Table of Contents

Introduction; Section One: Setting the Agenda; Chapter 1: Karl Marx and Cultural Materialism; Chapter 2: Emile Durkheim and Functionalism; Chapter 3: Max Weber and Joachim Wach; Chapter 4: Sigmund Freud and the Psychological Tradition; Carl Gustav Jung; Joseph Campbell; Chapter 5: Rudolf Otto: The Idea of the Holy; Section Two: Continuing the Discussion; Chapter 6: Sociology, Methodological Atheism and Secularization; Chapter 7: Psychological Approaches; Chapter 8: Phenomenology and History of Religion; Chapter 9: Feminism, Gender and Religion; Chapter 10: Anthropological Approaches to Religion; Chapter 11: Some Final Words (interim); Section Three: Taking the Discussion in Different Directions; Chapter 12: Ritual and Religious Experience; Chapter 13: Symbolism; Chapter 14: Myth; Chapter 15: Last Words; Bibliography.

About the Author

Seth Kunin is Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Durham. He is author of Religion: The Modern Theories (EUP, 2003).

Reviews

This introductory textbook is both challenging and rewarding. In summarising a great number of theories and interpretations of religion it covers in three parts a wider span of academic disciplines than is usually the case ! Not only is the book useful as an undergraduate text, available as a skeleton of reliable proportion on which class and teacher can work together but many a new postgraduate would do well to read it for an overview of religious studies. -- Douglas J. Davies, Professor in the Study of Religion, University of Durham This volume should serve as a splendid textbook for an undergraduate course in religion but Kunin's writing also makes it eminently accessible to the sophisticated lay reader. All in all this is a significant contribution to the field and a major contribution to the teaching of religion. -- Neil Gilman, Professor of Jewish Philosophy, Jewish Theological Seminary, New York This introductory textbook is both challenging and rewarding. In summarising a great number of theories and interpretations of religion it covers in three parts a wider span of academic disciplines than is usually the case ! Not only is the book useful as an undergraduate text, available as a skeleton of reliable proportion on which class and teacher can work together but many a new postgraduate would do well to read it for an overview of religious studies. This volume should serve as a splendid textbook for an undergraduate course in religion but Kunin's writing also makes it eminently accessible to the sophisticated lay reader. All in all this is a significant contribution to the field and a major contribution to the teaching of religion.