A Sociology of Religious Emotion
Published on 24. June 2010
Book
Hardback
286 pages
978-0-19-956760-7 (ISBN)
Description
This timely book aims to change the way we think about religion by putting emotion back onto the agenda. It challenges a tendency to over-emphasise rational aspects of religion, and rehabilitates its embodied, visceral and affective dimensions. Against the view that religious emotion is a purely private matter, it offers a new framework which shows how religious emotions arise in the varied interactions between human agents and religious communities, human agents and objects of devotion, and communities and sacred symbols. It presents parallels and contrasts between religious emotions in European and American history, in other cultures, and in contemporary western societies. By taking emotions seriously, A Sociology of Religious Emotion sheds new light on the power of religion to shape fundamental human orientations and motivations: hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, loves and hatreds.
Reviews / Votes
A Sociology of Religious Emotion is exactly the kind of specialist academic book that is usually overlooked by the celebrity combatants in the secular commentariat. If the book's arguments and its proposals for research are heeded, it might ground the wrangles about the proper place of religion. * Bernice Martin, Times Literary Supplement * I came away from this book better informed, and richer in understanding. My respect for these authors is considerable, because there is a real art to making academic research accessible; and this book did a good job of interesting me, a lay person, in a discipline I didn't know ... I felt wiser when I had finished A Sociology of Religious Emotion. * Gwen Adshead, Church Times * Riis and Woodhead's efforts here are essential for a field of study which has all too often trivialised the role of emotions in religious belief in an effort to understand society without the reflexivity and depth due unto persons. ... Riis and Woodhead stake out an important and highly recommended path for what will hopefully be a renewed interest in 'A Sociology of Religious Emotion'. * Grant Brooke, Scottish Journal of Theology *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Oxford
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
Plate section with 12 black and white halftones
Dimensions
Height: 222 mm
Width: 145 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
538 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-19-956760-7 (9780199567607)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Ole Riis | Linda Woodhead
A Sociology of Religious Emotion
Book
06/2012
1st Edition
Oxford University Press
€47.64
Shipment within 15-20 days
Persons
Linda Woodhead is Professor of Sociology of Religion at Lancaster University, and Director of the Religion and Society Programme - a major national research council initiative which embraces 80 separate projects. Her books include Religions in the Modern World (with Koko Kawanami and Chris Partridge), An Introduction to Christianity, The Spiritual Revolution (with Paul Heelas), Peter Berger and the Study of Religion, and Congregational Studies in the UK (with Mathew Guest and Karin Tusting).
Ole Riis is Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Agder in Norway. His research includes sociology of religion, general sociology, methodology of social science, survey studies and public planning. His books, in Danish and English, include On Methods and Theories in the Sociology of Religion, Social Science in Practice, Religion in Secularizing Society, and Combined Methods in the Social Sciences.
Ole Riis is Professor of Sociology of Religion at the University of Agder in Norway. His research includes sociology of religion, general sociology, methodology of social science, survey studies and public planning. His books, in Danish and English, include On Methods and Theories in the Sociology of Religion, Social Science in Practice, Religion in Secularizing Society, and Combined Methods in the Social Sciences.
Content
Introduction ; 1. Emotion - a relational view ; 2. Delineating religious emotion ; 3. Dynamics of religious emotion I: connections of self, society, and symbols ; 4. Dynamics of religious emotion II: disconnections of self, society, and symbols ; 5. The power of religious emotion ; 6. Religious emotion in late modern society and culture ; Conclusion ; Appendix: Studying religious emotion: Suggestions for method and practice