Victoria Kennick – författare

Introducing World Religions offers an exciting new approach to the study of the world's religions. Taking its inspiration from performance studies and using an innovative dramatic metaphor, it enables students to explore religious ideas and culture in terms of the players (key figures), the script (foundational texts) and performance (religious practices). The discussion of key players treats human and non-human figures on the world stage, including the principle (God, Dharma, Dao), imaginal figures (angels, baals, bodhisattvas), exceptional persons (founders, prophets, gurus), and historical persons (significant players in the drama of religions). The discussion of the foundational texts includes materials that balance or challenge mainstream texts with an alternative perspective. The section on performance explores non-verbal religious activities such as pilgrimage, icon painting, dance, divination, and meditation.Those concerned with introducing "post-colonial" discourse to students without losing the classic category of "the sacred" should find this textbook to be balanced and evocative. It presents workable concepts from the camps of both "religionists" and "reductionists" and students are challenged to move between "inside" and "outside" positions as they survey what have been called (controversially) "world religions". Specially designed to assist learning it includes:chapter timelines showing key persons, events and datesthemed boxes to encourage methodological enquirykey-point chapter summaries to support understanding and reviewstudy questions to assist classroom discussionmaps, charts and photographsglossary of key terms and conceptskey reading, a comprehensive bibliography and index.Ideal for one-semester or modular introductory survey courses on the world's religions, Introducing World Religions will be essential reading for any student of religions, worldwide. The accompanying website to this book can be found at http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415772709.

Introducing World Religions offers an exciting new approach to the study of the world's religions. Taking its inspiration from performance studies and using an innovative dramatic metaphor, it enables students to explore religious ideas and culture in terms of the players (key figures), the script (foundational texts) and performance (religious practices). The discussion of key players treats human and non-human figures on the world stage, including the principle (God, Dharma, Dao), imaginal figures (angels, baals, bodhisattvas), exceptional persons (founders, prophets, gurus), and historical persons (significant players in the drama of religions). The discussion of the foundational texts includes materials that balance or challenge mainstream texts with an alternative perspective. The section on performance explores non-verbal religious activities such as pilgrimage, icon painting, dance, divination, and meditation.Those concerned with introducing "post-colonial" discourse to students without losing the classic category of "the sacred" should find this textbook to be balanced and evocative. It presents workable concepts from the camps of both "religionists" and "reductionists" and students are challenged to move between "inside" and "outside" positions as they survey what have been called (controversially) "world religions". Specially designed to assist learning it includes:chapter timelines showing key persons, events and datesthemed boxes to encourage methodological enquirykey-point chapter summaries to support understanding and reviewstudy questions to assist classroom discussionmaps, charts and photographsglossary of key terms and conceptskey reading, a comprehensive bibliography and index.Ideal for one-semester or modular introductory survey courses on the world's religions, Introducing World Religions will be essential reading for any student of religions, worldwide. The accompanying website to this book can be found at http://www.routledge.com/textbooks/9780415772709.

Discusses the notion of a spiritual master and looks at examples in a variety of world religions.What is a spiritual master? Spiritual Masters of the World's Religions offers an important contribution to religious studies by addressing that question in the context of such themes as charismatic authority, role models, symbolism, and categories of religious perception. The book contains essays by scholar-practitioners on the topic of spiritual masters in Judaic, Christian, Islamic, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Confucian, and Daoist traditions. It provides a full spectrum of exemplars, including founders, spiritual masters who highlight cultural themes, and problematic figures of modern times. To define spiritual master, the work of Max Weber, Mircea Eliade, Daniel Gold, and Bruce Lincoln is referenced to provide a balanced notion that includes both religionist and reductionist perspectives. This book takes readers from the past spiritual masters to the future of masters of any sort, posing food for thought about the future of master-disciple relationships in an emerging age of egalitarian sentiments.