Description
Berghahn Books Learning Religion Anthropological Approaches 2007 Edition by David Berliner, Ramon Sarro
As we enter the 21st century, it becomes increasingly difficult to envisage a world detached from religion or an anthropology blind to its study. Yet, how people become religious is still poorly studied. This volume gathers some of the most distinguished scholars in the field to offer a new perspective for the study of religion, one that examines the works of transmission and innovation through the prism of learning. They argue that religious culture is socially and dynamically constructed by agents who are not mere passive recipients but engaged in active learning processes. Finding a middle way between the social and the cognitive, they see learning religions not as a mechanism of "downloading" but also as a social process with its relational dimension. Table of contents :- AcknowledgementsChapter 1. On Learning Religion: An IntroductionDavid Berliner and Ramon SarroChapter 2. Learning to Believe: A Preliminary ApproachCarlo SeveriChapter 3. Menstrual Slaps and First Blood Celebrations: Inference, Simulation and the Learning of RitualMichael HousemanChapter 4. The Accidental in Religious Instruction: Ideas and ConvictionsDavid ParkinChapter 5. On Catching Up With Oneself: Learning to Know That One Means What One DoesMichael LambekChapter 6. How Do You Learn to Know That it is God Who Speaks?T.M. LuhrmannChapter 7. How to Learn in an Afro-Brazilian Spirit Possession Religion: Ontology and Multiplicity in CandombleMarcio GoldmanChapter 8. Learning to be a Proper Medium: Middle-Class Womanhood and Spirit Mediumship at Christian Rationalist Seances in Cape VerdeJoao VasconcelosChapter 9. Copyright and Authorship: Ritual Speech and the New Market of Words in TorajaAurora DonzelliChapter 10. Learning Faith: Young Christians and CatechismLaurence HeraultChapter 11. What is Interesting about Chinese ReligionCharles StaffordChapter 12. The Sound of Witchcraft: Noise as Mediation in Religious TransmissionMichael RowlandsBibliographyNotes on ContributorsIndex