After Pluralism

Courtney Bender is associate professor of religion at Columbia University and the author of The New Metaphysicals: Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination. Pamela E. Klassen is associate professor of religion at the University of Toronto and the author of Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity.

How has religious difference been constructed as a problem to which 'pluralism' becomes the solution? From within a rich variety of historical settings and international case studies, the essays collected in After Pluralism reveal 'pluralism' as an ideological and normative space, a discursive frame within which questions of religious difference may legitimately be engaged but which nevertheless cannot account for the messiness of religion on the ground, where 'dialogue' and 'recognition' between discrete religions and religious actors are seldom to be seen. In the process, religions emerge as shifting constellations of belief and practice continually made and remade within relations of power that are not always in need of resolution or amenable to it. An accomplished, exhilarating, and game-changing book. -- Tracy Fessenden, Arizona State University After Pluralism is an outstanding collection of essays on religious diversity by a group of multidisciplinary scholars. Their work is at the cutting edge of the relationship between religion, culture, law, and public life in a post-secular age. The introduction is an invaluable guide not only to the book but to the whole field as well. -- James Tully, University of Victoria After Pluralism brings us astonishing new insight into the underpinnings, uses, and limits of religious pluralism in many settings -- from US and Canadian law courts, to the sacred lands of indigenous peoples, the American theatre, Cairo television, German prisons, and more. Its closely reasoned and beautifully illustrated essays make us rethink the ways in which religions are and can be lived in the world. A deeply important book for our time. -- Natalie Zemon Davis, University of Toronto

• Acknowledgments Introduction: Habits of Pluralism Pamela E. Klassen and Courtney Bender Part I. Law, Normativity, and the Constitution of Religion 1. Ethics After Pluralism Janet R. Jakobsen 2. Pluralizing Religion: Islamic Law and the Anxiety of Reasoned Deliberation Anver M. Emon 3. Religion Naturalized: The New Establishment Winnifred Fallers Sullivan 4. The Cultural Limits of Legal Tolerance Benjamin L. Berger Part II. Performing Religion After Pluralism 5. The Birth of Theatrical Liberalism Andrea Most 6. The Perils of Pluralism: Colonization and Decolonization in American Indian Religious History Tracy Leavelle 7. A Matter of Interpretation: Dreams, Islam, and Psychology in Egypt Amira Mittermaier 8. The Temple of Religion and the Politics of Religious Pluralism: Judeo-Christian America at the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair J. Terry Todd Part III. The Ghosts of Pluralism: Unintended Consequences of Institutional and Legal Constructions 9. Native American Religious Freedom Beyond the First Amendment Michael D. McNally 10. Saving Darfur: Enacting Pluralism in Terms of Gender, Genocide, and Militarized Human Rights Rosemary R. Hicks 11. What Is Religious Pluralism in a "Monocultural" Society? Considerations from Postcommunist Poland Genevieve Zubrzycki 12. The Curious Attraction of Religion in East German Prisons Irene Becci Selected Bibliography Contributors Index