Theories of Religion: A Reader

This book provides a comprehensive selection of readings that relate to and explore the definition of religion. The texts come from a wide range of approaches, unified both by the questions they are addressing and their broadly social scientific perspective. The disciplines covered include anthropology, phenomenology, psychology and sociology. The editors have also included some key texts relating to the feminist approach to and critique of religion.

            The first section of the book includes some of the foundational texts, such as materials by Marx, Freud, and Durkheim. The remaining sections look at more recent discussions of the issues from the different disciplinary perspectives. Each reading is introduced by a biographical sketch of the author. The book also includes introductory discussions to each section that both raise the key issues developed in a particular discipline and address the disciplinary approaches from a more critical stance.

            Theories of Religion: A Reader is an invaluable critical resource, accessible to a broad audience as well as students of theology and religious studies.

Seth D. Kunin, dean of Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Durham, is author of Religion: the Modern Theories, coeditor of A Companion to Religious Studies and Theology, and editor of Themes and Issues in Judaism. Jonathan Miles-Watson is lecturer in anthropology at the University of Wales Swansea.