(Un)Believing in Modern Society
Religion, Spirituality, and Religious-Secular Competition
Jörg Stolz, Judith Könemann, Mallory Schneuwly Purdie, Thomas Englberger, Michael Kruggeler

This landmark study in the sociology of religion sheds new light on the
question of what has happened to religion and spirituality since the
1960s in modern societies. Exposing several analytical weaknesses of
today’s sociology of religion, (Un)Believing in Modern Society presents
a new theory of religious-secular competition and a new typology of ways
of being religious/secular. The authors draw on a specific European
society (Switzerland) as their test case, using both quantitative and
qualitative methodologies to show how the theory can be applied.
Identifying four ways of being religious/secular in a modern society:
‘institutional’, ‘alternative’, ‘distanced’ and ‘secular’ they show how
and why these forms have emerged as a result of religious-secular
competition and describe in what ways all four forms are adapted to the
current, individualized society.

More information on
https://www.routledge.com/products/9781472461285__

The Muslim Question in Europe

Political Controversies and Public Philosophies

Peter O’Brien

   “A thought-provoking and fresh look at the history of ideas that have shaped Europeans’ encounter with the historic settlement of Muslim minorities in Western Europe. O’Brien is an able guide to the best research in philosophy and the social sciences as he explores the nuances of western cultural contexts. The Muslim Question in Europe combines rich normative and empirical analyses that shed light on unresolved conflicts in European nation-states.”—Jonathan Laurence, Associate Professor of Political Science at Boston College and author of The Emancipation of Europe’s Muslims and Integrating Islam

   An estimated twenty million Muslims now reside in Europe, mostly as a result of large-scale postwar immigration. In The Muslim Question in Europe, Peter O’Brien challenges the popular notion that the hostilities concerning immigration—which continues to provoke debates about citizenship, headscarves, secularism, and terrorism—are a clash between “Islam and the West.” Rather, he explains, the vehement controversies surrounding European Muslims are better understood as persistent, unresolved intra-European tensions.

   O’Brien contends that the best way to understand the politics of state accommodation of European Muslims is through the lens of three competing political ideologies: liberalism, nationalism, and postmodernism. These three broadly understood philosophical traditions represent the most influential normative forces in the politics of immigration in Europe today. He concludes that Muslim Europeans do not represent a monolithic anti-Western bloc within Europe. Although they vehemently disagree among themselves, it is along the same basic liberal, nationalist, and postmodern contours as non-Muslim Europeans.

Peter O’Brien is Professor of Political Science at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. He is the author of European Perceptions of Islam and America from Saladin to George W. Bush: Europe’s Fragile Ego Uncovered, and Beyond the Swastika. He has been a Social Science Research Council Fellow at the Free University in Berlin, and Fulbright Visiting Professor at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Temple University Press

The new volume, Swaminarayan Hinduism: Tradition, Adaptation, Identity (Oxford University Press), edited by Raymond Brady Williams and Yogi Trivedi, will be released at an event at Columbia University in New York on Friday, March 4. Colleagues are invited. Containing twenty chapters, this volume shares recent research on the Swaminarayan Sampradaya by contributors from a range of disciplines. The OUP website for the volume can be found at https://global.oup.com/academic/product/swaminarayan-hinduism-9780199463749?cc=us&lang=en&#​​

Book announcement:  Migration and Religion (2 volumes)

Edited by James A. Beckford

Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015, 1,424 pp.

ISBN: 978 1 78347 257 4 (hardback)

The complex and changing relationship between religion and migration is central to many urgent questions about diversity, inequality and pluralism. This wide-ranging collection of 66 articles explores these questions in different periods of history, regions of the world and traditions of faith. There is a particular emphasis on how religions inspire, manage and benefit from migration as well as how the experience of migration affects religious beliefs, identities and practices. These volumes examine the interface between religion and migration at levels of analysis ranging from the local to the global, and from the individual to the faith community.

With an original introduction by the editor, this collection of papers will serve as an excellent reference source for scholars, practitioners and academics working in the field of migration and religion. 

The post Book Announcement: Migration and Religion (2 volumes) appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

The post Book Announcement: Le religieux sur Internet / Religion on the web appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific

Popular Culture in Singapore and Sydney

Kamaludeen Mohamed Nasir

Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific is a sociological study of Muslim youth culture based on original ethnographic fieldwork in two global cities in the Asia Pacific: Singapore and Sydney. Urban young Muslims in Singapore and Sydney face similar everyday challenges, such as their minority status and low socio-economic position relative to the larger society. These are complicated by the broader processes of globalization that bring together the September 11 generation living in the Information Age. Comparing young Muslims living in these secular, multicultural cities across three domains of popular culture – hip-hop music, tattooing, and cultural consumption – this study illuminates the range of attitudes and strategies they adopt to reconcile popular youth culture with piety.

http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/globalized-muslim-youth-in-the-asia-pacific-kamaludeen–mohamed-nasir/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137543509

The post Book Announcement: Globalized Muslim Youth in the Asia Pacific appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.

Palgrave Macmillan’s Religion and Global Migrations book series is off to a strong start with four titles published in the past year and one coming out in January. Information about these books is available here (http://www.palgrave.com/series/religion-and-global-migrations/RGM/) if you are interested in ordering or requesting a desk copy to consider using in one of your courses.

We are continuing to accept manuscript proposals for the series and invite you to submit proposals on any aspect of religion and migration directly to one or all of the co-editors. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me (Jennifer B. Saunders, jbsaund1@yahoo.com) or one of my co-editors (Susanna Snyder, susanna.snyder@roehampton.ac.uk or Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, e.fiddian-qasmiyeh@ucl.ac.uk). Information on how to submit a proposal is available on Palgrave Macmillan’s website: http://www.palgrave.com/page/submit-a-proposal/

Jennifer B. Saunders
Co-Editor, Religion and Global Migrations Series, Palgrave Macmillan

The post Book Announcement: Palgrave Macmillan’s Religion and Global Migrations book series appeared first on ISA Research Committee 22.