Routledge Handbook of Material Religion

<p><em>The Routledge Handbook of Material Religion </em>places objects and bodies at the center of scholarly studies of religious life and practice.</p><p>Propelling forward the study of material religion the <i>Handbook </i>first reveals the deep philosophical roots of its key categories and then advances new critical analytics such as queer materialities inescapable material entanglements and hyperobjects that explode the small-scale personal view on religions.</p><p>The <i>Handbook </i>comprises thirty chapters written by an international team of contributors who offer a global perspective of religious pasts and presents divided into four thematic parts:</p><ul> <li>Genealogies of Material Religion</li> <li>Materializing the Terms of the Study of Religion</li> <li>Entanglements Entrapment Escaping</li> <li>Hyperobjects or How Ginormous Things Affect Religions</li> </ul><p>In these four parts the study of material religion is redirected towards systematic critical interrogations of the imbrication of religious structures of power with racial economic political and gendered forms of domination.</p><p>From Spinoza’s political theology to African philosophies of <i>ubuntu</i>; from the queer materialities of Mesoamerican religion to the Satanic Temple of the United States; from Islamic love and sacrifice in human-animal entanglements to Shia militants’ attachment to weaponry; from epidemic cataclysm in Latin America to vast infrastructures and the gathering of millions in India’s Kumbh Mela the study of material religion proves to be the study par excellence of the human condition.</p><p>The <i>Handbook </i>is essential reading for students and researchers in religious studies anthropology history and media studies and will also be of interest to those in related fields such as archeology sociology and philosophy.</p>