Disenchanting India

Disenchanting India PDF Author: Johannes Quack
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199812608
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
India is frequently represented as the quintessential land of religion. Johannes Quack challenges this representation through an examination of the contemporary Indian rationalist organizations: groups who affirm the values and attitudes of atheism, humanism, or free-thinking. Quack shows the rationalists' emphasis on maintaining links to atheism and materialism in ancient India and outlines their strong ties to the intellectual currents of modern European history. At the heart of Disenchanting India is an ethnographic study of the organization ''Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti'' (Organization for the Eradication of Superstition), based in the Indian State of Maharashtra. Quack gives a nuanced account of the Organization's specific "mode of unbelief." He describes the group's efforts to encourage a scientific temper and to combat beliefs and practices that it regards as superstitious. Quack also shows the role played by rationalism in the day-to-day lives of the Organization's members, as well as the Organization's controversial position within Indian society. Disenchanting India contributes crucial insight into the nature of rationalism in the intellectual life and cultural politics of India.

Disenchanting India

Disenchanting India PDF Author: Johannes Quack
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0199812608
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 381

Get Book Here

Book Description
India is frequently represented as the quintessential land of religion. Johannes Quack challenges this representation through an examination of the contemporary Indian rationalist organizations: groups who affirm the values and attitudes of atheism, humanism, or free-thinking. Quack shows the rationalists' emphasis on maintaining links to atheism and materialism in ancient India and outlines their strong ties to the intellectual currents of modern European history. At the heart of Disenchanting India is an ethnographic study of the organization ''Andhashraddha Nirmulan Samiti'' (Organization for the Eradication of Superstition), based in the Indian State of Maharashtra. Quack gives a nuanced account of the Organization's specific "mode of unbelief." He describes the group's efforts to encourage a scientific temper and to combat beliefs and practices that it regards as superstitious. Quack also shows the role played by rationalism in the day-to-day lives of the Organization's members, as well as the Organization's controversial position within Indian society. Disenchanting India contributes crucial insight into the nature of rationalism in the intellectual life and cultural politics of India.

The Law of Possession

The Law of Possession PDF Author: William Sturman Sax
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190275758
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Rituals combining healing with spirit possession and court-like proceedings are found around the world and throughout history. Modern, secular states have systematically attempted to eliminate them. The Law of Possession is the first volume to compare and analyze the internal logic of such practices, as well as their relation to the modern, secular state.

Witchcraft Accusations from Central India

Witchcraft Accusations from Central India PDF Author: Helen Macdonald
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000225712
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This book unravels the institutions surrounding witchcraft in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh through theoretical and empirical research on witchcraft, violence and modernity in contemporary times. The author pieces together ‘fragments’ of stories gathered utilising ethnographic methods to examine the meanings associated with witches and witchcraft, and how they connect with social relations, gender, notions of agency, law, media and the state. The volume uses the metaphor of the shattered urn to tell the story of the accusations, punishment, rescue and the aftermath of the events of the trial of women accused of being witches. It situates the ṭonhī or witch as a key elaborating symbol that orders behaviour to determine who the socially included and excluded are in communities. Through the personal interviews and other ethnographic methods conducted over the course of many years, the author delves into the stories and practices related to witchcraft, its relations with modernity, and the relationship between violence and ideological norms in society. Insightful and detailed, this book will be of great interest to academics and researchers of anthropology, development studies, sociology, history, violence, gender studies, tribal studies and psychology. It will also be useful for readers in both historic and contemporary witchcraft practices as well as policy makers.

Temples of Modernity

Temples of Modernity PDF Author: Robert M. Geraci
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 149857775X
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 243

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Book Description
Temples of Modernity uses ethnographic data to investigate the presence of religious ideas and practices in Indian science and engineering. Geraci shows 1) how the integration of religion, science and technology undergirds pre- and post-independence Indian nationalism, 2) that traditional icons and rituals remain relevant in elite scientific communities, and 3) that transhumanist ideas now percolate within Indian visions of science and technology. This work identifies the intersection of religion, science, and technology as a worldwide phenomenon and suggests that the study of such interactions should be enriched through attention to the real experiences of people across the globe.

Secularity and Non-Religion

Secularity and Non-Religion PDF Author: Elisabeth Arweck
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134910584
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 141

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Book Description
The present collection brings together a set of essays which shed light on recent research into non-religion, secularity and atheism—topics which have been emerging as important areas of current research in a number of different disciplines. The essays cover a wide span—in terms of the various stances they discuss (secular, atheist, non-religious), the settings in which these topics are relevant (families, wider society, politics, demography) and the different perspectives which relate to socialisation and social relations (belief acquisition, discrimination). Written by authors from a variety of national settings and academic disciplines, the collection presents a range of methodologies, combining theoretical approaches with quantitative and qualitative research findings. The authors address issues related to an important academic field which had been neglected for some time, but which has been made relevant by the increasing percentage of people professing a non-religious stance. This collection represents a major contribution to this area of academic research, not only because it puts the themes of non-religion and secularity firmly on the academic map, but also because it offers a variety of different viewpoints and aims to bring clarity into the use of concepts and terminology. The authors make important contributions to the emerging body of research in this area and point out areas where further research is needed. The first essay provides a thorough introduction to this field, taking stock of the work done so far, highlighting the overarching issues, and embedding the essays in the wider context of existing literature. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Religion.

Being Godless

Being Godless PDF Author: Ruy Llera Blanes
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 1785335731
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Originally published as a special issue of Social Analysis, volume 59, issue 2

Indian Asceticism

Indian Asceticism PDF Author: Carl Olson
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0190225327
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Using religio-philosophical discourses and narratives from epic, puranic, and hagiographical literature, Indian Asceticism focuses on the powers exhibited by ascetics of India from ancient to modern time.

Global Sceptical Publics

Global Sceptical Publics PDF Author: Jacob Copeman
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 1800083440
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 382

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Book Description
Global Sceptical Publics is the first major study of the significance of different media for the (re)production of non-religious publics and publicity. While much work has documented how religious subjectivities are shaped by media, until now the crucial role of diverse media for producing and participating in religion-sceptical publics and debates has remained under-researched. With some chapters focusing on locations hitherto barely considered by scholarship on non-religion, the book places in comparative perspective how atheists, secularists and humanists engage with media – as means of communication and forming non-religious publics – but also on occasion as something to be resisted. Its conceptually rich interdisciplinary chapters thereby contribute important new insights to the growing field of non-religion studies and to scholarship on media and materiality more generally.

The Oxford Handbook of Secularism

The Oxford Handbook of Secularism PDF Author: Phil Zuckerman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199988455
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 793

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Secularism offers a wide-ranging examination of secularism on a global scale, bringing together an international collection of views from prominent experts in a variety of fields. This volume reflects the impressive level of academic attention now given to secularism across the humanities, social sciences, law and public policy, and international relations. Long-reigning theories about the pace of secularization, and ideal church-state relations, are here scrutinized by a new generation of scholars studying secularism with new questions, better data, and fresh perspectives.

Unbelief in Interwar Literary Culture

Unbelief in Interwar Literary Culture PDF Author: Suzanne Hobson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192846477
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
Explores connections between literary figures and organized secularist movements and groups in the interwar period, with a focus on the works of Vernon Lee, H.G. Wells, George Moore, D.H. Lawrence, and Mary Borden, among others.