More Than Belief A Materialist Theory of Religion

by Vasquez, Manuel A.

• ISBN13: 9780195188530
• ISBN10: 0195188535
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-17
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book challenges the traditional idea that religions can be understood primarily as texts to be interpreted, decoded, or translated. In More Than Belief , Manuel A. Vásquez argues for a new way of studying religions, one that sees them as dynamic material and historical expressions of the practices of embodied individuals who are embedded in social fields and ecological networks. He sketches the outlines of this approach through a focus on body, practices, and space. In order to highlight the centrality of these dimensions of religious experience and performance, Vásquez recovers materialist currents within religious studies that have been consistently ignored or denigrated. Drawing on state-of-the-art work in fields as diverse as anthropology, sociology, philosophy, critical theory, environmental studies, cognitive psychology, and the neurosciences, Vásquez offers a groundbreaking new way of looking at religion.

Author Biography

Associate Professor of Religion, University of Florida

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Embodiment
The Rise of Foundational Dualism and the Eclipse of the Body	p. 21
"Body Am I Entirely, and Nothing Else": Non-Reductive Materialism and the Struggle against Dualism	p. 43
Toward a Materialist Phenomenology of Religion	p. 59
The Phenomenology of Embodiment and the Study of Religion	p. 87
Religious Bodies as Social Artifacts	p. 123
Holding Social Constructionism in Check: The Recovery of the Active, Lived Body	p. 149
A Cultural Neurophenomenology of Religion: Enter the Embodied Mind	p. 173
Practice
The Eclipse of Practice: Textualism at Large	p. 211
"Ceci n'est pas un texte": From Textualism to Practice	p. 231
Emplacement
Expanding the Conversation on Emplaced Religion	p. 261
Mobility, Networks, and Ecology	p. 291
By the Way of a Conclusion	p. 321
Notes	p. 329
References	p. 349
Index	p. 374
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