By Jennifer Selby, Amelie Barras and Lori G. Beaman

Problems – of integration, failed political participation, and requests for various kinds of accommodation – seem to dominate the research on minority Muslims in Western nations.Beyond Accommodation offers a different perspective, showing how Muslim Canadians successfully navigate and negotiate their religiosity. The authors critique the model of reasonable accommodation, suggesting that it disempowers religious minorities by implicitly privileging Christianity and by placing the onus on minorities to make formal requests for accommodation. Through interviews, Muslim Canadians show that informal negotiation takes place all the time; scholars, however, have not been paying attention. This book proposes an alternative picture of how religious difference is woven into the fabric of Canadian society.

As a special introductory offer, UBC is offering 40% off of the book to my friends and colleagues.

Order online at ubcpress.ca, and enter in the discount code 8283-40 at the checkout screen to receive 40% off the hardcover’s retail price.
This discount code will expire on November 30, 2018.

And, free shipping is applicable to all Canadian orders over $39.95 (before taxes).

If you should have any trouble with your order, please contract frontdesk@ubcpress.ca.

By Philip Lewis, Sadek Hamid
Foreword by Baroness Warsi

Edinburgh University Press: https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-british-muslims.html

Explores how a new generation are redefining what it means to be a Muslim in Britain today.

A new generation of Muslims – activists, academics, religious scholars and professionals – are drawing on contemporary reformist thinking emerging from outside their parents’ or grandparents’ tradition and are using this to inform their activism. This positive new thinking is traced as it impacts and shapes the burgeoning field of Muslim women’s activism, the formation of religious leaders, what is to count as ‘Muslim politics’, the dynamics of de-radicalisation and what has been dubbed the ‘New Muslim Cool’ in music, fashion and culture.

A collaboration between two academics, one Muslim and one not, the book gives a distinctive take on understanding Islam and Muslims in Britain today.

Contents:

• Preface
• INTRODUCTION
• CHAPTER 1: Muslims in Britain: A Changing Landscape
• CHAPTER 2: The Islamic Seminary: Between Crisis and Renewal
• CHAPTER 3: Engaging Democracy and Debating Islam
• CHAPTER 4: Radicals, Extremists and Terrorists: Contextualising the Challenge of Radicalisation
• CHAPTER 5: Creating Culture: Emergence of the New “Muslim Cool”
• CONCLUSION
• An Annotated Bibliography

Editors: Veronique Altglas and Matthew Wood.
https://brill.com/view/title/32114

The contributors to Bringing Back the Social into the Sociology of Religion explore how ‘bringing the social back into the sociology of religion’ makes possible a more adequate sociological understanding of such topics as power, emotions, the self, or ethnic relations in religious life. In particular, they do so by engaging with social theories and addressing issues of epistemology and scientific reflexivity. The chapters of this book cover a range of different religious traditions and regions of the world such as Sufism in Pakistan; the Kabbalah Centre in Europe, Brazil and Israel; African Christian missions in Europe; and Evangelical Christianity in France and Oceania. They are based upon original empirical research, making use of a range of methods – quantitative, ethnographic and documentary.

Contents:

• Introduction: An Epistemology for the Sociology of Religion Véronique Altglas and Matthew Wood
• Protestant Churches and Same-Sex Marriage in France: “Theological” Criteria and Sociological Approaches Gwendoline Malogne-Fer
• Deconstructing Archer’s (Un)Critical Realism Peter Doak
• Spirituality and Discipline: Not a Contradiction in Terms Véronique Altglas
• Congregational Studies, Worship and Region Behaviour Matthew Wood
• Unmasking the Relations of Power within the Religious Field Christophe Monnot
• An Affective (U-)Turn in the Sociology of Religion? Religious Emotions and Native Narratives Yannick Fer
• “Reverse Mission”: A Critical Approach for a Problematic Subject Eric Morier-Genoud
• “We are Peace-Loving People.” Sufism, Orientalist Constructions of Islam and Radicalization Alix Philippon

by Philip Lewis and Sadek Hamid

Some of you maybe interested in our new  co-authored book British Muslims: New Directions in Islamic Thought, Creativity and Activism. The text explores how a new generation of academics, artists and activists are redefining what it means to be a Muslim in Britain today –in particular the role of women in shaping new developments in religious scholarship, political leadership and community development.

Written in an accessible style with a foreword by Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and annotated bibliography, it will be a key text for researchers of Islam in Britain/Europe, public sector professionals, policymakers and the media.

Get a 30% discount through the publisher’s website and enter the code NEW30 at the checkout:

https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-british-muslims.html

Endorsements:

‘From generation Jihad to generation M, this book attempts to get inside the minds and lives of young British Muslims to provide a complex and nuanced picture dispelling the one-dimensional simplistic narrative we are more accustomed to.’

• Sayeeda Warsi, the Right Honourable The Baroness Warsi

‘A timely antidote to the, arguably, twisted characterisation and popular perception of British Muslims in circulation.’

• Professor Humayn Ansari, Royal Holloway

American Jewish Year Book 2017

The Annual Record of the North American Jewish Communities

Series: American Jewish Year Book, Vol. 117

Dashefsky, Arnold, Sheskin, Ira M. (Eds.)

2018

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319706627

The American Jewish Year Book, now in its 117th year, is the annual record of the North American Jewish communities and provides insight into their major trends. The first chapter of Part I is an examination of how American Jews fit into the US religious landscape, based on Pew Research Center studies. The second chapter examines intermarriage. Chapters on “The Domestic Arena”  and “The International Arena” analyze the year’s events as they affect American Jewish communal and political affairs. Three chapters analyze the demography and geography of the US, Canada, and world Jewish populations. Part II provides lists of Jewish institutions, including federations, community centers, social service agencies, national organizations, synagogues, Hillels, day schools, camps, museums, and Israeli consulates. The final chapters present national and local Jewish periodicals and broadcast media; academic resources, including Jewish Studies programs, books, journals, articles, websites, and research libraries; and lists of major events in the past year, Jewish honorees, and obituaries.

Springer Publishing co-sponsors the ISA RC-22 (Sociology of Religion) Varga Prize for New Generation Scholars

© 2018

Congregations in Europe

Editors: Monnot, Christophe, Stolz, Jörg (Eds.)

https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319772608

This volume describes and maps congregations of Christian confessions and denominations, as well as groups with Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, and various other spiritual faiths, in different European countries. Consisting of three parts, it presents concrete sociological studies addressing  how established and not established, old and new congregations of various faiths create a new kind of religious diversity at the country level; how religious congregations are challenged and thrive in large cities; and how religious congregations change in the 21st century.

The book enlightens by its descriptive analysis and the theoretical questions it raises concerning the religious transformations happening all over Europe. It addresses issues of religious diversity in the cities of Europe by presenting large studies conducted in cities such as Barcelona in Spain, and Aarhus in Denmark. By means of large-scale censuses taken in areas such as North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany and in countries like Switzerland and Italy, the book shows how the historically established churches restructure their congregations and activities. It clarifies for the new gatherers where and how a new diversity of religious congregations is in the process of being established. Finally, the book covers two important topical issues: pluralisation and secularisation. It provides new data on religious diversity, painting a new picture of secularisation: the impact and structural consequences of the long-term decrease of membership in the established churches.

Springer Publishing co-sponsors the ISA RC-22 (Sociology of Religion) Varga Prize for New Generation Scholars

Why Religion and Spirituality Matter for Public Health

Evidence, Implications, and Resources

Series: Religion, Spirituality and Health: A Social Scientific Approach, Vol. 2

Oman, Doug (Ed.)2018

This volume reviews the exploding religion/spirituality (R/S) and health literature from a population health perspective. It emphasizes the distinctive Public Health concern for promoting health and preventing disease in societies, nations, and communities, as well as individuals. Part I offers a rigorous review of mainstream biomedical and social scientific theory and evidence on R/S-health relations. Addressing key gaps in previous literature, it reviews evidence from a population health viewpoint, surveying pertinent findings and theories from the perspective of Public Health subfields that range from Environmental Health Sciences to Public Health Nutrition to Health Policy & Management and Public Health Education. In Part II, practitioners describe in detail how attending to R/S factors enhances the work of clinicians and community health practitioners. R/S provides an additional  set of concepts and tools to address opportunities and challenges ranging from behavior and institutional change to education, policy, and advocacy. Part III empowers educators, analyzing pedagogical needs and offering diverse short chapters by faculty who teach R/S-health connections in many nationally top-ranked Schools of Public Health. International and global perspectives are highlighted in a concluding chapter and many places throughout the volume.

  This book addresses a pressing need for Public Health research, practice and teaching: A substantial evidence base now links religious and spiritual (R/S) factors to health. In the past 20 years, over 100 systematic reviews and 30 meta-analyses on R/S-health were published in refereed journals. But despite this explosion of interest, R/S factors remain neglected in Public Health teaching and research. Public Health lags behind related fields such as medicine, psychology, and nursing, where R/S factors receive more attention. This book can help Public Health catch up. It offers abundant key resources to empower public health professionals, instructors, and students to address R/S, serving at once as a course text, a field manual and a research handbook.

Springer Publishing co-sponsors the ISA RC-22 (Sociology of Religion) Varga Prize for New Generation Scholars

Dear friends and colleagues,
We are happy and proud to announce the publication of this new edited volume, which might be of interest to some of you. Apologies for cross-posting.
Hashas, Mohammed, Jan Jaap de Ruiter, and Niels Valdemar Vinding (eds), Imams in Western Europe: Developments, Transformations, and Institutional Challenges. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018 doi: 10.5117/9789462983830/ch01

http://en.aup.nl/books/9789462983830-imams-in-western-europe.html

This book presents an omnibus academic inquiry into contemporary Islamic religious authority with a focus on imams and the imamate – on which, until now, not much has been written in English. Our ambition is to contribute deeper and more fruitful analyses of the changes and challenges experienced by this source of religious authority in the context of the secular-liberal societies of Western Europe since the Second World War and the subsequent migration and refugee flows. At the same time, this research also serves to highlight secular-liberal institutions and their adaptation, or lack thereof, to the multiculturalism that characterizes Western European states. The social facts of globalization, transnational migration, and various interpretations of secularism have challenged the visibility of religion in the public sphere in Western societies. This has most importantly and urgently required religious authorities to revisit their organization, governance, and internal hierarchy, and Islamic religious authority is no exception. Throughout the Muslim-majority countries and in Europe, Islamic religious authority is still struggling to negotiate its place among the institutions of the modern state in the ‘secular age’ in the words of Charles Taylor (2007). The imamate is one of the institutions that are currently experiencing a shift of roles and functions in society. Scholars and historians of religion in particular are attentive to this shift.
“This fascinating book on imams in Western Europe is well timed to respond to the European discourse on Islam and Muslims, coming at a time of remarkable developments in the imam as a concept, as a religious institution, and as an authority for the Muslims of Western Europe.” – Jørgen S. Nielsen, Professor, Universities of Birmingham and Copenhagen.

The book is the result of our conference on imams from 2014, held in Rome at LUISS Guido Carli University & John Cabot American University

Here is a link to the introduction, preface and list of contents: https://www.academia.edu/36638452/Imams_in_Western_Europe_-_Developments_Transformations_and_Institutional_Challenges
On behalf of editors and contributors,
Niels Valdemar Vinding