The Body in Religion: Cross-Cultural Perspectives surveys influential ways in which the body is imagined and deployed in religious practices and beliefs across the globe. Filling the gap for an up-to-date and comparative approach to theories and practices of the body in religion, this book explores the cultural influences on embodiment and their implications for religious institutions and spirituality. Examples are drawn from religions such as Jainism, Confucianism, Daoism, Shintoism, Paganism, Aboriginal, African, and Native American religions, in addition to the five major religions of the world.
Topics covered include:
- Gender and sexuality
- Female modesty and dress codes
- Circumcision and menstruation rituals
- God language and erotic desire
- Death, dying, and burial rites
- Disciplining the body through prayer, yoga, and meditation
- Feasting and fasting rituals
Illustrated throughout with over 60 images, The Body in Religion is designed for course use in religious studies as well as interdisciplinary courses across the humanities and the social sciences. Further online resources include a sample syllabus.
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List of illustrations
Preface and Introduction
Part One: Representing the Divine and the Human Body, Introduction
1. Representation of the Body in Creation Myths
2. Representation of the Divine in Text and Art
3. Erotic Desire and Divine Love
Part Two: Celebrating and Sustaining the Body, Introduction
4. Body in Religious Ritual
5. Food: Laws and Practices
6. Sustaining the Body: Breath, Harmony, Health and Healing
Part Three: Disciplining the Body, Introduction
7. Purity and Pollution
8. Gender and Sexuality
9. Marriage and Reproduction
Part Four: Modifying, Liberating, and Honoring the Body, Introduction
10. Marking and Modifying the Body
11. Asceticism: Spiritual Technologies of Detachment
12. Death and the Afterlife
Bibliography
Web references
Index
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Greenberg skillfully draws out the central place of the body in shaping religious and social identities, as well as how various traditions interpret the body as a physical phenomenon and as a site of social and symbolic meaning. Furthermore, the reader is introduced to the problems of essentialism and dualist frameworks that permeate many traditions, especially in terms of asymmetrical hierarchies between mind and body, subject and object, reason and emotion, spirit and matter, transcendence and immanence, and male and female.
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The first up-to-date and cross-cultural survey textbook of the body in religion, drawing on examples from around the world and a range of indigenous and world religions.
The first single-authored book to offer comprehensive, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives on the body in religion
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781472595034
Publisert
2017-12-14
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Vekt
440 gr
Høyde
234 mm
Bredde
156 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
312
Forfatter