In every society, individual choice and freedom are shaped at least to some degree by the needs of familial and marital institutions. Currently, negotiations between individuals and families are undergoing transformations due to late modern processes...

Centuries after his death, al-Ghazali remains one of the most influential figures of the Islamic intellectual tradition. Although he is best known for his "Incoherence of the Philosophers", "Moderation in Belief" is his most profound work of philosop...

Over the past few decades, Daoism has become a recognizable part of Western "alternative" spiritual life. Now, that Westernized version of Daoism is going full circle, traveling back from America and Europe to influence Daoism in China. "Dream Tri...

In "Becoming a New Self", Moshe Sluhovsky examines the diffusion of spiritual practices among lay Catholics in early modern Europe. By offering a close examination of early modern Catholic penitential and meditative techniques, Sluhovsky makes the ca...

What are you drawn to like, to watch, or even to binge? What are you free to consume, and what do you become through consumption? These questions of desire and value, Kathryn Lofton argues, are questions for the study of religion. In eleven essays ex...

What is the relationship between our isolated and our social selves, between aloneness and interconnection? Constance M. Furey probes this question through a suggestive literary tradition: early Protestant poems in which a single speaker describes a...

Written in Kashmir around 400 CE, Haribhatta's Jatakamala is a remarkable example of classical Sanskrit literature in a mixture of prose and verse that for centuries was known only in its Tibetan translation. But between 1973 and 2004 a large portion...

Through countless retellings, from the Talmud to Archibald MacLeish and since, the story of Job has become a fixture in the cultural imagination of the West. In this study, Susan E. Schreiner analyzes interpretations of the Book of Job by Gregory the...

Recent decades have seen substantial questioning of the unity of the books of Luke and Acts. With this volume, Stefan Nordgaard takes a close look at that question, with a specific eye toward Luke's attitude toward possessions and family. He clearly...

Derived from Latin ex voto suscepto "in pursuance of a vow", an ex voto embodies the hopes, dreams, and anxieties of the person who deposits it. Almost anything, regardless of size, weight, form, or original function, can become a votive object. Ulti...