Religion in Five Minutes
Aaron W. Hughes [+–]
University of Rochester
Russell T. McCutcheon [+–]
University of Alabama
Religion in Five Minutes provides an accessible and lively introduction to the questions about religion and religious behaviour that interest most of us, whether or not we personally identify with — or practice — a religion. Suitable for beginning students and the general reader, the book offers more than 60 brief essays on a wide range of fascinating questions about religion and its study, such as: How did religion start? What religion is the oldest? Who are the Nones? Why do women seem to play lesser roles in many religions? What’s the difference between a religion and a cult? Is Europe less religious than North America? Is Buddhism a philosophy? How do we study religions of groups who no longer exist?
Each essay is written by a leading authority and offers succinct, insightful answers along with suggestions for further reading, making the book an ideal starting point for classroom use or personal browsing.
Because each chapter can be read in about five minutes, the books offer ideal supplementary resources in classrooms or an engaging read for those curious about the world around them.
Series: Religion in 5 Minutes
Table of Contents
Preface
Religion
the University of Miami, Coral Gables. An editor at the Database of Religious History, her
articles have appeared in Classical Quarterly and Jewish Studies Quarterly, among other publications. Her first monograph, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture was recently published with Cambridge University Press.
The Religions
teaches in the Religious Studies Department and the College. She completed her PhD in
History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2021. Her work focuses
on the ways that women’s reproductive bodies are linked to projects of identity construction, maintenance, and negotiation in Nigerian Pentecostal immigrant communities in the United States. In the classroom she thinks with students about categories and ideas in the study of religion through mundane phenomena like love, sororities, Jane Austen, and Alabama football (Roll Tide).
the University of Miami, Coral Gables. An editor at the Database of Religious History, her
articles have appeared in Classical Quarterly and Jewish Studies Quarterly, among other publications. Her first monograph, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture was recently published with Cambridge University Press.
Matt Sheedy holds a Ph.D. in the study of religion and is a visiting professor of North American Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany. His research interests include critical social theory, theories of secularism and atheism, as well as representations of Christianity, Islam, and Native American traditions in popular and political culture. He is the author of Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility (Routledge, 2021).
teaches in the Religious Studies Department and the College. She completed her PhD in
History of Religions at the University of Chicago Divinity School in 2021. Her work focuses
on the ways that women’s reproductive bodies are linked to projects of identity construction, maintenance, and negotiation in Nigerian Pentecostal immigrant communities in the United States. In the classroom she thinks with students about categories and ideas in the study of religion through mundane phenomena like love, sororities, Jane Austen, and Alabama football (Roll Tide).
The Study of Religion
the University of Miami, Coral Gables. An editor at the Database of Religious History, her
articles have appeared in Classical Quarterly and Jewish Studies Quarterly, among other publications. Her first monograph, The Origins of Early Christian Literature: Contextualizing the New Testament within Greco-Roman Literary Culture was recently published with Cambridge University Press.
His research interests include classical and contemporary anthropological and sociological
theories of religion and the broad constitution of religion as a site of study in societies experiencing rapid social change. He is the author of Towards a New Theory of Religion and Social Change: Sovereignties and Disruptions (Bloomsbury 2021)
and co-edited Ritual and Democracy: Protests, Publics and Performances (Equinox, 2020). He also co-edits the Bloomsbury Series ‘Religion, Space
and Place’.
The Future
End Matter