Arnold Geulincx (1624-1669) is a key figure in the history of ideas, whose concepts have been seen as precursors to those developed by Spinoza, Malebranche, Leibniz and Kant. His Ethics presents a treatment of virtue from the standpoint of occasionalist metaphysics. The great Irish writer Samuel Beckett stated that Geulincx, with his emphasis on the powerlessness and ignorance of the human cond…
This book covers the missionary activity in Australia conducted by non-English speaking missionaries from Catholic and Protestant mission societies from its beginnings to the end of the mission era. It looks through the eyes of the missionaries and their helpers, as well as incorporating Indigenous perspectives and offering a balanced assessment of missionary endeavour in Australia, attuned to …
This volume explores aspects of yoga over a period of about 2500 years. In its first part, it investigates facets of the South Asian and Tibetan traditions of yoga, such as the evolution of posture practice, the relationship between yoga and sex, yoga in the theistic context, the influence of Buddhism on early yoga, and the encounter of Islam with classical yoga. The second part addresses aspec…
From the early days of Christianity in Sub-Saharan Africa, a Eurocentric view of Christian teaching was a primary tool in the subjugation and domination of native populations. Since 1921 Kimbanguism, an African Initiated Church, has advocated a reconstruction of Blackness by appropriating the parameters of Christian identity. The prophet Simon Kimbangu, the founder of the movement, has inspired…
The Practice of Texts examines the uses of the Sanskrit medical classics in two educational institutions of India’s classical life science, Ayurveda: the college and the gurukula. In this interdisciplinary study, Anthony Cerulli probes late- and postcolonial reforms in ayurvedic education, the development of the ayurvedic college, and the impacts of the college curriculum on ways that ayurved…
The core teachings and practices of Buddhism are systematically directed toward developing keen and caring insight into the relational or interdependent nature of all things. Hershock applies Buddhist thought to reflect on the challenges to public good, created by emerging social, economic, and political realities associated with increasingly complex global interdependence. In eight chapters, t…
This volume sets out to explore the world of domestic devotions and is premised on the assumption that the home was a central space of religious practice and experience throughout the early modern world. The contributions to this book, which deal with themes dating from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, tell of the intimate relationship between humans and the sacred within the walls of t…
The pandemic presented religion as a paradox: faith is often crucial for helping people weather life’s troubles and make difficult decisions, but how can religion continue to deliver these benefits and provide societal structure without social contact? The topical volume, An Epidemic among My People explains how the COVID-19 pandemic stress tested American religious communities and created a …
The Handbook of Leaving Religion introduces a neglected field of research with the aim to outline previous and contemporary research, and suggest how the topic of leaving religion should be studied in the future. The handbook consists of three sections covering: 1) Major debates about leaving religion; 2) Case studies and empirical insights; and 3) Theoretical and methodological approaches. Sec…
In Confucianism: Its Roots and Global Significance, English language readers get a rare opportunity to read the work in a single volume of one of Taiwan’s most distinguished scholars. Although Lee Ming-huei has published in English before, the corpus of his non-Chinese writings is in German. Readers of this volume will discover the hard-mindedness and precision of thinking associated with Ger…