The Routledge Handbook of Judaism in the 21st Century is a cutting-edge volume that addresses central questions and issues animating Judaism, Jewish identity, and Jewish society in a global, integrated, and forward-looking way. It introduces readers to the complexity of Judaism as it has developed and continues to develop throughout the 21st century through the prism of three contemporary sets of issues: identities and geographies; structures and power; and knowledge and performances. Within these sections, international contributors examine central issues, topics, and debates, including: individual and collective identity; globalization and localization; Jewish demography; diversity, denominations, and pluralism; interreligious relations; political orientations; community organization; family and gender; the Bible and Talmud today; Jewish philosophy and authority in Jewish thought; digital Judaism; antisemitism; Jewish spirituality and rituals; memory; language; religious education; material culture, literature, music, and art; approaches to the environment; and contemporary Zionism and Israel. The handbook also includes an extensive bibliography to help orient readers to the most important and leading work in the field. The Routledge Handbook of Judaism in the 21st Century is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and Jewish studies. It will also be useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history, as well as Jewish professionals and lay leaders.

The centrality and importance of the intersection of Christianity and culture when it comes to English-speaking countries and particularly American culture, history, and politics is beyond doubt. The Routledge Handbook of Christianity and Culture is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems, and debates in this exciting subject. Comprising over 35 chapters by a team of international contributors, the handbook is divided into five parts: • Practicing Christianity • Christianity and the Word • Social and Political Aspects of Christianity and Culture • Christianity and Culture in a Global Context • Christianity and the Arts Within these parts, central issues, debates, and problems are examined including liturgy, material Christianity, education, missions, religion and science, hermeneutics, Bible translations, Christian wars, human rights, law, social action, the secular, ecumenicalism, inter-religious relations, visual arts, literature, music, theatre, and film. The Routledge Handbook of Christianity and Culture is essential reading for students and researchers of religious studies and Christian studies. The handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as cultural studies, area studies, visual studies, literature, and material religion.

The past two decades have seen a growing interest in evolutionary and scientific approaches to religion. The Routledge Handbook of Evolutionary Approaches to Religion is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, problems and debates in this exciting and emerging field. Comprising over thirty chapters by a team of international contributors the handbook pulls together scholarship in the following areas: evolutionary psychology and the cognitive science of religion (CSR) cultural evolution the complementarity of evolutionary psychology, cognitive science and cultural evolution Within these sections central issues, debates and problems are examined, including: Cliodynamics, cultural group selection, costly signaling, dual inheritance theory, literacy, transmitting narratives, prosociality, supernatural punishment, cognition and ritual, meme theory, fusion theory, sexual selection, agency detection, evoked culture, social brain hypothesis, theory of mind, developmental psychology, emergence theory, social learning, cultural cybernetics, cultural epidemiology, evolutionary and cultural psychology, memetics, by-product and adaptationist theories of religion, systems and information theory, and computer modeling. This Handbook is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and anthropology. It will also be very useful to those in related fields, such as psychology, sociology of religion, cognitive biology, and evolutionary biology.

The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion places objects and bodies at the center of scholarly studies of religious life and practice. Propelling forward the study of material religion, the Handbook first reveals the deep philosophical roots of its key categories and then advances new critical analytics, such as queer materialities, inescapable material entanglements, and hyperobjects that explode the small-scale personal view on religions. The Handbook comprises thirty chapters, written by an international team of contributors who offer a global perspective of religious pasts and presents, divided into four thematic parts: Genealogies of Material Religion Materializing the Terms of the Study of Religion Entanglements, Entrapment, Escaping Hyperobjects, or How Ginormous Things Affect Religions In these four parts, the study of material religion is redirected towards systematic, critical interrogations of the imbrication of religious structures of power with racial, economic, political, and gendered forms of domination. From Spinoza’s political theology to African philosophies of ubuntu; from the queer materialities of Mesoamerican religion to the Satanic Temple of the United States; from Islamic love and sacrifice in human-animal entanglements to Shia militants’ attachment to weaponry; from epidemic cataclysm in Latin America to vast infrastructures and the gathering of millions in India’s Kumbh Mela, the study of material religion proves to be the study par excellence of the human condition. The Handbook is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies, anthropology, history, and media studies, and will also be of interest to those in related fields such as archeology, sociology, and philosophy.

Given the intense scrutiny of Muslims, The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Race is an outstanding reference to key topics related to Islam and racialization. Comprising over 40 chapters by nearly 50 international contributors, the Handbook covers 30 countries on six continents examining an array of subjects including Chinese, Russian, Iranian, and Palestinian Muslims as racialized others Hip-Hop, Islam, and race Sexuality, gender, and race in Muslim spaces Islamophobia and race Racializing Muslim youth Islam, media, photography and race Central issues are explored not only in Muslim societies but also in Muslim-minority countries like Mexico, Finland, Brazil, New Zealand, and South Africa for topics such as race and color in the Qur’an, law, slavery, conversion, multiculturalism, blackness, whiteness, and otherness. The Routledge Handbook of Islam and Race is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies and postcolonial studies. The Handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields such as art and architecture, literature, ethnic studies, Black and Africana studies, sociology, history, anthropology, and global studies.

The Routledge Handbook of Global Islam and Consumer Culture is an outstanding inter- and transdisciplinary reference source to key topics, problems, and debates in this challenging research field. The study of Islam is enriched by investigating religion and, notably, Islamic normativity (fiqh) as a resource for product design, attitudes toward commodification, and appropriated patterns of behavior. Comprising 35 chapters (including an extended Introduction) by a team of international contributors from chairholders to advanced graduate students, the handbook is divided into seven parts: Guiding Frameworks of Understanding Historical Probes Urbanism and Consumption Body Manipulation, Vestiary Regimes, and Gender Mediated Religion and Culture Consumer Culture, Lifestyle, and Senses of the Self through Consumption Markets These sections examine vibrant debates around consumption, frugality, Islamic jurisprudence and fatwas in the world economy, capitalism, neoliberalism, trade relations, halalization, (labor) tourism and travel infrastructure, body modification, fashion, self-fashioning, lifestylization, Islamic kitsch, urban regeneration, heritage, Islamic finance, the internet, and Quran recitation versus music. Contributions present selected case studies from countries across the world, including China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Nigeria, Qatar, Pakistan, and Turkey. The handbook is essential reading for students and researchers in Islamic studies, Near and Middle Eastern studies, religious studies, and cultural studies. The handbook will also be very useful for those in related fields, such as politics, area studies, sociology, anthropology, and history.

The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Spirituality and Contemplative Studies provides the first authoritative overview of methodology in this growing field. Against the background of the pandemic and other global challenges, spirituality is expanding as an agreed term with which to discuss the efforts people make to be fully present to deeper, invisible dimensions of their personal identity and external reality, but until now there have been few resources exploring the different methodological approaches researchers take. This book explores the primary methodologies emerging: First Person, Second Person, and Third Person, and provides a systematisation of spirituality research in applied contexts for the first time. Comprising 33 chapters by a team of international contributors, the book is divided into seven parts: Foundations Approaches to Contemplative Research Contemplative Research in Education Contemplative Research in Work and Leadership Contemplative Research in Science, Health, and Healing Contemplative Research in Social Sciences Contemplative Research and the Way Forward The Handbook provides readers, practitioners, and policymakers with methods and approaches which can facilitate a spiritual and contemplative stance in research activities. It is an essential resource for researchers and students of Religion, Spirituality, and Research Methods.

The Routledge Handbook of Megachurches provides a survey of global megachurch phenomena, with an international slate of authors introducing existing and emerging research on a wide variety of relevant topics. Over the past decade, the field of megachurch studies has matured and become global in its scope and orientation. The Handbook offers 33 chapters by top scholars in the field, focusing in particular on: The location, demographic nature, and transnational connections of megachurches. Megachurch worship, hermeneutics, and theology (in theory and practice). Megachurch institutional dynamics. The various ways that megachurches have both influenced and been influenced by their social contexts in terms of class, age, gender, sexuality, and pop culture. The Handbook's interdisciplinary orientation makes it essential reading for sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, media specialists, pop culture observers, business strategists, leadership consultants, marketing analysts, scholars of religion, and Christian historians, theologians, and missiologists. Experienced scholars of megachurches will gain valuable insight into aspects of megachurch research beyond their own specializations. Scholars new to the field will find the chapters useful as signposts for where to begin their own academic exploration. Christian pastors and laypeople will learn more about this increasingly prominent and influential form of their faith.

This volume focuses on the major issues and debates in the study of Jews and Judaism in late antiquity (third to seventh century C.E.), providing cutting-edge surveys of the state of scholarship, main topics and research questions, methodological approaches, and avenues for future research. Based on both Jewish and non-Jewish literary and material sources, this volume takes an interdisciplinary approach involving historians of ancient Judaism, scholars of rabbinic literature, archaeologists, epigraphers, art historians, and Byzantinists. Developments within Jewish society and culture are viewed within the respective regional, political, cultural, and socioeconomic contexts in which they took place. Special focus is given to the impact of the Christianization of the Roman Empire on Jews, from administrative, legal, social, and cultural points of view. The contributors examine how the confrontation with Christianity changed Jewish practices, perceptions, and organizational structures, such as, for example, the emergence of local Jewish communities around synagogues as central religious spaces. Special chapters are devoted to the eastern and western Jewish Diaspora in Late Antiquity, especially Sasanian Persia but also Roman Italy, Egypt, Syria and Arabia, North Africa, and Asia Minor, to provide a comprehensive assessment of the situation and life experiences of Jews and Judaism during this period. The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity is a critical and methodologically sophisticated survey of current scholarship aimed primarily at students and scholars of Jewish Studies, Study of Religions, Patristics, Classics, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Iranology, History of Art, and Archaeology. It is a valuable resource for anyone interested in Judaism and Jewish history.

The Routledge Handbook of Religion, Mass Atrocity, and Genocide explores the many and sometimes complicated ways in which religion, faith, doctrine, and practice intersect in societies where mass atrocity and genocide occur. This volume is intended as an entry point to questions about mass atrocity and genocide that are asked by and of people of faith and is an outstanding reference source to the key topics, historical events, and heated debates in this subject area. The 39 contributions to the handbook, by a team of international contributors, span five continents and cover four millennia. Each explores the intersection of religion, faith, and mainly state-sponsored mass atrocity and genocide, and draws from a variety of disciplines. This volume is divided into six core sections: Genocide in Antiquity and Holy Wars The Genocide of Indigenous Peoples Religion and the State The Role of Religion during Genocide Post Genocide Considerations Memory Culture Within these sections central issues, historical events, debates, and problems are examined, including the Crusades; Jihad and ISIS, colonialism, the Holocaust, desecration of ritual objects, politics of religion, Shinto nationalism, attacks on Rohingya Muslims; the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, responses to genocide; gender-based atrocities, ritualcide in Cambodia, burial sites and mass graves, transitional justice, forgiveness, documenting genocide, survivor memory narratives, post-conflict healing and memorialization. The Routledge Handbook of Religion and Genocide is essential reading for students and researchers with an interest in religion and genocide, religion and violence, and religion and politics. It will be of great interest to students of theology, philosophy, genocide studies, narrative studies, history, and international relations and those in related fields, such as cultural studies, area studies, sociology, and anthropology.