Publications

What makes sounds “religious”? How are communities shaped by the things they hear, play, or listen to? This book foregrounds connections between sounds, bodies, and media in the private and public life of communities beyond the Global North, with a focus on Asia. It implements a “sonic turn” in the study of religion by engaging with a diversity of auditory, musical, and embodied practices.

Dislodging the Global North as the main point of reference for studies on religious sound, we propose an acoustemology of the post-secular.

We present religious sounds as co-creating subjectivities and collectivities that coalesce around audible aesthetic formations, demonstrating that religious sounds are not only produced by certain religious traditions but also produce communities, shaping the self and sensitivity of those who participate. Do to so, we have brought together contributors from top scholars of religion, society, music, and the senses.

The book is enriched by numerous sound samples and audiovisual files accessible via QR codes within each chapter.

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Birgit Weyel, Wilhelm Gräb, Emmanuel Lartey, Cas Wepener (Hg.), International Handbook of Practical Theology

Practical theology has outgrown its traditional pastoral paradigm. The articles in this handbook recognize that faith, spirituality, and lived religion, within and beyond institutional communities, refer to realms of cultures, ritual practices, and symbolic orders, whose boundaries are not clearly defined and whose contents are shifting. The International Handbook of Practical Theology offers insightful transcultural conceptions of religion and religious matters gathered from various cultures and traditions of faith.

The first section presents ‘concepts of religion’. Chapters have to do with considerations of the conceptualizing of religion in the fields of ‘anthropology’, ‘community’, ‘family’, ‘institution’, ‘law’, ‘media’, and ‘politics’ among others. The second section is dedicated to case studies of ‘religious practices’ from the perspective of their actors. The third section presents major theoretical discourses that explore the globally significant diversity and multiplicity of religion.

Altogether, sixty-one authors from different parts of the world encourage a rethinking of religious practice in an expanded, transcultural, globalized, and postcolonial world.

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in: Miguel Valerio / Javiera Jaque Hidalgo (Eds.), Indigenous and Black Confraternities in Colonial Latin America. Negotiating Status through Religious Practices, Amsterdam 2022

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Michael Tilly, Burton Visotzky (Eds.), Judaism I. History (RdM 27,1), Stuttgart 2021

Judaism, the oldest of the Abrahamic religions, is one of the pillars of modern civilization. A collective of internationally renowned experts cooperated in a singular academic enterprise to portray Judaism from its transformation as a Temple cult to its broad contemporary varieties. In three volumes the long-running book series "Die Religionen der Menschheit" (Religions of Humanity) presents for the first time a complete and compelling view on Jewish life now and then - a fascinating portrait of the Jewish people with its ability to adapt itself to most different cultural settings, always maintaining its strong and unique identity. Volume I provides a global view on Jewish history from antiquity, the middle ages, to contemporary history.

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Further volumes:
Michael Tilly, Burton Visotzky (Eds.), Judaism II. Literature (RdM 27,2), Stuttgart 2021
Michael Tilly, Burton Visotzky (Eds.), Judaism III. Culture and Modernity (RdM 27,3), Stuttgart 2020

in: Contending Modernities, 02.12.2021

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