have their roots in the pragmatism of C. S. Peirce, Believing and Acting argues that both approaches are misguided and largely unhelpful in answering …

[Introduction To] Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul Of Mormonism, Terryl Givens, Matthew J. Grow

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After Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt was the most influential figure in early Mormon history and culture. Missionary, pamphleteer, theologian, historian, and martyr, Pratt was perennially stalked by controversy--regarded, he said, "almost as an Angel by thousands and counted an Imposter by tens of thousands."

Tracing the life of this colorful figure from his hardscrabble origins in upstate New York to his murder in 1857, Terryl Givens and Matthew Grow explore the crucial role Pratt played in the formation and expansion of early Mormonism. One of countless ministers inspired by the antebellum revival movement known as the …

[Introduction To] When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence In Western Thought, Terryl Givens

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The idea of the pre-existence of the soul has been extremely important, widespread, and persistent throughout Western history--from even before the philosophy of Plato to the poetry of Robert Frost. When Souls Had Wings offers the first systematic history of this little explored feature of Western culture.

Terryl Givens describes the tradition of pre-existence as "pre-heaven"--the place where unborn souls wait until they descend to earth to be born. And typically it is seen as a descent--a falling away from a happier and untroubled state into the turbulent and sinful world we know. The title of the book refers to …

[Chapter 1 From] The Book Of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction, Terryl Givens

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With over 140 million copies in print, and serving as the principal proselytizing tool of one of the world's fastest growing faiths, the Book of Mormon is undoubtedly one of the most influential religious texts produced in the western world. Written by Terryl Givens, a leading authority on Mormonism, this compact volume offers the only concise, accessible introduction to this extraordinary work.

Givens examines the Book of Mormon first and foremost in terms of the claims that its narrators make for its historical genesis, its purpose as a sacred text, and its meaning for an audience which shifts over the …

[Introduction To] Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals After Two Centuries, Terryl Givens, Reid L. Nielson

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Mormon founder Joseph Smith is one of the most controversial figures of nineteenth-century American history, and a virtually inexhaustible subject for analysis. In this volume, fifteen scholars offer essays on how to interpret and understand Smith and his legacy. Including essays by both Mormons and non-Mormons, this wide-ranging collection is the only available survey of contemporary scholarly opinion on the extraordinary man who started one of the fastest growing religious traditions in the modern world.

[Introduction To] People Of Paradox: A History Of Mormon Culture, Terryl Givens

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In People of Paradox, Terryl Givens traces the rise and development of Mormon culture from the days of Joseph Smith in upstate New York, through Brigham Young's founding of the Territory of Deseret on the shores of Great Salt Lake, to the spread of the Latter-Day Saints around the globe.

Throughout the last century and a half, Givens notes, distinctive traditions have emerged among the Latter-Day Saints, shaped by dynamic tensions--or paradoxes--that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Here is a religion shaped by a rigid authoritarian hierarchy and radical individualism; by prophetic certainty and a celebration …

[Introduction To] The Latter-Day Saint Experience In America, Terryl Givens

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Provides the most comprehensive overview of Mormonism—one of the fast growing religions in the World—available in one volume.

Scholars have labeled the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormonism as it is better known, both the American Religion, and the next world faith. The Mormon saga includes early persecution, conflict, and pioneer resilience, against a backdrop of revolutionary religious, social, and economic practices. The greatest colonizing force in American history, Mormonism has outgrown its 19th-century isolation and theocratic roots to become one of the most prosperous and respected Christian communities in the country. This book examines the history …

[Introduction To] Thinking Of The Laity In Late Tudor England, Peter Iver Kaufman

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Thinking of the Laity explains why proposals for expanding lay prerogatives failed to shape the Elizabethan religious settlement from the 1560s through the 1580s. It also greatly adds to our understanding of the policy debates that are closely associated with the origins of puritanism, presbyterianism, and congregationalism. This book will be essential reading for people interested in the history of early modern England and in the progress of sixteenth-century religious reform.

[Introduction To] By The Hand Of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched A New World Religion, Terryl Givens

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With over 100 million copies in print, the Book of Mormon has spawned a vast religious movement, but it remains little discussed outside Mormon circles. Now Terry L. Givens offers a full-length treatment of this influential work, illuminating the varied meanings and tempestuous impact of this uniquely American scripture.

Givens examines the text's role as a divine testament of the Last Days and as a sacred sign of Joseph Smith's status as a modern-day prophet. He assesses its claim to be a history of the pre-Columbian peopling of the Western Hemisphere, and later explores how the Book has been defined …

[Introduction To] On The Epistemology Of The Senses In Early Chinese Thought, Jane Geaney

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Sense perception, which is of enormous importance in Western philosophical traditions, has scarcely attracted the notice of scholars of early China. As a result of little direct comment on the senses in the Chinese philosophical classics, sinologists have generally interpreted their occasional references to sense functions in familiar Western philosophical terms. This original work challenges this tradition, arguing that despite the scarcity of direct comment on the senses in these sources, it is possible to discern early Chinese views of sensory functions from a close reading of the texts. Working with metaphorical and structural analysis, the author reconstructs an understanding …

[Introduction To] The Viper On The Hearth: Mormons, Myths, And The Construction Of Heresy, Terryl Givens

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Nineteenth-century American writers frequently cast the Mormon as a stock villain in such fictional genres as mysteries, westerns, and popular romances. The Mormons were depicted as a violent and perverse people--the "viper on the hearth"--who sought to violate the domestic sphere of the mainstream. While other critics have mined the socio-political sources of anti-Mormonism, Givens is the first to reveal how popular fiction, in its attempt to deal with the sources and nature of this conflict, constructed an image of the Mormon as a religious and social "Other."

[Introduction To] Religion And Justice In The War Over Bosnia, G. Scott Davis

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This volume brings together a distinguished group of thinkers to explore the moral and religious issues that underlie the violence and atrocities in Bosnia. From diverse academic and philosophical perspectives, the works of Jean Bethke Elshtain, James Turner Johnson, Michael Sells, John Kelsay, and G. Scott Davis will inform not just scholars of ethics, politics and religion, but everyone concerned with the prospects for justice in the post Cold War world.

The Soul Of Black Worship, Wyatt Tee Walker

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No abstract provided.