The Oxford Handbook of the Study of Religions provides a comprehensive overview of the academic study of religions. Written by an international team of leading scholars, its fifty-one chapters are divided thematically into seven sections. The first section addresses five major conceptual aspects of research on religion. Part two surveys eleven main frameworks of analysis, interpretation, and explanation of religion. Reflecting recent turns in the humanities and social sciences, part three considers eight forms of the expression of religion. Part four provides a discussion of the ways societies and religions, or religious organizations, are shaped by different forms of allocation of resources (i.e., economy). Other chapters in this section consider law, the media, nature, medicine, politics, science, sports, and tourism. Part five reviews important developments, distinctions, and arguments for each of the selected topics.

The study of religion addresses religion as a historical phenomenon and part six looks at seven historical processes. Religion is studied in various ways by many disciplines, and this Handbook shows that the study of religion is an academic discipline in its own right. The disciplinary profile of this volume is reflected in part seven, which considers the history of the discipline and its relevance. Each chapter in the Handbook references at least two different religions to provide fresh and innovative perspectives on key issues in the field. This authoritative collection will advance the state of the discipline and is an invaluable reference for students and scholars.

Michael Stausberg's profile page

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Michael Stausberg is Professor of Religion at the University of Bergen. He was formerly a fellow at the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultual and Social Studies and is a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. His previous publications include Contemporary Theories of Religion: A Critical Companion (Routledge, 2009), Religion and Tourism: Crossroads, Destinations and Encounters (Routledge, 2010), and Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism (Equinox, 2008). He is co-editor of The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Zoroastrianism (with Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina; Wiley Blackwell, 2015) and The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in the Study of Religion (with Steven Engler; Routledge, 2013). Steven Engler is Professor of Religious Studies at Mount Royal University in Calgary. He is Professor Colaborador in the Programa de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Ciências da Religião at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo and Affiliate Professor with the Department of Religion, Concordia University, Montréal. He is the co-editor of Historicizing Tradition in the Study of Religion (with Gregory Price Grieve; De Gruyter, 2005).