Religion and Society

To open this volume Jean Comaroff, one of the most important voices in the anthropology of religion over the past 30 years, reflects on the development of her thought on religion, the colony and the postcolony, in terms both personal and scholarly. Her work and interests echo in this volume through subsequent discussions of community, politics and morality in the Occupy movement in London; religion and diaspora; the cultural logics behind Afro-Brazilian cults; and the 'anthropology of missions' on both sides of the Atlantic. Other contributions explore an almost forgotten tradition of cosmological studies; hyperbole and sacredness in the dramatic case studies of 9/11 and the Holocaust; and the somewhat counterintuitive links between religion and sport. This volume's debate section considers the place and role of religion in revolutionary contexts, from 'Tahrir politics' to the Tamil conflict, from the implicit historicity and structure of jihadism to the conflation of international political developments and religious movements. The volume is rounded out by discussions of Manuel Vazquez's Beyond Belief, a book that picks up longstanding debates concerning practice, belief, materiality and cognition; a teaching section; and an extensive set of book reviews.