Humanities

Focuses on stories about the origin of the cosmos and of human life, with more than 400 entries divided into Myths and Stories, Gods and Goddesses, and Selected Sources and Authors.

This monumental, four-volume reference overviews significant events and developments in religious history over the course of more than five millennia. Written for high school students, undergraduates, and general readers interested in the history of world religions, this massive reference chronicles developments in religious history from 3500 BCE through the 21st century. The set comprises four volumes, treating the ancient world from 3500 BCE through 499 CE, 500 through 1399, 1400 through 1849, and 1850 through 2009. Each volume includes hundreds of brief entries, arranged chronologically and then further organized by region and religion. The entries provide fundamental information on topics ranging from the neolithic Ggantija temples near Malta through the election of Mary Douglas Glasspool as bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles in 2009. Global in scope and encyclopedic in breadth, this chronology of world religions is an essential purchase for all libraries concerned with the development of human civilization.

From Achilles's heel to the sword of Damocles, Western culture teems with allusions from the rich heritage of classical literature, and this new edition of The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, the first updating since Sir Paul Harvey's original edition of 1937, provides the key to these works and the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations that produced them. Substantially revising the first edition, this volume condenses the findings of the most recent scholarship into highly readable prose and supplies a wealth of background information not found in Harvey's Companion. Indispensable to those studying classical literature in depth, the book will be equally accessible to the non-specialist. All Greek is transliterated, with translations given for all quotations from Greek and Latin. The main focus of the Companion remains the lives and works of the principal authors. Biographical entries offer the essential facts and sift the conjectural evidence, while entries on the major works include discussions of the philosophical dialogues and political speeches and plot summaries of the epic poems and plays. The various literary forms--epic, comedy, tragedy, rhetorical writing--are covered in depth, supplemented by articles on the origins of the Greek and Latin alphabets and languages. The Companion also puts this literature into its societal and historical contexts, including many articles on political, social, and artistic achievements. We learn, for example, about the political climate that produced the great speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero. Orators, statesmen, and generals stalk the pages, and major battles and conquests from the time of Alexander to the fall of Rome are summarized. Articles on contemporary social mores and religious beliefs help explain literary references, while the glories of philosophy, science, and art are celebrated from Cynics to Stoics, astronomy to water-clocks, and flute competitions to vase painting. Helpful maps supplement geographical entries, a chronological table provides an overview of the main historical and literary events, and a systematic set of cross-references links the entries. The breadth and accuracy of this volume will surely make it the standard reference book of its kind for years to come.

This volume provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary account of the scholarship on religion, conflict, and peacebuilding. Looking far beyond the traditional parameters of the field, the contributors engage deeply with the legacies of colonialism, missionary activism, secularism, orientalism, and liberalism as they relate to the discussion of religion, violence, and nonviolent transformation and resistance. Featuring numerous case studies from various contexts and traditions, the volume is organized thematically into five different parts. It begins with an up-to-date mapping of scholarship on religion and violence, and religion and peace. The second part explores the challenges related to developing secularist theories on peace and nationalism, broadening the discussion of violence to include an analysis of cultural and structural forms. In the third section, the chapters explore controversial topics such as religion and development, religious militancy, and the freedom of religion as a keystone of peacebuilding. The fourth part locates notions of peacebuilding in spiritual practice by focusing on constructive resources within various traditions, the transformative role of rituals, youth and interfaith activism in American university campuses, religion and solidarity activism, scriptural reasoning as a peacebuilding practice, and an extended reflection on the history and legacy of missionary peacebuilding. The volume concludes by looking to the future of peacebuilding scholarship and the possibilities for new growth and progress. Bringing together a diverse array of scholars, this innovative handbook grapples with the tension between theory and practice, cultural theory, and the legacy of the liberal peace paradigm, offering provocative, elastic, and context-specific insights for strategic peacebuilding processes.

This four-volume work provides a detailed, multicultural survey of established as well as "new" American religions and investigates the fascinating interactions between religion and ethnicity, gender, politics, regionalism, ethics, and popular culture. This revised and expanded edition of Religion and American Cultures: Tradition, Diversity, and Popular Expression presents more than 140 essays that address contemporary spiritual practice and culture with a historical perspective. The entries cover virtually every religion in modern-day America as well as the role of religion in various aspects of U.S. culture. Readers will discover that Americans aren't largely Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish anymore, and that the number of popular religious identities is far greater than many would imagine. And although most Americans believe in a higher power, the fastest growing identity in the United States is the "nones"--those Americans who elect "none" when asked about their religious identity--thereby demonstrating how many individuals see their spirituality as something not easily defined or categorized. The first volume explores America's multicultural communities and their religious practices, covering the range of different religions among Anglo-Americans and Euro-Americans as well as spirituality among Latino, African American, Native American, and Asian American communities. The second volume focuses on cultural aspects of religions, addressing topics such as film, Generation X, public sacred spaces, sexuality, and new religious expressions. The new third volume expands the range of topics covered with in-depth essays on additional topics such as interfaith families, religion in prisons, belief in the paranormal, and religion after September 11, 2001. The fourth volume is devoted to complementary primary source documents.