Overview
This book challenges the traditional idea that religions can be understood primarily as texts to be interpreted, decoded, or translated. In More Than Belief, Manuel A. Vásquez argues for a new way of studying religions, one that sees them as dynamic material and historical expressions of the practices of embodied individuals who are embedded in social fields and ecological networks. He sketches the outlines of this approach through a focus on body, practices, and space. In order to highlight the centrality of these dimensions of religious experience and performance, Vásquez recovers materialist currents within religious studies that have been consistently ignored or denigrated. Drawing on state-of-the-art work in fields as diverse as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, critical theory, environmental studies, cognitive psychology, and the neurosciences, Vásquez offers a groundbreaking new way of looking at religion.
Full Product Details
Author: Manuel A. Vasquez (Associate Professor of Religion, Associate Professor of Religion, University of Florida)
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Dimensions:
Width: 23.60cm
, Height: 3.10cm
, Length: 16.30cm
Weight: 0.680kg
ISBN: 9780195188530
ISBN 10: 0195188535
Pages: 392
Publication Date: 13 January 2011
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Surveying a vast expanse of interdisciplinary terrain, More than Belief should find a wide-ranging audience. Vasquez provides accessible and astute summaries of theoretical approaches, while articulating a rigorous theory of material religion and offering a coherent methodology for the academic study of its practice. It is well suited for the graduate school classroom and should prove an invaluable resource for sociologists of religion. --Sociology of Religion More than Belief should find a wide-ranging audience. Vasquez provides accessible and astute summaries of theoretical approaches, while articulating a rigorous theory of material religion and offering a coherent methodology for the academic study of its practice. It is well suited for the graduate school classroom and should prove an invaluable resource for sociologists of religion. --Sociology of Religion Manuel Vasquez's provocative book is must reading for everyone who wants to understand contemporary theories of religion. It not only offers a new framework for 'rematerializing' the study of popular piety but also provides nothing less than a strategic reinterpretation of the history of Western theories about what religion is and how it functions. -Thomas A. Tweed, author of Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion Vasquez provides accessible and astute summaries of theoretical approaches, while articulating a rigorous theory of meterial religion and offering a coherent methodology for the academic study of its practice. --Chad E. Seales, University of Texas Austin Vasquz provides accessible and astute summaries of theoretical approaches, while articulating a rigorous theory of material religion and offering a coherent methodology for the academic study of its practice --Sociology of Religion
<br> Surveying a vast expanse of interdisciplinary terrain, More than Belief should find a wide-ranging audience. Vasquez provides accessible and astute summaries of theoretical approaches, while articulating a rigorous theory of material religion and offering a coherent methodology for the academic study of its practice. It is well suited for the graduate school classroom and should prove an invaluable resource for sociologists of religion. --Sociology of Religion<br><p><br> More than Belief should find a wide-ranging audience. Vasquez provides accessible and astute summaries of theoretical approaches, while articulating a rigorous theory of material religion and offering a coherent methodology for the academic study of its practice. It is well suited for the graduate school classroom and should prove an invaluable resource for sociologists of religion. --Sociology of Religion<br><p><br> Manuel Vasquez's provocative book is must reading for everyone who wants to understand contempora
<br> More than Belief should find a wide-ranging audience. Vasquez provides accessible and astute summaries of theoretical approaches, while articulating a rigorous theory of material religion and offering a coherent methodology for the academic study of its practice. It is well suited for the graduate school classroom and should prove an invaluable resource for sociologists of religion. --Sociology of Religion<br><p><br> Manuel Vasquez's provocative book is must reading for everyone who wants to understand contemporary theories of religion. It not only offers a new framework for 'rematerializing' the study of popular piety but also provides nothing less than a strategic reinterpretation of the history of Western theories about what religion is and how it functions. <br><br>-Thomas A. Tweed, author of Crossing and Dwelling: A Theory of Religion<br><p><br>
Author Information
Manuel A. Vásquez teaches in the Department of Religion at the University of Florida. He has published numerous articles, chapters, and books on religion in Latin America and among U.S. Latinos. His research currently focuses on the intersection between religion and globalization, particular on the dynamics of transnational religious networks and flows across the Americas.
