More Than Belief: A Materialist Theory of Religion

More Than Belief: A Materialist Theory of Religion
ISBN-10
0197541682
ISBN-13
9780197541685
Category
Religion
Pages
392
Language
English
Published
2020-04-08
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Author
Manuel A. Vásquez

Description

This book challenges the traditional idea that religions can be understood primarily as texts to be interpreted, decoded, or translated. In More Than Belief, Manuel A. Vásquez argues for a new way of studying religions, one that sees them as dynamic material and historical expressions of the practices of embodied individuals who are embedded in social fields and ecological networks. He sketches the outlines of this approach through a focus on body, practices, and space. In order to highlight the centrality of these dimensions of religious experience and performance, Vásquez recovers materialist currents within religious studies that have been consistently ignored or denigrated. Drawing on state-of-the-art work in fields as diverse as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, critical theory, environmental studies, cognitive psychology, and the neurosciences, Vásquez offers a groundbreaking new way of looking at religion.

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