This book highlights tensions and negotiating processes between modern society and conservative religious groups. Conservative religion and society have co-existed for at least a century in an increasingly pluralist society. Still, the right to religious freedom and tolerance clashes with certain expressions of religious exclusivity. In this book, scholars from different disciplines look at the various ways in which representatives of conservative religious faith live, practice, and formulate their religion in relation to a contemporary mainstream culture. The studies included represent various settings with regard to time, religion and geography, and are presented in three thematic groups: culture, schooling and public life, and media. Taken together, the studies contribute to a more nuanced and diverse picture of conservative religious believers and their engagement with mainstream society. The book will be of interest to students and researchers in the fields of sociology of religion, church history and contemporary religion.

Currently, the nation's attention is concentrated on the long-standing sexual misdeeds conducted by prominent political, sports, and entertainment figures, which has been succinctly captured by the "#Me Too" movement. This movement has spread to call into question the actions of leaders in religious institutions and organizations, providing the context for research that examines the experiences of individuals and groups as they engage in their daily activities within these establishments. #MeToo Issues in Religious-Based Institutions and Organizations is an essential research book that provides comprehensive research into the effects of the #MeToo movement on institutions and organizations with a significant religious basis and reveals challenges and issues of welcoming gender and diversity. Readers will gain insights and tools for improving social conditions in their personal lives, in places of worship, in organizations, and in academic or other institutional environments. Highlighting a range of topics including diversity, gender equality, and Abrahamic religions, this book is ideal for religious officials, church leaders, psychologists, sociologists, professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.

Nietzsche's famous attack upon established Christianity and religion is brought to the reader in this superb hardcover edition of The Antichrist, introduced and translated by H.L. Mencken. The incendiary tone throughout The Antichrist separates it from most other well-regarded philosophical texts; even in comparison to Nietzsche's earlier works, the tone of indignation and conviction behind each argument made is evident. There is little lofty ponderousness; the book presents its arguments and points at a blistering pace, placing itself among the most accessible and comprehensive works of philosophy. The Antichrist comprises a total of sixty-two short chapters, each with distinct philosophical arguments or angle upon the targets of Christianity, organised religion, and those who masquerade as faithful but are in actuality anything but. Pointedly opposed to notions of Christian morality and virtue, Nietzsche vehemently sets out a case for the faith's redundancy and lack of necessity in human life.

This is the first reader to gather primary sources from influential theorists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries in one place, presenting the wide-ranging and nuanced theoretical debates occurring in the field of religious studies. Each chapter focuses on a major theorist and contains: * an introduction contextualizing their key ideas * one or two selections representative of the theorist's innovative methodological approach(es) * discussion questions to extend and deepen reader engagement Divided in three sections, the first part includes foundational comparative debates: * Mary Douglas's articulation of purity and impurity * Phyllis Trible's methods of reading sacred texts * Wendy Doniger's comparative mythology * Catherine Bell's reimagining of religious and secular ritual The second part focuses on methodological particularity: * Alice Walker's use of narrative * Charles Long's critique of Eurocentricism * Caroline Walker Bynum's emphasis on gender and materiality The third section focuses on expanding boundaries: * Gloria Anzaldua's work on borders and languages * Judith Butler's critique of gender and sex norms * Saba Mahmood's expansion on the critique of colonialism's secularizing demands Reflecting the cultural turn and extending the existing canon, this is the anthology instructors have been waiting for. For further detail on the theorists discussed, please consult Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods, edited by Sarah J. Bloesch and Meredith Minister.

Combining global, media, and cultural studies, this book analyzes the success of Hallyu, or the "Korean Wave" in the West, both at a macro and micro level, as an alternative pop culture globalization. This research investigates the capitalist ecosystem (formed by producers, institutions and the state), the soft power of Hallyu, and the reception among young people, using France as a case study, and placing it within the broader framework of the 'consumption of difference.' Seen by French fans as a challenge to Western pop culture, Hallyu constitutes a material of choice for understanding the cosmopolitan apprenticeships linked to the consumption of cultural goods, and the use of these resources to build youth's biographical trajectories. The book will be relevant to researchers, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, global studies, consumption and youth studies.

This book is about skateboard video and experimental ways of thinking about cities. It makes a provocative argument to consider skate video as an archive of the city from below. Here 'below' has a dual meaning. First, below refers to an unofficial archive, a subaltern history of urban space. Second, below refers to the angle from which skateboarders and filmers gaze upon, capture, and consume the city-from the ground up. Since taking to the streets in the early 1980s, skateboarding has been captured on film, video tape and digital memory cards, edited into consumable forms and circulated around the world. Videos are objects amenable to ethnographic analysis while also archiving exercises in urban ethnography by their creators. I advocate for taking skate video seriously as a (fragile) archive of the urban backstage, collective memory across time and space, creative urban practice, urban encounters (people-to-people and people-to-object/s), and the globalization of a subculture at once delinquent and magnificent.