Description : This comparative reader takes an anthropological approach to the study of religious beliefs and practices, both strange and familiar. The engaging articles on all key issues related to the anthropology of religion grab the attention of students, while giving them an excellent foundation in contemporary ideas and approaches in the field. The multiple authors included in each chapter represent a range of interests, geographic foci, and ways of looking at each subject. Divided into 10 chapters, this book begins with a broad view of anthropological ways of looking at religion and moves on to some of the core topics within the subject, such as myth, ritual, and the various types of religious specialties.
New Features :
Fourteen new readings provide coverage of important areas of interest, including shamanism, Navaho medicine, abortion rituals, raves, terror and violence, Santeria, and Hmong shamanism in America.
New articles on Islam and Buddhism provide a more accessible approach to these major world religions, highlighting anthropological perspectives.
A new chapter on trance and altered states incorporates older material on hallucinogenic drugs, updating and broadening treatment of altered states of consciousness, placing the study of drug use in a wider context.
Broadened coverage of anthropological approaches includes discussion of the embodiment theory and the analysis of language and culture.
An updated glossary clarifies key terms and concepts.
Retained Features :
The anthology includes a balance of classic and contemporary articles, on traditional and non-traditional topics. In addition to classic selections by Clifford Geertz, Victor Turner, Bronislaw Malinowski, and Anthony F. C. Wallace, the reader includes current anthropological views on such intriguing subjects as witchcraft, divination, ethnopsychiatry, polygamy, and the religious use of drugs.
Accessible and engaging to students with no previous exposure to anthropology, the articles also encourage further thought, providing flexibility to instructors to choose articles according to the needs and levels of students.
Abundant learning aids include extensive chapter overviews; insightful introductions for each article; an extensive index of subjects, authors, and titles; a frontispiece map showing the location of peoples discussed in the book; and a complete bibliography.
The anthology contains articles about both Western and non-Western culture. At least one selection in each chapter relates to contemporary North America, so that students can more easily compare familiar religious beliefs with others outside their culture.
Faculty supplements include an instructor's manual with learning objectives, reading summaries, and discussion questions organized by reading, along with a test bank featuring multiple choice questions.
Table of Contents :
Chapter 1: The Anthropological Study of Religion
1. Clifford Geertz, Religion
2. Marvin Harris, Why We Became Religious and The Evolution of the Spirit World
3. Dorothy Lee, Religious Perspectives in Anthropology
4. Claude E. Stipe, Anthropologists Versus Missionaries: The Influence of Presuppositions
*5. Pamela Moro, Thai Buddhism and the Popularity of Amulets in Anthropological Perspective
Chapter 2: Myth, Symbolism, and Taboo
6. Scott Leonard and Michael McClure, The Study of Mythology
7. John Beattie, Nyoro Myth
8. Claude Levi-Strauss, Harelips and Twins: The Splitting of a Myth
*9. Eric R. Wolf, The Virgin of Guadalupe: A Mexican National Symbol
10. Mary Douglas, Taboo
11. Mary Lee Daugherty, Serpent-Handling as Sacrament
Chapter 3: Ritual
12. Victor W. Turner, Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage
*13. Michael Atwood Mason, "I Bow My Head to the Ground": Creating Bodily Experience Through Initiation
14. Barbara G. Myerhoff, Return to Wirikuta: Ritual Reversal and Symbolic Continuity on the Peyote Hunt of the Huichol Indians
15. Roy A. Rappaport, Ritual Regulation of Environmental Relations Among a New Guinea People
*16. Thomas J. Csordas, A Handmaid's Tale
17. Horace Miner, Body Ritual Among the Nacirema
Chapter 4: Shamans, Priests, and Prophets
18. Victor Turner, Religious Specialists
*19. Piers Vitebsky, Shamanism
20. Michael Fobes Brown, Dark Side of the Shaman
21. Gerardo Reichel-Dolmatoff, Training for the Priesthood Among the Kogi of Colombia
22. Michael Barkun, Reflections After Waco: Millennialists and the State
Chapter 5: Altered States of Consciousness and the Religious Use of Drugs
*23. I. M. Lewis, Trance, Possession, Shamanism, and Sex
*24. Sydney M. Greenfield, Hypnosis and Trance Induction in the Spirit Surgeries of Brazilian Spiritist Healer-Mediums
25. Mike Kiyaani and Thomas J. Csordas, On the Peyote Road
26. Peter T. Furst and Michael D. Coe, Ritual Enemas
27. Michael Harner, The Sound of Rushing Water
*28. Scott Hutson, The Rave: Spiritual Healing in Modern Western Subcultures
Chapter 6: Ethnomedicine: Religion and Healing
29. Arthur C. Lehmann, Eyes of the Ngangas: Ethnomedicine and Power in Central African Republic
30. L. A. Rebhun, Swallowing Frogs: Anger and Illness in Northeast Brazil 249
31. William Wedenoja, Mothering and the Practice of "Balm" in Jamaica
*32. Anne F. Fadiman, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Chapter 7: Witchcraft, Sorcery, Divination, and Magic
33. James L. Brain, An Anthropological Perspective on the Witchcraze
34. Naomi M. McPherson, Sorcery and Concepts of Deviance Among the Kabana, West New Britain
35. T. M. Luhrmann, The Goat and the Gazelle: Witchcraft
36. E. E. Evans-Pritchard, Consulting the Poison Oracle Among the Azande
37. Bronislaw Malinowski, Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings
38. George Gmelch, Baseball Magic
Chapter 8: Ghosts, Souls, and Ancestors: Power of the Dead
39. Paul Barber, The Real Vampire
40. Karen McCarthy Brown, Vodou
41. Peter A. Metcalf, Death Be Not Strange
42. Stanley Brandes, The Cremated Catholic: The Ends of a Deceased Guatemalan
Chapter 9: Old and New Religions: The Changing Spiritual Landscape
43. Anthony F. C. Wallace, Revitalization Movements
44. Alice Beck Kehoe, The Ghost Dance Religion
45. Peter M. Worsley, Cargo Cults
46. William F. Lewis, Urban Rastas in Kingston, Jamaica
*47. Susan Friend Harding, Speaking Is Believing
*48. Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Islamic Law: The Foundation of Muslim Practice and a Measure of Social and Political Change
Chapter 10: Religion as Global Culture: Migration, Media, and Other Transnational Forces
49. Homa Hoodfar, The Veil in Their Minds and on Our Heads: Veiling Practices and Muslim Women
*50. Penny Van Esterik, Ritual and the Performance of Buddhist Identity Among Lao Buddhists in North America
51. Mark Juergensmeyer, Religious Terror and Global War
52. Lisle Dalton, Eric Michael Mazur, and Monica Siems, Homer the Heretic and Charlie Church: Parody, Piety, and Pluralism in The Simpsons
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the Author:
Pam Moro Sorry. No Biographical Information Currently Available.
James Myers Sorry. No Biographical Information Currently Available.
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Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion 