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Religion
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Religion: Material Dynamics is a lively resource for thinking about religious materiality and the material study of religion. Deconstructing and reconstructing religion as material categories, soc...
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20 April 2018

Religion: Material Dynamics is a lively resource for thinking about religious materiality and the material study of religion. Deconstructing and reconstructing religion as material categories, social formations, and mobile circulations, the book explores the making, ordering, and circulating of religious things. The book is divided into three sections: Part One revitalizes basic categories—animism and sacred, space and time—by situating them in their material production and testing their analytical viability. Part Two examines religious formations as configurations of power that operate in material cultures and cultural economies and are most clearly shown in the power relations of colonialism and imperialism. Part Three explores the material dynamics of circulation through case studies of religious mobility, change, and diffusion as intimate as the body and as vast as the oceans. Each chapter offers insightful orientations and surprising possibilities for studying material religion. Exploring the material dynamics of religion from poetics to politics, David Chidester provides an entry into the study of material religion that will be welcomed by students and specialists in religious studies, anthropology, and history.
Price: $29.95
Pages: 253
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
20 April 2018
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520297661
Format: Paperback
"Although the book is in many ways a textbook, Chidester has conceived something far more imaginative than a standard introduction to the world’s religions. Instead, Chidester has chosen to critically analyze the emergence of “religion” as a category, not just once, but in multiple contexts and registers. Specifically, Chidester sets out to develop this critical approach to religion together with the themes and concerns of material culture. So the question becomes not just what religion is and how it is defined, but how the intellectual coordinates out of which “religion” emerges are organized by “material dynamics.”
David Chidester is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His recent books include Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture, Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa, and Empire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion.
Preface
Introduction: Material Dynamics
PART I CATEGORIES
1. Animism
2. Sacred
3. Space
4. Time
5. Incongruity
PART II FORMATIONS
6. Culture
7. Economy
8. Colonialism
9. Imperialism
10. Apartheid
PART III CIRCULATIONS
11. Shamans
12. Mobility
13. Popular
14. Touching
15. Oceans
Conclusion: Dynamic Materiality
Notes
Index
Introduction: Material Dynamics
PART I CATEGORIES
1. Animism
2. Sacred
3. Space
4. Time
5. Incongruity
PART II FORMATIONS
6. Culture
7. Economy
8. Colonialism
9. Imperialism
10. Apartheid
PART III CIRCULATIONS
11. Shamans
12. Mobility
13. Popular
14. Touching
15. Oceans
Conclusion: Dynamic Materiality
Notes
Index