Notes on Recent Publicationsrsr_1592 69..••

Editor’s Note: Listed below in the order of appearance are the section titles in which notes appear. No single issue of RSR willlikely include every section; however, those sections that are included will always appear in this order.

Texts, Tools and MediaComparative StudiesMethodology and TheoryPsychology of ReligionSociology and Anthropology of ReligionGender StudiesReligion and ScienceRitual, Cult, WorshipPhilosophy of ReligionTheologyEthicsArts, Literature, Culture, and ReligionAncient Near EastGreece, Rome, Greco-Roman PeriodChristian OriginsHistory of ChristianityHistory of Christianity: EarlyHistory of Christianity: ModernJewish ThoughtJudaism: Hellenistic through Late AntiquityJudaism: MedievalJudaism: ModernIslamAfricaOceaniaThe Americas: Central and South AmericaThe Americas: CanadaThe Americas: USASouth AsiaEast AsiaBuddhismInner Asia

Comparative StudiesREFLEXIVITY, MEDIA, AND VISUALITY. Includingan e-book version in PDF format on CD-ROM. Ritual Dynam-ics and the Science of Ritual, Vol. IV. Edited by AxelMichaels. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2011. Pp. viii + 723.Hardcover, $147.00.

This large and widely cast volume contains four sec-tions, each edited by scholars associated with the center onRitual Dynamics at Heidelberg (although two of the sixsection editors are from Cologne). The first section, “Reflex-ivity and Discourse on Ritual” (edited by Udo Simon), con-tains thirteen papers that discuss the manner in which ritualis ritualized, which is to say how it self-reflexively repro-duces itself with regard to framing and agency, generatingfresh perspectives, contexts, and nuances. The authors drawfrom the Old Testament, the Roman Empire, the dynamics ofritual transmission in Christianity, southern African colo-nial and imperial ritual, the history of discourse on ritual,reflections on ritual and science, religious reform move-ments in comparative perspective, and much more. The

second section, “Ritual and Media” (edited by ChristianeBrosius and Karin Polit), contains nine essays, ranging fromdivine cyborgs to the politics of the dead, to an examinationof the response to civic rituals, to ritualized encounters withShah Rukh Khan in Europe. The third section, “Ritual andVisuality” (edited by Petra H. Rösch and Corinna Wessels-Mevissen), contains four essays and brief introductoryremarks by the section editors on the nature of visual ritual,from ancient Egypt to Balinese ritual, to an examination ofritual space in Chinese Buddhism, to visual motifs in SouthIndian temple ritual. The fourth section, “Ritual Design”(edited by Gregor Ahn), contains eight papers, ranging fromSweden to Tamilnadu, to science fiction and fantasy (Mr.Spock and Voldemort). This is an important work for thefuture of transcultural and interdisciplinary study of ritual,and must be consulted by all scholars in the field of ritualstudies. The book comes with a CD-ROM containing theentire book in PDF, which works on all formats and is easilytransferable. This is a major advance in academic publish-ing, one that Harrassowitz apparently decided was worth thepotential risk of unlicensed copying.

Frederick M. SmithUniversity of Iowa

GOD’S CENTURY: RESURGENT RELIGION ANDGLOBAL POLITICS. By Monica Duffy Toft, DanielPhilpott, and Timothy Samuel Shah. New York: W.W. Norton& Company, 2011. Pp. 276. Cloth, $25.95; paper, $22.50.

In God’s Century, Toft, Philpott, and Shah make the pro-vocative argument that democracy, technological modern-ization, and globalization are fomenting a worldwideresurgence of religion—the same forces, ironically, that wereonce credited with driving religion from public life alto-gether. The focus of the book, however, is not on religiosityper se but on “politically assertive religion.” Toft, Philpott,and Shah argue that two factors, in particular, are decisivefor analyzing the actions of politically assertive religiousactors: first, the institutional relationship between religiousauthority and political authority; and second, the set of ideasheld by a given religious community regarding politicalauthority and justice. If the authors’ premise iscorrect—namely that there is a resurgence of politicallyactive religion across the world—then why are so many politi-cal scientists and policy makers slow or reluctant toacknowledge it? One reason is the lingering dominance ofthe secularization thesis. Another is the existing conceptualresources available to political scientists for analyzing

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religion—in the authors’ words, “the instruments and frameworks widely used to interpret [religion] remain far toocrude.” Certainly, the latter is at once a challenge to religion-ists as well as an invitation to collaborate in constructinguseful analytic concepts of religions. God’s Century is aseminal work. Toft, Philpott, and Shah marshal a wealth ofempirical data in support of their argument, touching ontopics such as terrorism, civil war, and peacemaking. In thefinal chapter, the authors offer ten prescriptive rules forpolicy makers seeking to navigate “God’s century.” This is abook that deserves wide readership among religionists,social scientists, and political and religious practitioners,and would be of interest to anyone interested in how religionshapes the world we live in today.

Stephen DawsonLynchburg College

Psychology of Religionrsr_1593 70..124

ALTERING CONSCIOUSNESS: MULTIDISCI-PLINARY PERSPECTIVES. VOLUME 1: HISTORY,CULTURE, AND THE HUMANITIES. VOLUME 2:BIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPEC-TIVES. Edited by Etzel Cardeña and Michael Winkelman.Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. Pp. xx + 401; xvi + 399.Hardcover, $124.95.

The first volume of this landmark multidisciplinarystudy put together by Cardeña, a leader in the field of con-sciousness and dissociation theory, and Winkleman, a leaderin the field of shamanism studies, discusses the nature andinduction of altered states of consciousness (ASC) fromvarious areas of human history. This collection of 32 articles(16 in each volume) is the most important attempt at theo-rizing on ASCs beyond individual efforts in specialist jour-nals since the work of Charles Tart in the 1960s and ’70s.That the problems of normativity and definition remain isevident in the first, very uneven, volume, in which literaryand historical documents describe or suggest transient ormore permanent altered states gained through mediumship,psychotropic substances, meditation or other yogic practices,ritual (usually religious), or inspired by art or performance.Occasionally, theory submerges ethnographic description, astends to occur in accounts of “eastern” religion (thus, thearticles on this are not of high value). Some of the authorsattempt to link their descriptions with psychobiology, alsowith limited success. The second volume is of more consis-tently higher quality, in its descriptions of dreams, neuro-chemistry, the biology of entheogens, the role of addiction inASCs, sexuality, bodily consciousness, and the healing pos-sibilities of ASCs. Cardeña has an excellent article on ASCs inemotion and psychopathology, and D. Lukoff on visionaryspirituality and mental disorders, in which alien abduction,possession, delusional states, near-death experiences, andother related mental or psychic experience are addressed.These two very rich volumes are now necessary for anyone

conducting research on the history of consciousness and itsalterations. It remains a difficult topic, but these volumes willprove to be of great value for decades to come.

Frederick M. SmithUniversity of Iowa

Sociology and Anthropologyof Religion“KINGDOM-MINDED PEOPLE”: CHRISTIAN IDEN-TITY AND THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF CHINESEBUSINESS CHRISTIANS. By Denise A. Austin. GlobalPentecostal & Charismatic Studies 8. Leiden: Brill, 2011.Pp. xi + 286. $135.00.

There are two major achievements to this book, whichwas originally a University of Queensland history disserta-tion: identification of how Christian conversion shapedProtestant business Christians in China during the firsthalf of the twentieth century (the six chapters in Part I),and a comparative analysis of how these developmentshave interfaced with Chinese business Catholics, Chinesebusiness Christians in Australia during the same period,and more contemporary Chinese business Protestants andCatholics in China and Australia (the three chapters in PartII). Austin is in firm command of the primary and second-ary sources, showing clearly how Christian conversion isan undeniable factor, among others, contributing to thedevelopment of business Christians in modern China,including their part in the emerging global economy. Thoseattracted to the book because of its appearance in Brill’sGlobal Pentecostal Charismatic Studies series, however,will be disappointed. The series includes books on cross-cultural themes and large cultural zones that shed light onPentecostal and charismatic movements, and this volumedoes this rather than discussing the movements directly.There are only a few passing references to Pentecostalismor charismatic renewal in the volume, and nothing thatshows how this specific type of Christianity informs theChinese Christian business enterprise. Still, those inter-ested in the interface of Christianity in particular and reli-gion in general with business and entrepreneurshipstudies especially in the Asian and Australasian contextswill find a wealth of historical and comparative data in thiswell-written book.

Amos YongRegent University School of Divinity

RELIGION, DEATH, AND DYING. 3 VOLUMES: 1.PERSPECTIVES ON DYING AND DEATH, 2.SPECIAL ISSUES, 3. BEREAVEMENT AND DEATHRITUALS. Edited by Lucy Bregman. Denver, CO: PraegerPerspectives, 2010. Pp. 715. Hardback, $154.95.

Religion, Death, and Dying is an ambitious effort to docu-ment, in accessible language, how religion shapes attitudesand practices related to dying, death, and bereavement in

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