Risky Liasons?
Democracy and Religion: reflections and case studies.
G.J Buijs, J.T. Sunier and P.G.A. Versteeg (eds.) VU University Press, 2013
http://www.vuuitgeverij.com/149-risky-liaisons

In a democracy, there is always the risk of antagonism, conflict and opposition rising to the surface. Most people in the West take these risks for granted and are predisposed to accept the imperfections of the system. Globally, however, democracy is not as self-evident. Actually, its acclaimed universality is highly contested. To what extent is democracy a Western, Eurocentric Project? And to what extent is this form of government compatible with other cultural and value systems?

Ιn this book, the authors address these questions by revealing how democracy is informed by religious values from a variety of traditions. In doing so, they make clear that religion and democracy are not as neatly separated as the secularist point of view would have us believe. They also question the popular opinion that Islam is at odds with democratic government, for example in the analysis of shura, an Islamic form of consultation with the people. Democratic traditions and religious value systems can, therefore, interact and co-exist in more than one way. Any reader who wants to examine these interactions, and the challenges that they pose for contemporary plural society will find this book useful.

With contributions from John Anderson, Ina ter Avest, Edien Bartels, Christoph Baumgartner, Lenie Brouwer, Herman de Dijn, Yaser Ellethy, Mohammed Girma, Matthew Kaemingk, Michiel Leezenberg, Bert Jan Lietaert Peerbolte, Siebren Miedema, Frans van der Velden, and John Witte.

NEW BOOK FROM PETER LANG

Islam in the West: Iraqi Shi’i Communities in Transition and Dialogue
By Kieran Flynn
Oxford: Peter Lang 259 pp. | ISBN 978-3-0343-0905-9 | £40.00

This book studies the historical, religious and political concerns of the Iraqi Shi‘i community as interpreted by the members of that community who now live in the United Kingdom and Ireland, following the 2003-2010 war and occupation in Iraq. It opens up a creative space to explore dialogue between Islam and the West, looking at issues such as intra-Muslim conflict, Muslim–Christian relations, the changing face of Arab Islam and the experience of Iraq in the crossfire of violence and terrorism – all themes which are currently emerging in preaching and in discussion among Iraqi Shi‘a in exile. The book’s aim is to explore possibilities for dialogue with Iraqi Shi‘i communities who wish, in the midst of political, social and religious transition, to engage with elements of Christian theology such as pastoral and liberation theology.

Contents:
– Shi‘i Muslim Migration and Settlement in Ireland and the UK
– Shi‘i Religious Narratives in History and Ritual Memory
– The Narrative of Emancipation Among Shi‘a in Iran
– Narrative Shi‘i Opposition and Emancipation in Iraq
– Shi‘i Political Empowerment in Iraq
– Shi‘i Sermons and Narratives
– Catholic Theology in Dialogue with Shi‘i Narratives.

Available from <http://www.peterlang.com?430905>

Writing Religion. The Making of Turkish Alevi Islam
Markus Dressler
Oxford University Press, 2013

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/HistoryWorld/British/Since1945/?view=usa&ci=9780199969401

Description

In the late 1980s, the Alevis, at that time thought to be largely assimilated into the secular Turkish mainstream, began to assert their difference as they never had before. The question of Alevism’s origins and its relation to Islam and to Turkish culture became a highly contested issue. According to the dominant understanding, Alevism is part of the Islamic tradition, although located on its margins. It is further assumed that Alevism is intrinsically related to Anatolian and Turkish culture, carrying an ancient Turkish heritage, leading back into pre-Islamic Central Asian Turkish pasts.

Dressler argues that this knowledge about the Alevis-their demarcation as “heterodox” but Muslim and their status as carriers of Turkish culture-is in fact of rather recent origins. It was formulated within the complex historical dynamics of the late Ottoman Empire and the first years of the Turkish Republic in the context of Turkish nation-building and its goal of ethno-religious homogeneity.

Features

– Extensive examination of marginalized religious groups who figure significantly in the modern formulation of secular Turkish nationalism

Reviews

“Writing Religion is at once the first ‘critical genealogy’ of the field of Alevi studies and an outstanding investigation into the impact of Euro-American concepts commonly used in the study of religion on the representation, scholarly examination, and governmental management of religious communities outside western contexts. Dressler sets a new standard in the study of ‘Alevism’ in Turkey and simultaneously makes a major contribution to methodology in the study of religion.”
–Ahmet T. Karamustafa, Professor of History, University of Maryland

“Writing Religion is a masterful study that attends to method for history’s sake. It is at once a revealing cautionary tale about the missteps of ‘back reading’ history and a guide for moving forward with analyses unencumbered by classic modernist constraints. Markus Dressler’s keen study of Alevism–and its myriad constructions in the hands of scholars and politicians, among others–establishes a veritable roadmap for ‘thinking Islam’ in fresh ways.”
–Greg Johnson, author of Sacred Claims: Repatriation and Living Tradition

“This thought-provoking and provocative but historically sensitive contribution is the best examination I have seen of the political foundation for the Kizilbas communities renamed ‘Alevis.’ Dressler’s interpretation will be a prime resource for
both scholarship and public policy concerning the religio-secular debate in Turkey.”
–M. Hakan Yavuz, author of Toward an Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Prologue: Alevism Contested
Introduction: Genealogies and Significations
Part 1: Missionaries, Nationalists, and the Kizilbas-Alevis
Chapter 1: The Western Discovery of the Kizilbas-Alevis
Chapter 2: Nationalism, Religion, and Inter-Communal Violence
Chapter 3: Entering the Gaze of the Nationalists
Part 2: Mehmed Fuad Köprülü (1890-1966) and the Conceptualization of Inner-Islamic Difference
Chapter 4: Nationalism, Historiography, and Politics
Chapter 5: Religiography: Taxonomies of Essences and Differences
Chapter 6: Alevi and Alevilik in the Work of Fuad Köprülü and His Legacy
Conclusion: Tropes of Difference and Sameness – The Making of Alevism as a Modernist
Project Notes
Bibliography
Index

“The Religious Identity of Young Muslim Women in Berlin: An Ethnography Study” by Synnøve K.N. Bendixsen

About the book:
The Religious Identity of Young Muslim Women in Berlin offers an in-depth ethnographic account of Muslim youth’s religious identity formation and their engagement with Islam in everyday life. Focusing on Muslim women in the organisation MJD in Germany, it provides a deeper understanding of processes related to immigration, transnationalism, the transformation of identifications and the reconstruction of selfhood. The book deals with the collective content of religious identity formation and processes of differentiation, engaging with the changing role of religion in an urban European setting, restructuring of religious authority and the formation of gender identity through religion. Synnøve K.N. Bendixsen examines how the participants seek and debate what it means to be a good Muslim, and discusses the religious movement as individual engagement in a collective project.

Review:
“At last, a richly-textured, ethnographic study which takes religiosity seriously. This fine study of young women’s involvement in a particular, Islamic movement in Berlin illuminates the reasons for ‘the turn to Islam’ of a new generation in Europe. […] Marked throughout by methodological and analytical sophistication, it challenges many easy generalisations about how Muslims born and educated in Europe appropriate Islam.”
Philip Lewis, University of Bradford.

Table of content:
Acknowledgements
A Note on Language and Sources
Introduction
Situating the Field and Methodological Reflections Making Sense of the City: The Religious Spaces of Young Muslim Women in Berlin
Negotiating, Resisting and (Re)Constructing
Othering Crafting the Religious Individual in a Faith Community
Trajectories of Religious Acts and Desires: Bargaining with Religious Norms and Ideals
Making a Religious Gender Order The Meanings of and Incentives for a Religious Identification
Conclusion
Appendix 1: Situating the Movements Studied within the Wider Islamic Field in Germany
Bibliography
Index
More information is available at the following site:
http://www.brill.com/religious-identity-young-muslim-women-berlin

Anna Halafoff, The Multifaith Movement: Global Risks and Cosmopolitan Solutions
published by Springer:
http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/religious+studies/book/978-94-007-5209-2

This book documents the ultramodern rise of the multifaith movement, as mulitfaith initiatives have been increasingly deployed as cosmopolitan solutions to counter global risks such as terrorism and climate change at the turn of the 21st century. These projects aim to enhance common security, particularly in Western societies following the events of September 11, 2001 and the July 2005 London bombings, where multifaith engagement has been promoted as a strategy to counter violent extremism.
The author draws on interviews with 56 leading figures in the field of multifaith relations, including Paul Knitter, Eboo Patel, Marcus Braybrooke, Katherine Marshall, John Voll and Krista Tippett. Identifying the principle aims of the multifaith movement, the analysis explores the benefits-and challenges-of multifaith engagement, as well as the effectiveness of multifaith initiatives in countering the process of radicalization. Building on notions of cosmopolitanism, the work proposes a new theoretical framework termed ‘Netpeace’, which recognizes the interconnectedness of global problems and their solutions. In doing so, it acknowledges the capacity of multi-actor peacebuilding networks, including religious and state actors, to address the pressing dilemmas of our times. The primary intention of the book is to assist in the formation of new models of activism and governance, founded on a ‘politics of understanding’ modeled by the multifaith movement.

Dr Anna Halafoff is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/staff/directory.php?username=halafoff

The Publication of a symposium on ‘Religion, Democracy and Civil Liberties’ is in the latest issue (2/2013) of European Political Science.
The symposium can be found here: http://www.palgrave-journals.com/eps/journal/v12/n2/index.html

Table of contents:
Introduction: Religion, Democracy and Civil Liberties (Luca Ozzano)
European Muslims: Facts and Challenges (Tariq Ramadan)
Religion and Democracy: International, Transnational and Global issues (Pasquale Ferrara)
Religion, Democracy and Civil Liberties: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Ramifications

Nancy Davis and Robert Robinson’s Claiming Society for God: Religious Movements and Social Welfare in Egypt, Israel, Italy, and the United States (Indiana University Press, 2012) has been awarded the gold medal in the Religion category of the Independent Publishers Book Awards, which recognize books by university and independent presses. The book also won the Scholarly Achievement Award of the North Central Sociological Association.

The book focuses on common strategies used by religiously orthodox (what some would call “fundamentalist”) movements around the world. Rather than using armed struggle or terrorism, as much of post-9/11 thinking suggests, these movements use a patient, under-the-radar strategy of taking over civil society.

Claiming Society for God tells the stories of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, the Sephardi Torah Guardians or Shas in Israel, Comunione e Liberazione in Italy, and the Salvation Army in the United States, showing how these movements, grounded in a communitarian theology, are building massive grassroots networks of religiously based social service agencies, hospitals and clinics, rotating credit societies, schools, charitable organizations, worship centers, and businesses. These networks are already being called states within states, surrogate states, or parallel societies, and in Egypt have now brought the Muslim Brotherhood to control of parliament and the presidency.

This bottom-up, entrepreneurial strategy is aimed at nothing less than making religion the cornerstone of society.

The Facebook page for the book, which includes news stories on orthodox movements and study questions for the book is at www.facebook.com/ClaimingSocietyForGod.

“Futuribles. L’anticipation au service de l’action”, mars-avril 2013, numéro 393.

Themes:

Les transfert entre générations
L’impact social et politique des religions
Religion et valeurs en Europe
L’Europe sécularisée?
La place de l’islam
Les fondamentalismes

Authors:
Hugues de Jouvenel, André Masson, Luc Arrondel, Stéphane Cordobes, Philippe Estèbe, Martin Vanier, Francois Mabille, Pierre Bréchon, Philippe Portier, Franck Frégosi, Jean-Paul Burdy, Jean Marcou, Jean-Francois Mayer, Jean-Francois Drevet

New book published:

Coco, Angela
2013
Catholics, conflicts and choices: an exploration of power relations in the Catholic Church
Durham, Acumen.

http://www.acumenpublishing.co.uk/display.asp?K=e2012121316213398&sf1=series&st1=Gender,%20Theology%20and%20Spirituality&sort=sort_date/d&cid=target&m=4&dc=14

Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality
Ethnographic Approaches
Edited by Anna Fedele and Kim Knibbe

http://genderandpowerincontemporaryspirituality.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/image-cover.jpeg

This book contains captivating descriptions of the entanglements of gender and power in spiritual practices and detailed analyses of the strategies spiritual practitioners use to attain what to social scientists might seem an impossible goal: creating spiritual communities without creating gendered hierarchies.
Contemporary spiritual practitioners tend to present their own spirituality as non-hierarchical and gender equal, in contrast to ‘established’ religions. Current studies of these movements often reproduce their selfdescription as empowering, while other literature reacts polemically against these movements, describing them as narcissist and irrelevant and/or in league with capitalism. This book moves between these two poles, recognizing that gender and power are always at work in any socio-cultural situation.
What strategies do people within these networks use to attain gender equality and gendered empowerment? How do they try to protect and develop individual freedom? How do gender and power nevertheless play a role?
The contributions collected in this book demonstrate that in order to understand contemporary spirituality the analytical lenses of gender and power are essential. Furthermore, they show that it is not possible to make a clear distinction between established religions and contemporary spirituality:
the two sometimes overlap, at other times spirituality uses religion to play off against while reproducing some of the underlying interpretative frameworks. While recognizing the reflexivity of spiritual practitioners and the reciprocal relationship between spirituality and disciplines such as anthropology, the authors do not take the discourses of spiritual practitioners for granted. Their ethnographic descriptions of lived spirituality span a wide range of countries, from Portugal, Italy and the Netherlands to Mexico and Israel.

“An important and original contribution to the understanding of the dynamics of gender and power in alternative forms of spirituality.” – Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Northridge, USA

“Central to spirituality is a desire for personal liberation, we hear again and again. Yet this rich collection of ethnographies demonstrates that it is deeply shaped by performances ofgender and power.” – Dick Houtman, Erasmus University, Netherlands

https://genderandpowerincontemporaryspirituality.wordpress.com/