Religion: Material Dynamics is a lively resource for thinking about religious materiality and the material study of religion. Deconstructing and reconstructing religion as material categories, social formations, and mobile circulations, the book explores the making, ordering, and circulating of religious things. The book is divided into three sections: Part One revitalizes basic categories-animism and sacred, space and time-by situating them in their material production and testing their analytical viability. Part Two examines religious formations as configurations of power that operate in material cultures and cultural economies and are most clearly shown in the power relations of colonialism and imperialism. Part Three explores the material dynamics of circulation through case studies of religious mobility, change, and diffusion as intimate as the body and as vast as the oceans. Each chapter offers insightful orientations and surprising possibilities for studying material religion. Exploring the material dynamics of religion from poetics to politics, David Chidester provides an entry into the study of material religion that will be welcomed by students and specialists in religious studies, anthropology, and history.

About the Author
David Chidester is Emeritus Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. His recent books include Authentic Fakes: Religion and American Popular Culture, Wild Religion: Tracking the Sacred in South Africa, and Empire of Religion: Imperialism and Comparative Religion.


Reviews
"Although the book is in many ways a textbook, Chidester has conceived something far more imaginative than a standard introduction to the world's religions. Instead, Chidester has chosen to critically analyze the emergence of "religion" as a category, not just once, but in multiple contexts and registers. Specifically, Chidester sets out to develop this critical approach to religion together with the themes and concerns of material culture. So the question becomes not just what religion is and how it is defined, but how the intellectual coordinates out of which "religion" emerges are organized by "material dynamics." * Reading Religion *
" . . . Chidester's analysis of the dynamic materiality of religion is a valuable corrective. In short, Religion demonstrates that all religion-no matter how world-denying-is material religion." * Nova Religio *
" . . . reflect[s] a healthy shift in the study of religions." * Journal of Religion *
"Chidester . . . successfully describe[s] the current state of the material turn in religious studies, which gives the book significant value." * Studies in Religion *
"I would warmly recommend the book as a well-informed and creative resource for approaching the study of religion." * Religion *
"[Chidester's] broad reading in global history and his deep understanding of the historiography of the academic study of religion will make this book very useful for students and scholars far beyond the modern era." * Journal of Contemporary Religion *
"The book offers many interesting and important insights of how we creatively - and with a sense of humor - can think of and understand religion in its diversity as intertwined with materiality." * Anthropology Book Forum *



Book Information
ISBN 9780520297661
Author David Chidester
Format Paperback
Page Count 253
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 363g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 18mm