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RLG100/RLG280: The World's Religions in Global Perspective

Includes course readings and information on library research tools and strategies.

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  • most titles are available as ebooks: to access it, click on the title 
  • many titles are available in print at libraries on campus, as indicated by the call number of each book
  • our textbook can be used to augment and supplement your research.​

Religions: General

Albanese, Catherine L. A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. Web. 

Berlinerblau, Jacques. How to be Secular: A Call to Arms for Religious Freedom. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012.Print. 

Beyer, Peter. Religions in Global Society. London; New York: Routledge, 2006. Web. 

Cavanaugh, William T. The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Web.

Choquette, Robert. Canada's Religions: An Historical Introduction. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2004.

Douglas, Mary. Natural Symbols: Explorations in CosmologyLondon; New York: Routledge, 2003. Web.

Hurteau, Pierre. Male Homosexualities and World Religions. New York City: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Web. 

JurgensmeyerMarkTerror in the Mind of GodBerkeley: University of California Press, 2003. 3rd ed., rev. and updated.

Kuriyama, Shigehisa. The Expressiveness of the Body and the Divergence of Greek and Chinese Medicine. New York: Zone Books, 2002. Web.

Lincoln, Bruce. Holy Terrors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. 2nd. ed. Web.

Martin, Craig. A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion. Sheffield: Equinox Publishing Ltd., 2012. Print. 

MasuzawaTomokoThe Invention of World Religions, or, How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Print. 

Nongbri, Brent. Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013.

Riesebrodt, Martin. The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. Web.

Sun, Anna. Confucianism as a World Religion: Contested Histories and Contemporary Realities. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013. Web.

Taylor, Sarah McFarland. Green Sisters: A Spiritual Ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. Web.

Veer, Peter van der. The Modern Spirit of Asia: the Spiritual and the Secular in China and India. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014. Web.

Widlman, Wesley. Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry: Envisioning a Future for the Philosophy of ReligionAlbany: State University of New York Press, 2010. Print. 

Ziolkowski, Theodore. Modes of Faith: Secular Surrogates for Lost Religious Belief. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007. Web.

Psychology of Religion

Allport, Gordon W. The Individual and His Religion: A Psychological Interpretation. New York: Macmillan, 1950. Print. 

Maslow, Abraham H. Religions, Values, and Peak-Experiences. New York: Viking Press, 1970. Print. 

Religions: Mythology & Mysticism

Gill, SamStorytracking: Texts, Stories, and Histories in Central AustraliaNew York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Web. 

Izmirlieva, Valentina. All the Names of the Lord: Lists, Mysticism, and Magic. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Web.

Islamic Traditions

Bennett, Linda Rae. Women, Islam and Modernity: Single Women, Sexuality and Reproductive Health in Contemporary Indonesia. London ; New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005. Web. 

Birkel, Michael. Qur'an in Conversation. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014. Print. ​

Brown, Jonathan A. C. Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy. London: Oneworld, 2014.​ Print. ​

Chittick, William C, and Seyyed H. Nasr. Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Print.

Ernst, Carl W. Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003. Print.​

Flueckiger, Joyce. In Amma's Healing Room: Gender and Vernacular Islam in South India. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Web. 

Lawrence, Bruce B. Who is Allah? Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2015.

​Porter, Venetia, and Haleem M. A. Abdel. Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2012. Print.​

Rasmussen, Anne K. Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010. 

Buddhist Traditions

Bentor, Yael. Consecration of Images and Stūpas in Indo-Tibetan Tantric Buddhism. Leiden; New York: Brill, 1996. Print. 

Blackburn, Anne M. Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press, 2010. Web. 

Duncan, James S. The City as Text: The Politics of Landscape Interpretation in the Kandyan ​Kingdom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Print. 

Garrett, Frances. Religion, Medicine and the Human Embryo in Tibet. New York: Routledge, 2008. Web. 

​Green, Ronald S. Buddhism Goes to the Movies: Introduction to Buddhist Thought and Practice. New York: Routledge, 2014. Print.

Kapstein, Matthew. The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism: Conversion, Contestation, and Memory. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Web. 

McMahon, David. Making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. Web. 

Obeyesekere, Gananath. Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. Web. 

Schaeffer, Kurtis. The Culture of the Book in Tibet. New York: Columbia University Press, 2009. Print. 

Shulman, EviatarRethinking the Buddha: Early Buddhist Philosophy As Meditative PerceptionNew York: Cambridge University Press, 2014Web. 

Smith, Bardwell LNarratives of Sorrow and Dignity: Japanese Women, Pregnancy Loss, and Modern Rituals of Grieving. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Web. 

Strickmann, Michel, and Bernard Faure. Chinese Magical Medicine. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002. Print. 

Christian Traditions

Arnal, William. The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism and the Construction of Identity. London: Equinox, 2005. Print. 

Barkun, Michael. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013. Web.

Bynum, Caroline Walker. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Print.

Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. Web.

Boyer, Paul. When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American CultureCambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1992. Web.

Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Jantzen, Grace. Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Print. 

McGuckin, John Anthony. The Orthodox Church: An Introduction to Its History, Doctrine, and Spiritual CultureMalden: Blackwell Pub. Ltd., 2008. Web.

Pomplun, Trent. Jesuit on the Roof of the World: Ippolito Desideri's Mission to Tibet. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.

Signorotto, Gianvittorio, and Visceglia, Maria Antonietta, eds. Court and Politics in Papal Rome, 1492–1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Web.

Schüssler Fiorenza, Elisabeth. In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins. New York: Crossroad, 1983. Print.  

Vander Stichele, Caroline and Todd PennerContextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse: Thinking Beyond Thecla. London: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2009. Print. 

Sikh Traditions

Murphy, Anne. The Materiality of the Past: History and Representation in Sikh Tradition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print. 

Hindu Traditions

Biernacki, Loriliai and Philip Clayton, eds. Panentheism Across the World’s TraditionsOxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Web. 

Davis, Richard. Lives of Indian ImagesPrinceton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997. Web. 

DeNapoli, Antoinette Elizabeth. Real Sadhus Sing to God: Gender, Asceticism, and Vernacular Religion in Rajasthan. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. Web. 

Doniger, Wendy. The Hindus: An Alternative History. New York: Penguin Books, 2009. Print. 

Doniger, Wendy. On Hinduism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Web. 

Doniger, Wendy. Śiva the Erotic AsceticNew York: Oxford University Press, 1981. Print. 

Eck, Diana L. India: A Sacred Geography. New York: Harmony Books, 2012. Web. 

Foulston, Lynn, and Stuart Abbott. Hindu Goddesses: Beliefs and Practices. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2009. Print.

Hegarty, James. Religion, Narrative, and Public Imagination in South Asia: Past and Place in the Sanskrit Mahabharata. New York: Routledge, 2012. Web. 

Kakar, Sudhir. Shamans, Mystics, and DoctorsNew York: Knopf, 1982. Print. 

Kumar, P. PratapContemporary HinduismDurham: Acumen, 2013. Print.

Lutgendorf, Philip. Hanuman's Tale: The Messages of a Divine Monkey. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007. Web. 

Padma, Sree. Vicissitudes of the Goddess: Reconstructions of the Gramadevata in India's Religious Traditions. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2013. Web. 

Pennington, Brian K. Was Hinduism Invented?: Britons, Indians, and Colonial Construction of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005. Web.

Prentiss, Karen PechilisThe Embodiment of Bhakti. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Web. 

Ramberg, Lucinda. Given to the Goddess: South Indian Devadasis and the Sexuality of Religion. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. Web. 

Rosen, Steven. Essential Hinduism. Westport: Praeger, 2006. Print.

Sharma, Jyotirmaya. Restatement of Religion: Swami Vivekananda and the Making of Hindu Nationalism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013. Web. 

Sugirtharajah, Sharada. Imagining Hinduism: A Postcolonial Perspective. London, New York: Routledge, 2003. Web. 

Judaic Traditions

Bohak, Gideon. Ancient Jewish Magic: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Web. 

Kaminsky, Joel S, Joel N. Lohr, and Mark Reasoner. The Abingdon Introduction to the Bible: Understanding Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2014. Print. 

Konner, Melvin. The Jewish Body. New York: Nextbook, 2009. Print.

Sarna, Jonathan D. American Judaism: A History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Web. 

Sim, David C, and James S. McLaren. Attitudes to Gentiles in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2013. Print.