Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
RELIGION
2 ENCOUNTERING TRADITIONS
A SERIES EDITED BY RUMEE AHMED, RANDI RASHOVER, AND JONATHAN TRAN
Sharia Compliant Being with the Dead Divine Currency
A User’s Guide to Hacking Burial, Ancestral Politics, and the The Theological Power of
Islamic Law Roots of Historical Consciousness Money in the West
Rumee Ahmed Hans Ruin Devin Singh
For over a thousand years, Muslim All humans have developed This book shows how early
scholars worked to ensure that techniques of caring for and economic ideas structured Christian
Islamic law responded to the needs communicating with the dead. The thought and society, giving crucial
of an evolving Muslim community premise of Being with the Dead is insight into why money holds such
and served as a moral and spiritual that we can explore our lives with the power in the West. Examining the
compass. They did this by “hacking” dead as an existential a priori out of religious and theological sources
Islamic law in accordance with which the basic forms of historical of money’s power, it shows how
changing times and contexts. Today, consciousness emerge. Care for the early Christian thinkers borrowed
the process has stalled, and this dead is not just about the symbolic ancient notions of money and
book is designed to revitalize the handling of mortal remains; it also economic exchange as a basis for
hacking tradition. Rumee Ahmed points to a necropolitics, the social new theological arguments. God
walks readers through the process bond between the dead and living became an economic administrator,
of Islamic legal change, vividly that holds societies together—a and Christ functioned as a currency
describing how Muslim scholars shared space where the dead are to purchase humanity’s freedom.
have met evolving challenges maintained among the living. Moving Such ideas provided models for
on topics as diverse as abolition, from mortuary rituals to literary pastors and Christian emperors,
democracy, finance, gender, human representations, from the problem which led to new economic
rights, and sexuality. He argues that of ancestrality to technologies of conceptions of the administration
through engagement and creativity, survival and intergenerational of populations and conferred a
Islamic law can regain its intrinsic communication, Hans Ruin explores godly aura on the use of money.
vitality and resume its role as a the epistemological, ethical, and Divine Currency argues that this
forward-looking source for good. ontological dimensions of what longstanding association of money
“This original and thought-provoking it means to be with the dead. His with the divine has contributed to
book shows how law and practice phenomenological approach to key an ever-increasing significance
can interact to shape as well as reflect sources in anthropology, archaeology, of money, justifying various forms
a community’s collective wisdom. sociology, religion, and history gives of politics that manage citizens
It tackles with authority a highly us new purchase on the human along the way.
complex and contested set of concepts sciences as a whole.
in Islamic law.” 296 pages, 2018
272 pages, January 2019 9781503605664 Paper $24.95 $19.96 sale
—Ziba Mir-Hosseini, 9781503607750 Paper $24.95 $19.96 sale
University of London
SPIRITUAL PHENOMENA 5
A SERIES EDITED BY TANYA MARIE LUHRMANN AND ANN TAVES
Neoliberalism’s Demons The Prince of This World The Book of Shem
Adam Kotsko Adam Kotsko On Genesis before Abraham
Neoliberalism is usually considered The most enduring challenge to David Kishik
an economic policy agenda, but traditional monotheism is the Can anyone say anything that has
Neoliberalism’s Demons argues problem of evil: God is all-good and not already been said about the most
that it is much more than that. A all-powerful, and yet evil happens. scrutinized text in human history? In
complete worldview, neoliberalism The Prince of This World traces the one of the most radical rereadings of
presents the competitive marketplace story of one of the most influential the opening chapters of Genesis since
as the model for true human attempts to square this circle— the The Zohar, David Kishik manages
flourishing, transforming every offloading of responsibility for evil to do just that. The Book of Shem,
aspect of our shared social life. onto one of God’s rebellious creatures. a philosophical meditation on the
The book explores the sources of In this striking reexamination, the beginning of the Bible and the end
neoliberalism’s remarkable success devil emerges as a theological symbol of the world, offers an inspiring
and the roots of its current decline. who helps justify oppression at the interpretation of this navel of world
Neoliberalism’s appeal is its promise hands of Christian rulers. And he literature. The six parts of the
of unfettered free choice, but evolves alongside the biblical God, primeval story—God’s creation, the
that freedom is a trap. If we who at first presents himself as the Garden of Eden, Cain and Abel,
choose rightly, we ratify our own liberator of the oppressed but ends Noah’s Ark, the first covenant, and
exploitation. If we choose wrongly, up a cruel ruler. This is the story, the Tower of Babel—come together
we are demonized as the cause of then, of how God becomes the to address a single concern: How does
social ills. By tracing the political devil—a devil who remains with us one become the human being that one
and theological roots of the in our ostensibly secular age. is? By closely analyzing the founding
neoliberal concept of freedom, “With the ironic wisdom of a text of the Abrahamic religions, this
Adam Kotsko offers a fresh postmodern Beatrice, Kotsko guides short treatise rethinks some of their
perspective, one that emphasizes us through the sequence of hells deepest convictions. With a mixture
the dynamics of race, gender, and that leads to our own.” of reverence and violence, Kishik’s
sexuality. He accounts for the rise —Catherine Keller, creative commentary demonstrates
of right-wing populism, arguing Drew University the post-secular implications of a
that, far from breaking with the 240 pages, 2016 pre-Abrahamic position.
neoliberal model, it actually doubles 9781503600201 Paper $22.95 $18.36 sale 136 pages, 2018
down on neoliberalism’s most 9781503607347 Paper $17.95 $14.36 sale
destructive features.
176 pages, 2018
9781503607125 Paper $22.95 $18.36 sale
OTHER
OTHERTITLES
TITLESOF
OFINTEREST
INTEREST 9
Aurangzeb Mandatory Separation In Service of Two Masters
The Life and Legacy of India’s Most Religion, Education, and Mass The Missionaries of Ocopa,
Controversial King Politics in Palestine Indigenous Resistance, and Spanish
Audrey Truschke Suzanne Schneider Governance in Bourbon Peru
The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb Mandatory Separation examines Cameron D. Jones
Alamgir is one of the most hated how colonial, Zionist, and This book follows the Franciscan
men in Indian history. Reviled as a Palestinian-Muslim leaders mission of Santa Rosa de Ocopa in
religious fanatic who violently developed competing views of the Peruvian Amazon through the
oppressed Hindus, he is even blamed religious education during the eighteenth and early nineteenth
for setting into motion conflicts formative period of British rule. centuries, a period marked by
that resulted in the creation of a The British Mandatory government events such as the indigenous
separate Muslim state in South Asia. supported religious education as Juan Santos Atahualpa Rebellion
In her lively overview of his life and a supposed antidote to nationalist and the 1746 Lima earthquake.
influence, Audrey Truschke offers a passions at the precise moment Caught between the directives of the
clear-eyed perspective on the debate when the administrative, pedagogic, Spanish crown and the challenges
over Aurangzeb and makes the case and curricular transformation of of missionary work on the Amazon
for why his maligned legacy deserves religious schooling rendered it a frontier, the missionaries of Ocopa
to be reassessed. She evaluates vital tool for Zionist and Palestinian found themselves at the center of a
Aurangzeb not by modern standards leaders. This study of their policies struggle over the nature of colonial
but according to the traditions and and practices illuminates the governance. Cameron D. Jones
values of his own time, painting a tensions, similarities, and differences reveals the changes that Spain’s
picture of Aurangzeb as a complex among these diverse educational far-flung empire experienced from
figure whose relationship to and political philosophies, revealing borderland Franciscan missions in
Islam was dynamic, strategic, and the lasting significance of these Peru to the court of the Bourbon
sometimes contradictory. debates for thinking about religion monarchy in Madrid, arguing
“A fresh, balanced, and much-needed and political identity in the modern that the Bourbon clerical reforms
survey of one of the most controversial Middle East. that broadly sought to bring the
figures in Indian history.” “Mandatory Separation sheds empire under greater crown control
—Richard M. Eaton, welcome light on a crucial aspect of were shaped in turn by groups
University of Arizona the British Mandate for Palestine, ed- throughout the Americas, including
ucation for mass politics among both Ocopa friars, the Amerindians and
152 pages, 2017
9781503602571 Paper $19.95 $15.96 sale Jews and Muslims. An important and Africans in their missions, and
timely work.” bureaucrats in Lima and Madrid.
—Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University
352 pages, 2018
280 pages, 2018 9781503604315 Cloth $65.00 $52.00 sale
9781503604155 Paper $25.95 $20.76 sale
FORTHCOMING PUBLICATIONS
20% D I S C O U N T O N A L L T I T L E S