Giuseppe Giordan and Enzo Pace (eds), Mapping Religion and Spirituality in a Postsecular World, Brill, 2012.

Individualization of believing and the logic of pluralism today inevitably bring a redefinition of the role of religion in the lives of individuals as well as societies themselves. New concepts and new theories are necessary to try to describe and understand how such processes work: this is without doubt the most problematic and intriguing aspect of the processes of change that characterize our era. This is a difficulty that makes us use only partially, and often with much caution, words, concepts and theories that until not long ago had a convincing heuristic and explanatory power and were, at least apparently, indisputable. Once it is established that under the sacred vaults of religion nothing is created and nothing is destroyed, but everything is preserved and transformed, what are the connections that are now being established with the sacred in society? The concepts “spirituality” and “post-secular” give important insights into the new religious landscape.

This volume will be of interest both to those interested in the responses of traditional religions to conditions of postmodernity and to those seeking to interpret the postmodern “experience” in religious terms.

Giuseppe Giordan is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Padua. From 2007 he has served as Secretary of the Sociology of Religion Section of the Italian Sociological Association, and from 2009 as General Secretary of the International Society for the Sociology of Religion (ISSR/SISR). With Enzo Pace and Luigi Berzano he edits the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, also published by Brill.

Enzo Pace, Professor of Sociology and Sociology of Religion at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the University of Padua, is the Director of the Department of Sociology and of the Interdepartmental Center on Intercultural Studies of the University of Padua. He is also Past-President of the International Society for the Sociology (ISSR/SISR) and a Directeur d’Études at ÉHÉSS in Paris.

Contributors include: Anhony J. Blasi, Yong Chen, Monica Chilese, Emanuela Contiero, Elisabetta di Giovanni, Anat Feldman, Isabella Jonveaux, Ruth Illman, Liselotte Frisk, Fatma Sundal, and Sophie-Hélène Trigeaud