Contemporary Theories of Religion

Michael Stausberg is Professor of Religion at the University of Bergen (Norway). Recent publications include Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism (2008) and Theorizing Rituals (co-editor, 2 vols. 2006-2007). Stausberg is the European editor of the journal Religion.

'It is ironic that scholars usually cite their predecessors when discussing theories of religion, as if theories were a precious relic from a prior age. With Michael Stausberg's new volume this odd sort of ancestor worship comes to an end, for readers now have no excuse not to be familiar with theories of religions origin and function-theories that take well beyond the work of our ancestors. Contemporary Theories of Religion therefore makes evident that a natural science of religion was not merely a nineteenth-century ambition.' –Russell McCutcheon, University of Alabama, USA‘The book as a whole makes very intriguing reading, and demonstrates well the vitality of the theoretical debate in the study of religion. The rise of the naturalistic paradigm over the past 20 years has clearly done good for the study of religion, and […] the book at hand draws a fine picture of the contemporary state of the debate.’ – Heikki Pesonen, University of Helsinki, Finland in Temenos: Nordic Journal of Comparative Religion

• Introduction  1. Cognitive Structures and Religio-Cultural Systems  2. From Neo-Tylorianism to the Cognitive Science of Religion  3. Religion at the Intersection of Need and Violence  4. Ritual as the Heart of Culture and of Religion  5. Religion as Rational Choice: The So-Called New Paradigm in the Sociology of Religion  6. Ritual as a System of Communication  7. Naturally Counterintuitive Evolutionary Byproducts  8. Phylogony of the Gods, or, how to naturalize religion  9. Boundary Maintenance: Religion as Organic-Cultural Flows  10. Roots in the Brain: The Origin and Explanation of Religion  11. The Atheistic Approach in the Cognitive Science of Religion  12. Religion as Crisis Intervention  Where to Go from Here? Prospects and Epilogues

1. 2/5

   Teorier och teorier

   Denna bok är en sammanställning av olika teoretikers teorier om andra teoretikers teorier. Dock intressanta, men bör knappast användas som en faktabok då den kan ifrågasättas på väldigt många områden.

   Cmtl

   01 mars 2014