Religion: An Anthropological Perspective

by H. Sidky

Overview

Religion: An Anthropological Perspective provides a critical view of religion focusing upon important but overlooked topics such as religion, cognition, and prehistory; science, rationality, and religion; altered states of consciousness, entheogens and religious experience; religion and the paranormal; magic and divination; religion and ecology; fundamentalism; and religion and violence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781433129179
Publisher:	Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
Publication date:	07/22/2015
Series:	American University Studies: Series 7: Theology and Religion , #348
Pages:	279
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

H. Sidky is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio. His research interests include the anthropology of religion, ecological anthropology, anthropological theory/history of anthropological thought, and scientific methods in anthropology. He has conducted ethnographic field research in Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, Nepal, Easter Island, central Australia, and among the Tibetan exile community in northern India. Dr. Sidky is the author of numerous books, including Haunted by the Archaic Shaman: Himalayan Jhakris and the Discourse on Shamanism (2008), Perspectives on Culture: A Critical Introduction to Theory in Cultural Anthropology (2004), Halfway to the Mountain: The Jirels of Eastern Nepal (2004), A Critique of Postmodern Anthropology: In Defense of Disciplinary Origins and Traditions (2003), The Greek Kingdom of Bactria: From Alexander to Eucratides the Great (2000), and Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs and Disease: An Anthropological Study of the European Witch-Persecutions (Lang, 1997).

Table of Contents

Contents: Anthropology and Religion – Religion, Cognition, and Prehistory – Shamanism – Altered States of Consciousness and Religion – Entheogens and Religious Experience – Witchcraft: Evil in Human Form – Magic and Divination – Religion and the Paranormal – Religion: Organization and Evolutionary Patterns – Religion and Ecology – Ritual: The Practical Dimension of Religion – Myth: The Narrative Dimension of Religion – Symbols: The Representational Dimension of Religion – Revitalization Movements and the Origins of Religion – Fundamentalism – Religion and Violence.