Louis Brenner

Histories of Religious Thought and Practice in Africa (eBook, ePUB)

Thematic Perspectives

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

This book is a richly detailed comparative analysis of endogenous, Muslim, and Christian religious thought and practice in sub-Saharan Africa.

Organized thematically, the book presents a conceptual and analytical framework for the study of religious traditions as complex and constantly evolving social phenomena. The most salient theme in the book is how different religious traditions defined and provided for the personal and communal wellbeing of their adherents. Other major themes explore how religious traditions have influenced one another, how religious practitioners conceptualized and interacted with spiritual entities, how religious knowledge and expertise were acquired and transmitted, how rituals were organized and structured in order to achieve their aims, and how rituals affected those who performed them. The book also considers questions on the personalization of relationships with spiritual entities, the gendering of religious thought and practice, how personal transformative rituals were conceptualized and enacted with reference to stages of the life cycle, such as birth, marriage and death, and how suffering was seen as integral to the process of personal transformation.

Overall, the book engages with issues that continue to animate the study of religious thought and practice in Africa and African studies more generally.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Cokesbury
• Seitenzahl: 336
• Erscheinungstermin: 17. Dezember 2024
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781805435020
• Artikelnr.: 72333554

Autorenporträt

LOUIS BRENNER is Emeritus Professor of the History of Religion in Africa at SOAS, University of London.

Inhaltsangabe

Introduction Part I. Religious concepts and concepts about 'religion' 1
Conceptualizing the 'religious' 2 'Translating' religious concepts Part II.
Diversity within religious traditions 3 Diversity of religious thought: a
West African example 4 Diversity of religious practice: an East African
example Part III. Religious participation 5 Interacting with spiritual
entities and spiritual forces 6 The dynamics of ritual performance 7 Ritual
as transformance Part IV. Religious quests for wellbeing 8 'Probable'
histories of an ancestral religious tradition: kubándwa mediumship in
lacustrine eastern Africa 9 Initiatory healing associations 10 Religious
healing in southern Africa 11 Muslim quests for wellbeing in West Africa
Part V. Knowing and not knowing 12 Epistemologies Bibliography Filmography
Index