Bloomsbury Religious Studies

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Get 35% off our book of the month: Mortality and Music

What better way to anticipate the start of the new academic year (not to mention distract yourself from the onset of a drizzly September), than to treat yourself to a discounted book?!

We're offering a 35% discount on the hardback or eBook editions of Mortality and Music: Popular Music and the Awareness of Death by Christopher Partridge throughout the whole of September. That means readers of our blog can buy copies for just £42.25 / $72.80 (instead of £65 / $112).

Here's what to do: 

1. Go to the book's webpage (you can find the eBook editions by clicking on 'View all other available formats')

2. Add a copy to your 'basket/cart'

3. When checking out enter the code MORT35 into the discount code box

4. Follow check out steps

And that's it! 

30% off our book of the month: Religion in Hip Hop

Enjoy reading our Religious Studies blog? Well, we've got a treat for all you committed readers out there. We're launching a new 'book of the month' initiative with special offers on recent books and we're starting right here, right now!

First up is Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the New Terrain in the US edited by Monica R. Miller, Anthony B. Pinn and Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman. We're offering a 30% discount on the paperback or eBook edition throughout the whole of July. 

So, how does it work?

1. Go to the book's webpage

2. Add a copy to your 'basket/cart'

3. When checking out enter the code HIPHOP30 into the discount code box

4. Follow check out steps

Stay tuned for future 'books of the month'.

Enjoy!

Related articles

Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the New Terrain in the US - Interview with Editors Monica R. Miller and Anthony B. Pinn

Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the New Terrain in the US - Interview with Editors Monica R. Miller and Anthony B. Pinn

Publishing on the 23rd of April in the US and the 18th of June in the UK, Religion in Hip Hop, edited by Monica R. Miller, Anthony B. Pinn and Bernard "Bun B" Freeman, spans a host of topics, questions and debates around the intersection of religion and hip hop, and its relationship with American culture. We talked briefly with two of the editors about their new book:

1. What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

Over the years, we (Drs. Anthony B. Pinn and Monica R. Miller) have involved ourselves in the study of African American Religions; Black Theology; theory and method in the study of religion; constructive theologies; religion in/and culture; religious humanisms; religion and embodiment, youth cultures and new black religious movements. In many ways, attention to religion and hip hop require interdisciplinary approaches, so our efforts cut in many directions across the humanities and social sciences.

Shifting from methodologies to content, a couple things about religious studies come to mind, and they’re connected. In our individual work and in our continued collaborative efforts, we’re interested in complicating discourses of meaning and expanding data, the everyday practices for the study of religion in culture in black life. Our larger intellectual efforts at this, however, extend beyond any one particular group. That is to say, we have an ongoing scholarly fascination with the ways that people transform their various contexts (social, economic, racial, etc.) into their doorway for understanding and exploring the larger world. Of course, framing it that way is a bit misleading, as if people have much of a choice regarding their contexts, but doing so helps to explain that we have a mutual curiosity about the relationships between the particular and the universal, and how various tensions between the two seemingly “construct” meaning.

At the same time, thanks largely to Pinn’s earlier methodological interventions in the study of African American Religions, in combination with the larger trends in theory and method in the study of religion, building from this and with Miller’s more recent efforts, we also have a growing interest in critically methodologically interrogating even this assumption that the things people are doing when they make music, dance, write, act “religiously” is about meaning at all. Maybe it is more simple than that. Perhaps these things of culture are simply the stuff people do. So we’ve been interested to rigorously evaluate not just people “out there”—the scholar’s traditional “data—but ourselves as well, as scholars, looking at the ways scholars and scholarship are part of these same processes that we write about.

Our collaboration with prolific recording artist Bun B is a testament to this back and forth between our “data” (hip hop) and ourselves (as scholars). The collaboration was a natural fit, in that Bun B has been a long-standing cultural leader in hip hop for many years now, and Bun has a concern to safeguard and preserve the rich cultural material of hip hop, but also a desire to look back, and reflect critically on what hip hop has been for so many, and what it might be now.

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

A fast-paced, but incredibly substantive, exploration of cutting-edge scholarship at the intersection of the academic study of religion and hip hop culture.

3. When did you start researching for this book?

We started working on this book roughly 16 months ago, but Pinn and Miller have co-authored or co-edited a number of projects, and our efforts to expand what we know about hip hop culture goes back years. Pinn, in particular, is one of the first scholars in religion to give attention to hip hop culture.

Pinn’s first book Why Lord (Continuum, 1995), was one of the very first in the academic study of religion to take seriously hip hop culture and rap music, in particular. Thanks to his vision and leadership, younger scholars have been supported and compelled to double-down on his efforts. Studies in hip hop and religion have brought with them the need to do the work exploring hip hop, but also undergird the necessity of that work in the larger field of religious studies. Pinn’s been instrumental on both fronts. And we’re just now, really, in a space where the topic of hip hop is no longer in need of a marketing campaign, and all of our efforts are directed at doing the actual work of fully unpacking the rich material that hip hop offers.

So to answer your question, this particular volume has been in process about a year and a half; the research going into it years before that. But in some very real ways as well as some figurative ways, we’ve been working on this book for a very long time!

4. What’s the meaning behind the title?

As hinted towards in the second part of the first question, the most important words in the title of this book are “in” and “mapping.” That is, religion in hip hop speaks to the co-constitutive nature of religion in culture, rather than a competition model between the sacred/profane that would suggest something like religion and hip hop. This part of the title is a methodological invitation to consider, more seriously, what sorts of social, cultural and political interests are part and parcel of classification/categorization in the academic study of religion more broadly. That is not to say that all of the contributions in this volume follow such a “neat and tidy” approach. Rather, readers will be confronted by the back-and-forth play with and between such constructed designators of in/and throughout.

Additionally, the word “mapping” speaks to the manner in which we see this volume connecting the dots of religion and/in hip hop scholarship, not only in terms of expansion of data, but also, highlighting and charting the coordinates of such a map (for the field), while remaining self-conscious about reminding ourselves that while we seek to construct such representations, we are also, actively constituting the field, as such. Hence the “ing” in mapping. And Bun B’s participation brings a voice internal to hip hop as to remind the field, ourselves, and so on that this map belongs as much to hip hop as it does to the academic study of it. This mapping begins in the Preface with the inimitable words of one we consider among the most formative and prolific in carving out a space this area of study in religion, Dr. Michael Eric Dyson. His foregrounding presence in the volume nicely provides historical context for a new generation of readers who have new-fangled and varying starting points for the study of religion and/in hip hop culture. We are ever grateful that it is here, discursively and historically, we begin the work of this volume.

5. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

The interactions with the contributors who come from a wide variety of fields and areas of study—the opportunity to gain greater perspective on how various disciplines and contexts are brought to bear on this shared concern with the synergy between two significant cultural developments.

It has also been a joy to bring Bun B into this project. The collaboration has allowed for a rich exchange of ideas that would not have been possible otherwise. Bun B’s critical feedback on the volume, as well as a lengthy and robust interview and Afterword that we’ve included in the book, help to add layers to the project. The final product, we feel, has one foot firmly in hip hop culture, and another in the academy. And this is a very good thing. Breaking down the walls of the “ivory tower” in this way has been challenging, but rewarding, and we hope the efforts speak for themselves.

6. Any tips for people reading the book?

Social media has forever changed the way we interact. We’d encourage readers to tweet about, give status updates, and otherwise read “actively” with the use of social media tools. Tweet back to the authors with questions, and we’ll do our best to respond. The book is very much a conversation, so with new means of interaction, we hope the book isn’t the last word on the topic, but only some of the first words. So find us on Twitter @religionhiphop, @anthony_pinn, and @BunBTrillOG.

Other than that, Enjoy!

7. Where will your research go from here?

[Pinn] There still things I want to investigate concerning the intersections of religion and hip hop.  Regarding this, I’m turning my attention to the ways in which death and dying are described and explored within hip hop, with a primary focus on how hip hop has altered the grammar of demise within popular culture.

[Miller] I have a number of different pots on the stove, so to speak. I have an ever-expanding interest in hip hop culture, so I’ll keep on with that. I have some forthcoming volumes that work to situate religion and/as identity formation and studies in identity with the Culture on the Edge scholarly collective of which I’m a part; aside from some edited volumes, my next monograph is tentatively titled New Black Godz, an outgrowth of my current major research project that explores contemporary black legibility and illegibility—that is, in what ways do we today “see” black humanity, and who do we see it in, and why them?

8. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

[Pinn] I can’t narrow it to one person.

[Miller] Wow, this is a fun but weighty question. Okay, let me think…Derrida or Tupac, Derrida or Tupac…okay, Tupac Shakur. Without question. I’m a deconstructionist at heart, and although Derrida may have given us the vocabulary to deconstruct, for me Tupac holds within himself and his memory not only an intense deconstructive edge, but also a constant reminder of why deconstruction is so necessary for intellectual as much as social engagement. 

If you would like anymore information on this title or any of our others, please visit our website here

The Composition of the Qur'an: Rhetorical Analysis - Interview with Author Michel Cuypers

Recently published in the UK and still to come in the US, The Composition of the Qur'an, by Michel Cuypers, is the first volume to argue that the Qur'an should be interpreted rhetorically, providing numerous examples and a methodology for future researchers to apply. We talked briefly with the author about his new book:

1. What particular areas of religious studies interest you and why?

I am especially interested in the exegesis of sacred writings and particularly in the Qur’an since I live in Cairo, in a Moslem country, and I wanted to understand Moslems better through the study of their sacred book.

2. How would you describe your book in one sentence?

My book helps to understand how an apparently composite text is, in reality, very  skillfully constructed by using the techniques of Semitic rhetoric which is very different from the Greek rhetoric to which we are accustomed.

3. When did you start researching for this book?

In 1993, I became aware of the method of rhetorical analysis of the Bible and I began to apply this method to the text of the Qur’an. After having dedicated myself to this task in about a dozen articles on thirty suras (or chapters) of the Qur’an and a book on a long sura (The Banquet. A Reading of the Fifth Sura of the Qur’an, 2009) it seemed to me that it was necessary to write this more theoretical book explaining the method systematically, first in French (2012) and now in English.

4.What’s the meaning behind the title?

I explained the title in my reply to the second question. The sub-title requires additional explanation. Rhetorical analysis consists in discovering the different literary procedures the author or editor has used to give a specific structure to a text. These structures are always variants of parallelism (AB/A’B’), of mirror composition (AB//B’A’) or ring composition (AB/C/B’A’).

5. Which part of writing a book have you enjoyed most?

The chapter on ring composition was particularly fascinating because this structure is very frequent in the Qur’an and often difficult to detect. But it is very important to discover the center of a ring composition since, most of the time, it shows the way to the interpretation of the whole structure and, therefore, of the text.

6. Any tips for people reading the book?

This book is intended for all those, Moslems or not, who are interested in the Qur’an and who are often confused by the apparent disorder of the text. They will discover that, in reality, it is very exquisitely composed according to a complex ensemble of the procedures explained in this book, which is a sort of grammar of the text or of the discourse.

7. Where will your research go from here?

Since most of the Qur’an still has to be analyzed through this system, I still have plenty of work ahead for me. But I am also counting on dedicating myself more to forming students who will be able to continue my work. Leave room for the next generations!

8. If you could have dinner with one person, living or dead, who would it be?

That would be Fakhr-al-Dīn al-Rāzī, the greatest among the classical commentators of the Qur’an (12^th century),  because he was very attentive to all the subtleties of the text. I think he would be interested by my book. And I would ask him how it was that, in spite of his keen attention to the text, he did not discover the rhetorical system of the Qur’an!  

If you would like anymore information on this title or any of our others, please visit our website here

Religion, Postcolonialism, and Globalization: A Sourcebook - now available in the US!

We are delighted to announce that Religion, Postcolonialism, and Globalization: A Sourcebook is now available in the US as well as the UK. Jennifer Reid provides a much-needed sourcebook on globalization and colonialism from a history of religions perspective, tracing back to the voyages of Columbus.

'Religion, Postcolonialism, and Globalization is an invaluable resource for anyone who wants a better understanding of relationships between religion and the development of the modern world. For teachers this sourcebook clearly directs students attention to the 'Doctrine of Christian Discovery' as the basis of globalization. The consequences of this Doctrine to communities around the world after 1492 gives students a deeper and more profound appreciation of the world that they currently inhabit.  It is already a required textbook in my religion and colonialism classes.'

Philip P. Arnold, Associate Professor of Religion, Syracuse University, USA

'While books about globalization are abundant, one that considers the dynamics of trans-cultural interactions and global relationships of exchange as “a fundamentally religious phenomenon” cuts new ground. In that sense—and others—Jennifer Reid’s sourcebook both alerts us of a gap in conventional ways of thinking about the reciprocal if invariably asymmetrical relations among persons and communities from different parts of the world, and then works to fill that gap. Providing a long and wide view of globalization and religion, both of which are broadly but very carefully conceived, the reading selections are ample and strategically made; and the associated commentary on those readings is provocative and well formulated in ways that holds open a range of different conclusions. To be sure, this sourcebook is a very welcome addition to the landscape of both globalization studies and, even more, religious studies.'

Lindsay Jones, Professor, Department of Comparative Studies, The Ohio State University, USA

For more information on this book, or to request an inspection copy, please visit our website here

Happy New Year from the Bloomsbury Religious Studies Team!

We were greeted with a lovely array of advance copies when we got into the office after Christmas, all publishing over January and February in the UK and March and April in the US. Here is a roundup:

 

Silver Screen Buddha, Sharon Suh

(publishing 29th January in the UK and 26th March in the US)

 
Sharon Suh presents an exploration of the representation and mis-representation of Buddhism and Buddhists in both Western and Asian contemporary films.

Silver Screen Buddha is a gem of a book. And Sharon Suh is a cultural critic of the highest order. With this book, Suh has emerged at the forefront of cultural studies of religion. Through lucid prose and provocative insights, Suh provides vivid access to the embodied spiritual economies of lay Buddhist lives. Her deep dive into film widens our engagement with the cultural imaginary of Buddhism well beyond the rarefied and stubbornly Orientalist accounts of ascetic meditation practices. By rightfully demanding that we draw our attention to the funk and mess of ordinary Buddhist practice, Suh reveals paths that are singular and utterly invaluable for understanding the mutual world making of film and everyday religious life. What an achievement!

David Kyuman Kim, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and American Studies, Connecticut College, USA and author of 'Melancholic Freedom: Agency and the Spirit of Politics' (2007)

 

Jainism: A Guide for the Perplexed, Sherry Fohr

(publishing 29th January in the UK and 26th March in the US)

 

The latest book in Bloomsbury Academic’s popular Guides for the Perplexed series. Jainism: A Guide for the Perplexed is a clear and thorough account of Jainism, providing a guide to its important beliefs and practices.

Jains have long learned the principles and history of Jainism through narratives. Stories are at the heart of the sermons that mendicants regularly deliver to laypeople. Mothers and grand-mothers recount narratives to young Jains. In the home of most Jains are one or more bookshelves full of volumes of edifying tales. Sherry Fohr has followed this time-honored example, and provided an accessible introduction to the Jain tradition through narratives. The reader will encounter memorable characters and memorable tales, and in the process come to see why Jainism has been one of the world's enduring religious systems that has provided insights to generations of seekers for three-thousand years.

John E. Cort, Professor of Asian and Comparative Religions & Chair, Department of Religion, Denison University, USA

 

 The Attraction of Religion, edited by D. Jason Slone and James A. Van Slyke

(publishing 26th February in the UK and 23rd April in the US)

The second book in our Scientific Studies of Religion: Inquiry and Explanation series. The editors explore the ever-persistent attraction of religion from an evolutionary psychological perspective.

Slone and Van Slyke have put together a treasure-trove, a much needed compendium that is not only a valuable source book for some of the most cogent hypotheses for the biological evolution of religion, but also the first coherent attempt to empirically assess the legitimacy of each.  The Attraction of Religion delivers on its promise, and part of its attraction to serious researchers is that it marks the beginning of serious inquiry into an important human trait, bespeaking the degree to which even something so delicate and culture-bound as religion is also susceptible to the long reach of natural selection.  An admirable and noteworthy achievement!

David Barash, Professor of Psychology, University of Washington, USA and author of 'Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom meets Modern Western Science' (2013)

 

Christian Metal, Marcus Moberg

(publishing 26th February in the UK and 23rd April in the US)

 

The second book in our Bloomsbury Studies in Popular Music series, Christian Metal is a comprehensive guide to the phenomenon of Christian metal music, its history, development, and main ideological traits, from its formative years in the early 1980s to the present day.

An invaluable guide to a thriving yet frequently misunderstood subgenre, Moberg's authoritative, insightful work on Christian metal is essential reading for metal scholars.

Jeremy Wallach, Associate Professor, Bowling Green State University, USA

For more information on these books and more, please visit our website here

AAR and SBL – see you in sunny San Diego?

With just two days to go before the American Academy of Religion and Society for Biblical Literature annual conference kicks off in San Diego, we’re well and truly gearing ourselves up. 

Are you joining us? If so, make sure to stop by stand #515 in the publisher exhibit area to:

• Browse the latest titles from our Religious Studies, Theology and Biblical Studies lists
• Order free inspection copies for classes
• Speak with our commissioning editors and sales team
• Buy books at our special conference discount of up to 50% off
• Enter our raffle to win free books
• And much more!

A selection of just some of the Religious Studies titles we’ll have on display:

And did I mention the location? What more could you wish for! 

Hope to see you there!

Bloomsbury Studies in Religion and Popular Music

We are eagerly anticipating the release of the first title in our exciting new series Bloomsbury Studies in Religion and Popular Music, edited by Christopher Partridge (Lancaster University, UK) and Sara Cohen (University of Liverpool, UK). Sacred and Secular Musics, by Virinder S. Kalra, publishes in November in the UK, and January in the US.

How does the sacred/secular opposition explain itself in the context of musical production? This volume traces this binary as it frames Western Classical music and Indian Classical music in the 18th and 19th centuries, laying the ground for a contemporary exploration of what is ostensibly sacred music in South Asia. Offering a potent critique of musicological knowledge-making, Virinder S. Kalra explores examples of South Asian musics in various domains and traverses a new cartography of music in which the sacred and the secular overlap. 

Drawing on examples which include Qawwali, kirtan and popular devotional genres, Sacred and Secular Musics offers new empirical material, as well as new insights into conceptualising religion and music, and the ways in which music performs sacredness and secularity across the contested India-Pakistan border in the region of Punjab.

Peter Manual, Professor from the Music Department of the Graduate Center at City University, New York praises Kalra on the use of a 'remarkable abundance of original data on Sikh music, qawwali, and other genres in Pakistani and Indian Punjab' which results in 'astute interpretive perspectives on these understudied genres and regional dynamics'.

Look out for further forthcoming titles in the series including Christian Metal, by Marcus Moberg, and Religion in Hip Hop, edited by Monica R. Miller, Anthony B. Pinn and Bernard "Bun B" Freeman.

'Metal, a genre suffused with Christian imagery albeit with a blasphemous twist, spawned its own renegade, Christian metal. Metalhead religious scholar Marcus Moberg presents a detailed and analytically elegant definitive account of this counter-movement, a worthy addition to metal studies.' Deena Weinstein, Professor, Department of Sociology, DePaul University, USA

'An invaluable guide to a thriving yet frequently misunderstood subgenre, Moberg's authoritative, insightful work on Christian metal is essential reading for metal scholars.' Jeremy Wallach, Associate Professor, Bowling Green State University, USA

Religion in Hip Hop: Mapping the Terrain provides an important step in advancing and mapping this new field of Religion and Hip Hop Studies. The volume features 14 original contributions representative of this new terrain within three sections representing major thematic issues over the past two decades. The Preface is written by one of the most prolific and founding scholars of this area of study, Michael Eric Dyson, and the inclusion of and collaboration with Bernard 'Bun B' Freeman fosters a perspective internal to Hip Hop and encourages conversation between artists and academics.

For more information on this series, and our other titles, please take a look at our website here.

SSSR & AAR

Note from the Editor:

I had the pleasure of attending the Society for Scientific Study of Religion conference for the first time last week, held in Indianapolis. Highlights included meeting up with authors Douglas Ezzy, Mika T. Lassander, and Mathew Guest.

Other popular titles on display included Religion in Science Fiction and The Study of Religion.

 

I’m also looking forward to the AAR in San Diego later this month. Do visit us in the exhibit hall:

• Browse our latest religious studies books
• Order free inspection copies
• Buy books at our special conference discount of up to 50% off
• Enter our raffle to win free books

And look out for the panel discussion of Amanullah De Sondy's The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities:

See you in San Diego?

Lalle

Lalle Pursglove, Commissioning Editor