The first comprehensive history of American Jewish philanthropy and its influence on democracy and capitalism For years, American Jewish philanthropy has been celebrated as the proudest product of Jewish endeavors in the United States, its virtues extending from the local to the global, the Jewish to the non-Jewish, and modest donations to vast endowments. Yet, as Lila Corwin Berman illuminates in The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex, the history of American Jewish philanthropy reveals the far more complicated reality of changing and uneasy relationships among philanthropy, democracy, and capitalism. With a fresh eye and lucid prose, and relying on previously untapped sources, Berman shows that from its nineteenth-century roots to its apex in the late twentieth century, the American Jewish philanthropic complex tied Jewish institutions to the American state. The government's regulatory efforts-most importantly, tax policies-situated philanthropy at the core of its experiments to maintain the public good without trammeling on the private freedoms of individuals. Jewish philanthropic institutions and leaders gained financial strength, political influence, and state protections within this framework. However, over time, the vast inequalities in resource distribution that marked American state policy became inseparable from philanthropic practice. By the turn of the millennium, Jewish philanthropic institutions reflected the state's growing investment in capitalism against democratic interests. But well before that, Jewish philanthropy had already entered into a tight relationship with the governing forces of American life, reinforcing and even transforming the nation's laws and policies. The American Jewish Philanthropic Complex uncovers how capitalism and private interests came to command authority over the public good, in Jewish life and beyond.

This Open Access book considers the cultural representation of gender violence, vulnerability and resistance with a focus on the transnational dimension of our contemporary visual and literary cultures in English. Contributors address concepts such as vulnerability, resilience, precarity and resistance in the Anglophone world through an analysis of memoirs, films, TV series, and crime and literary fiction across India, Ireland, Canada, Australia, the US, and the UK. Chapters explore literary and media displays of precarious conditions to examine whether these are exacerbated when intersecting with gender and ethnic identities, thus resulting in structural forms of vulnerability that generate and justify oppression, as well as forms of individual or collective resistance and/or resilience. Substantial insights are drawn from Animal Studies, Critical Race Studies, Human Rights Studies, Post-Humanism and Postcolonialism. This book will be of interest to scholars in Gender Studies, Media Studies, Sociology, Culture, Literature and History. Grant FFI2017-84555-C2-1-P (research Project "Bodies in Transit: Genders, Mobilities, Interdependencies") funded by MCIN/AEI/ 10.13039/501100011033 and by "ERDF A way of making Europe."

In a sweeping synthesis of new research in a number of different disciplines, this book argues that we humans are not who we think we are. As he explores the interconnections between cutting-edge work in bioanthropology, evolutionary biology, neuroscience, human language and learning, and beyond, James Paul Gee advances, also, a personal philosophy of language, learning, and culture, informed by his decades of work across linguistics and the social sciences. Gee argues that our schools, institutions, legal systems, and societies are designed for creatures that do not exist, thus resulting in multiple, interacting crises, such as climate change, failing institutions, and the rise of nationalist nationalism. As Gee constructs an understanding of the human that takes into account our social, collective, and historical nature, as established by recent research, he inspires readers to reflect for themselves on the very question of who we are-a key consideration for anyone interested in society, government, schools, health, activism, culture and diversity, or even just survival.

The book looks at how conflict and competition between various forms of Hinduism undermines and sustains relations of hierarchy. In the context of Dutch colonialism, world war, the incorporation of Bali into the Indonesian state and the tourist boom, this book examines the complex relationships between the changing nature and continuing relevance of Balinese hierarchy, the neo-Hindu reforms of Balinese religion, and the impact these have had on new forms of identity. Since at least the 1920s commoners and other intellectuals and reformers have sought ways to challenge Balinesecaste hierarchy, both through egalitarian re-interpretations of Balinese institutions and through changing religious ideas and practices. State initiatives to transform 'traditional' Balinese religion into monotheistic and more 'authentic' form of Hinduism have precipitated the appearance of many indigenous new religious movements and the importation from India of devotional forms of Hinduism (Sai Baba and Hare Krishna), which has created a vastly more intricate religious landscape. These various forms of Hinduism, and the conflict and competition between, both undermine and sustain relations of hierarchy. Through historically informed, ethnographic analyses of status competition, caste conflict, ritual inflation, religious innovation, and the cultural politics of identity this book, written in an accessible style, makes a major contribution to our understanding of modern Balinese society and its future development. Series editors: Wendy James & N.J. Allen

This is a pioneering study of virtuality through human history: ancient-to-modern evolution and recent expansion; expression in many fields (chapters on Religion; Philosophy, Math, Physics; Literature and the Arts; Economics; Nationhood, Government and War; Communication); psychological and social reasons for its universality; inter-relationship with "reality." The book's thesis: virtuality was always an integral part of humanity in many areas of life, generally expanding over the ages. The reasons: 1- brain psychology; 2- virtuality's six functions - escape from boredom to relieving existential dread. Other questions addressed: How will future neuroscience, biotech and "compunications" affect virtuality? Can/should there be limits to human virtualizing?

This book analyzes the social and contextual causes of suicide, the existential and philosophical reasons for committing suicide, and the prevention strategies that modern fictional literature places at our disposal. They go through the review of Modern fictional literature, in the American and European geographical framework, following the rationales that modern literature based on fiction can serve the purpose of understanding better the phenomenon of suicide, its most inaccessible impulses, and that has the potential to prevent suicide. From the turn of the 20th century to the present, debates over the meaning of suicide became a privileged site for efforts to discover the reasons why people commit suicide and how to prevent this behavior. Since the French sociologist and philosopher Emile Durkheim published his study Suicide: A Study in Sociology in 1897, a reframing of suicide took place, giving rise to a flourishing group of researchers and authors devoting their efforts to understand better the causes of suicide and to the formation of suicide prevention organizations. A century later, we still keep on trying to reach such an understanding of suicide, the nature, and nuances of its modern conceptualization, to prevent suicidal behaviors. The question of what suicide means in and for modernity is not an overcome one. Suicide is an act that touches all of our lives and engages with the incomprehensible and unsayable. Since the turn of the millennium, a fierce debate about the state's role in assisted suicide has been adopted. Beyond the discussion as to whether physicians should assist in the suicide of patients with unbearable and hopeless suffering, the scope of the suicidal agency is much broader concerning general people wanting to die.

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"These two edited volumes bring together a variety of authors to offer a rear combination: they focus on religion in urban America and on particular cities, namely New York City and Chicago...They are necessary reading for anyone who seeks to understand this area."
--"Sociology of Religion"

"In "New York Glory" the usually peripheral becomes foreground, and the core background."
--"Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion"

"The editors are to be encouraged for gathering together original material from some of the most current research on relgions in the city."
--"American Jewish History"

""New York Glory" is a very welcome attempt to describe and to some extent explain and understand the multifaceted and dynamic religious and spiritual landscape of New York City. It is a rich source book of the religious demography of NYC."
--Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies"

"The chief virtue of this collection lies in the fact that it is the first of its kind, the first to explore the diverse religious life of New York City at the turn of the twenty-first century."
--"The Journal of Religion"

Is New York a post-secular city? Massive immigration and cultural changes have created an increasingly complex social landscape in which religious life plays a dynamic role. Yet the magnitude of religion's impact on New York's social life has gone unacknowledged.

New York Glory gathers together for the first time the best research on religion in contemporary New York City. It includes contributors from every major research project on religion in New York to provide a comprehensive look at the current state of religion in the city. Moving beyondbroad surveys into specific case studies of communities and institutions, it provides a window onto the diversity of religious life in New York.

From Italian Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, and Russian Jews to Zen Buddhists, Rastafarians, and Pentecostal Latinas, New York Glory both captures the richness of religious life in New York City and provides an important foundation for our understanding of the current and future shape of religion in America.

Raphael Sassower examines the concept of hypocrisy for its strategic potential as a means of personal protection and social cohesion. Given the contemporary context of post-truth, the examination of degrees or kinds of hypocrisy moves from the Greek etymology of masks worn on the theater stage to the Hebrew etymology of the color adjustment of chameleons to their environment. Canonical presuppositions about the uniformity of the mind and the relation between intention and behavior that warrant the charge of hypocrisy are critically reconsidered in order to appreciate both inherent inconsistencies in personal conduct and the different contexts where the hypocrisy appears. Sassower considers the limits of analytic moral and political discourses that at times overlook the conditions under which putative hypocritical behavior is existentially required and where compromises yield positive results. When used among friends, the charge of hypocrisy is a useful tool with which to build trust and communities.

This book, by one of the world's leading sociologists of religion. brings together a collection of essays written over the last decade and explores the dynamics internal to churches and other religious bodies. The second half of the book examines the consequences of these internal dynamics including world system theory, the cultureal impact of cults, and the relationship between religious and ethnic identities.

This book is the first comprehensive attempt to identify the deeper causes that have shaped contemporary behaviour patterns and motivations among football fans in Poland. Fan culture in Poland has long been based on a distinctively grassroots, spontaneous movements that ruled out any cooperation with local authorities and sports organizations. The activity of supporter groups has regularly failed to meet the principles set by official bodies, intentionally breaching the moral and legal standards of the day. Based on data derived from ethnographic fieldwork, content analysis of fan journals, magazines, social media and online forums, as well as a wide range of qualitative interviews conducted over the years, the book analyses the ways in which fandom culture in Poland has evolved: from its moderate beginnings in the shadows of a communist regime in the 1970's, through the anomic, 'uncivilized' and pathological decade of the 1990's, to the peculiar culture based on strong cohesion, capabilities of social mobilization and emerging 'resistance identity' in the 21st century. It thus provides a detailed analysis of Polish fandom's multi-dimensional structure, and will be of interest to students and academics interested in the growing field of football research, as well as those researching the transformation of Central and Eastern Europe, or more generally in European Studies.

The Price of Freedom Denied shows that, contrary to popular opinion, ensuring religious freedom for all reduces violent religious persecution and conflict. Others have suggested that restrictions on religion are necessary to maintain order or preserve a peaceful religious homogeneity. Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke show that restricting religious freedoms is associated with higher levels of violent persecution. Relying on a new source of coded data for nearly 200 countries and case studies of six countries, the book offers a global profile of religious freedom and religious persecution. Grim and Finke report that persecution is evident in all regions and is standard fare for many. They also find that religious freedoms are routinely denied and that government and the society at large serve to restrict these freedoms. They conclude that the price of freedom denied is high indeed.

When we think of Catholicism, we think of Europe and the United States as the seats of its power. But while much of Catholicism remains headquartered in the West, the Church's center of gravity has shifted to Africa, Latin America, and developing Asia. Focused on the transnational Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, Unequal Partners explores the ways gender, race, economic inequality, and colonial history play out in religious organizations, revealing how their members are constantly negotiating and reworking the frameworks within which they operate. Taking us from Belgium and the United States to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, sociologist Casey Clevenger offers rare insight into how the sisters of this order work across national boundaries, shedding light on the complex relationships among individuals, social groups, and formal organizations. Throughout, Clevenger skillfully weaves the sisters' own voices into her narrative, helping us understand how the order has remained whole over time. A thoughtful analysis of the ties that bind--and divide--the sisters, Unequal Partners is a rich look at transnationalism's ongoing impact on Catholicism.

Culture's Engine offers an insightful and penetrating analysis of the enduring relationship between technology and society. William Gosling explores in absorbing historical detail how humans have experienced change through a sequence of technological revolutions, each giving rise to new social organisation, which in turn influences the shape and timing of the next such revolution. Gosling argues that it is through this dialogue that successful technology sets the direction and pace of all cultural evolution. The state of technology at any time is the major influence on the world, and not just the material world. This book then is not a history of technology, still less of science. It fundamentally questions how technology and social forces interact, leading to these successive revolutions and their outcomes.

Drawing on qualitative research conducted in Brussels, Wallonia and Flanders, Islam and Turks in Belgium examines the interdependence between Muslim community and association. With a focus on social groups, religious structures and circles within Turkish populations, this book demonstrates how communal and associative movements operate through a combination of relationships of proximity and distance. Proximity is a way in which Muslim organisations establish religious, social, and cultural ties with communities. Distance, on the other hand, takes into account social, historical, and political elements from abroad, and refers to the relationship with the Muslim world more broadly. As this reciprocal web of relations gives rise to Islamic mobilisations, it leads to the emergence or persistence of different figures of authority within associations and communities who articulate traditional, charismatic, and bureaucratic legitimacies. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the sociology of religion, migration, race, ethnicity and Islamic studies.

Finalist, Best LGBTQ Nonfiction Book, Lambda Literary Awards 2020 On October 14, 1998, five thousand people gathered on the steps of the U.S. Capitol to mourn the death of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who had been murdered in Wyoming eight days earlier. Politicians and celebrities addressed the crowd and the televised national audience to share their grief with the country. Never before had a gay citizen's murder elicited such widespread outrage or concern from straight Americans. In Dying to Be Normal, Brett Krutzsch argues that gay activists memorialized people like Shepard as part of a political strategy to present gays as similar to the country's dominant class of white, straight Christians. Through an examination of publicly mourned gay deaths, Krutzsch counters the common perception that LGBT politics and religion have been oppositional and reveals how gay activists used religion to bolster the argument that gays are essentially the same as straights, and therefore deserving of equal rights. Krutzsch's analysis turns to the memorialization of Shepard, Harvey Milk, Tyler Clementi, Brandon Teena, and F. C. Martinez, to campaigns like the It Gets Better Project, and national tragedies like the Pulse nightclub shooting to illustrate how activists used prominent deaths to win acceptance, influence political debates over LGBT rights, and encourage assimilation. Throughout, Krutzsch shows how, in the fight for greater social inclusion, activists relied on Christian values and rhetoric to portray gays as upstanding Americans. As Krutzsch demonstrates, gay activists regularly reinforced a white Protestant vision of acceptable American citizenship that often excluded people of color, gender-variant individuals, non-Christians, and those who did not adhere to Protestant Christianity's sexual standards. The first book to detail how martyrdom has influenced national debates over LGBT rights, Dying to Be Normal establishes how religion has shaped gay assimilation in the United States and the mainstreaming of particular gays as "normal" Americans.

This book provides both a lost last word and a firm first foundation: seven lectures, given in the last months in the life of the Soviet thinker, teacher, and writer L.S. Vygotsky, offer us the most comprehensive and developed form of his thoughts on the child, expressed in the most fundamental and even popular form that Vygotsky himself used with his beginner-level students. As the title of Vygotsky's course indicates, these are foundations upon which cultural-historical researchers can rebuild the lost science of "pedology", a holistic approach to child development based on the dynamic unity of physical and mental development. Volume One includes translations of seven of Vygotsky's lectures that reflect his approach to pedology; the method of pedology and the "methodics" of the unit of analysis; the role of heredity and social environment in child development; and general laws of development in childhood that will help parents and teachers understand the way the child's endocrine system, nervous system, and mind change as the child enters a culture and learns to make history.

This book connects a detailed analysis of Irn-Bru's brand identity over time to theories of national identity, consumer studies, and banal nationalism. It situates the commercial history of Barr's Irn-Bru in a transnational context and shows how Irn-Bru has become a symbol of Scotland through processes of rewriting, reframing and institutionalized forgetting, linking the consumption of what began as a trans-national generic product to a specific national community. As such, Leishman presents a longitudinal, cross-disciplinary approach to analysing branding and advertising as multi-modal forms of discourse, in order to underline the role of commercial, non-state actors and popular consumerism in the phenomenon of banal nationalism. It will be of interest to students and scholars researching nationalism, consumption, and Scottish studies.

Focusing on non-human actors, Grazyna Gajewska expands the discussion of eroticism in contemporary culture by bringing in material culture, object studies, and "the anthropology of things." She sets out from the assumption that things (such as, for instance, attire, underwear, shoes, or jewelry) play an important role in arousing erotic imagination-they are genuine participants in the process, not mere signifiers of eroticism. Their use does not denote only undeniable facts of everyday life associated with functionality, the pragmatic or aesthetic aspect, but also contribute to the shaping of human emotions, fantasies and phantasms. In her study, Gajewska brings eroticism in contemporary culture to light through applying gender studies to new contexts-animals, robots, virtual worlds-even as she explores a new methodology, the anthropology of things.

The third edition includes a new Part Five on the tensions between Arab nationalism and Islam arising from the crisis of the nation-state and of the de-legitimisation of Pan-Arab regimes. The effects of the Arab defeat in the Six-Day War 1967 and the rise of political Islam in the 1970s are the focus of the new part. The background of the analysis of the impact and function of nationalism and its contribution to social and political change in the Third World, taking the rise of nationalism in the Middle East as a historical example. Professor Tibi concentrates on the period after the First World War, when many Arab intellectuals became disillusioned with Britain and France as a result of the occupation of their countries. One focus of this study are the writings and influence of Sati' al-Husri on Middle Eastern politics. Professor Tibi illustrates the connection between modern Arab nationalism and nineteenth-century German Romantic nationalism, which will be of particular interest to the English reader. Professor Tibi concludes that while nationalism has played a necessary and important role in the movement for national independence in the Middle East, it has since developed into an ideology which seems to obstruct further social and political emancipation. This third edition, brought completely up to date by a substantial new introduction and two new concluding chapters, will be of particular interest to historians and social scientists dealing with nationalism and crises of the nation-state as well as to students of the Middle East and contemporary Islam.

At publication date, a free ebook version of this title will be available through Luminos, University of California Press's Open Access publishing program for monographs. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. In the 1990s, Los Angeles was home to numerous radical social and environmental eruptions. In the face of several major earthquakes and floods, riots and economic insecurity, police brutality and mass incarceration, some young black Angelenos turned to holy hip hop-a movement merging Christianity and hip hop culture-to "save" themselves and the city. Converting street corners to airborne churches and gangsta rap beats into anthems of praise, holy hip hoppers used gospel rap to navigate complicated social and spiritual realities and to transform the Southland's fractured terrains into musical Zions. Armed with beats, rhymes, and bibles, they journeyed through black Lutheran congregations, prison ministries, African churches, reggae dancehalls, hip hop clubs, Nation of Islam meetings, and Black Lives Matter marches. Zanfagna's fascinating ethnography provides a contemporary and unique view of black LA, offering a much-needed perspective on how music and religion intertwine in people's everyday experiences.

What does the practice of religion look like in Latin American today? In this book, which examines religious practice in three Latin American cities- Lima, Peru; Cordoba, Argentina; and Montevideo, Uruguay- Gustavo Morello reveals the influence of modernity on average citizens' cultural practices. Technological development, the dynamics of capitalism, the specialization of spheres of knowledge- all these aspects of modernity were thought to diminish the importance of religion. Yet, Morello argues, if we look at religion as ordinary Latin Americans practice it, we discover that modernity has not diminished religion, but transformed it, creating what Morello calls "enchanted modernity." In Latin America, there is more religion than secularists expect, but of a different kind than religious leaders would wish. Morello explores how urban, contemporary Latin Americans, both believers and non-believers, from different social classes and religious affiliations, experience transcendence in everyday life. Using semi-structured interviews with 254 individuals in three cities with shifting religious landscapes and different cultural histories, Morello highlights the diversity within Latin America, exploring societies that are understudied and examining a broad array of religious traditions: "nones" (agnostics, non-affiliated, atheist), Catholics, Evangelicals (including mainstream Protestants, Pentecostals, neo-Evangelicals), and other traditions (including Jews, Muslims, Mormons, African-derived traditions, and Buddhists). Morello emphasizes elements, nuances, and dynamics that have previously been overlooked and that can enrich the study of religion other non-western societies. The book seeks to contribute to a critical theory of contemporary religion- one that is not centered in the North Atlantic world and that takes seriously the voices of the Latin American people.

An intimate and moving portrait of daily life in New York's oldest institution of traditional rabbinic learning New York City's Lower East Side has witnessed a severe decline in its Jewish population in recent decades, yet every morning in the big room of the city's oldest yeshiva, students still gather to study the Talmud beneath the great arched windows facing out onto East Broadway. Yeshiva Days is Jonathan Boyarin's uniquely personal account of the year he spent as both student and observer at Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem, and a poignant chronicle of a side of Jewish life that outsiders rarely see. Boyarin explores the yeshiva's relationship with the neighborhood, the city, and Jewish and American culture more broadly, and brings vividly to life its routines, rituals, and rhythms. He describes the compelling and often colorful personalities he encounters each day, and introduces readers to the Rosh Yeshiva, or Rebbi, the moral and intellectual head of the yeshiva. Boyarin reflects on the tantalizing meanings of "study for its own sake" in the intellectually vibrant world of traditional rabbinic learning, and records his fellow students' responses to his negotiation of the daily complexities of yeshiva life while he also conducts anthropological fieldwork. A richly mature work by a writer of uncommon insight, wit, and honesty, Yeshiva Days is the story of a place on the Lower East Side with its own distinctive heritage and character, a meditation on the enduring power of Jewish tradition and learning, and a record of a different way of engaging with time and otherness.

How can one live by impossible ideals and values? The Jains of India are a flourishing and prosperous community, but their religion is focused on the teaching and example of ascetic renouncers, whose austere regime is actually dedicated to ending worldly life and often culminates in a fast to death. This book draws upon a detailed study of an urban Jain community in Jaipur, north-west India, to offer the fullest account yet given of Jain religious belief and practice. It shows how renunciation and asceticism play a central part in the life of a thriving business community, and how world-renunciation combines for Jain families with the pursuit of worldly happiness. The book is in five parts. Part I introduces the vivid mythology and doctrine of Jainism, and the traditions of Jain renouncers. Part II discusses the relations of Jains with other groups in Indian society, the politics of leadership on Jain communities, and the history, character, and composition of the Jain community in Jaipur. Part III contains detailed analyses of lay ascetic practices such as fasting and confession, traditions of imagery and iconography, and key religious ideas, such as the paradoxical doctrine of 'non-violence' (ahimsa). These are shown to turn on complex conceptions of the body and contrasting moral topographies of self. Part IV concerns relations between lay Jains and renouncers, and draws on recent writing on exchange and value to analyse the pivotal place of alms-giving in the Jain religion. Part V describes some of the closest connections between riches and renunciation, and shows how the pan-Indian festival of Diwali is adapted to distinctively Jain values and concerns.