In The Iranian Metaphysicals, Alireza Doostdar describes his work as contributing to “comparative anthropologies of epistemology”—“how people know things and…
The future of enlightenment: Comparison, tradition, temporality
anthropology
Science and the soul—An introduction
“Science and the soul: New inquiries into Islamic ethics” offers a unique forum not merely for review or commentary on…
The Cow in the Elevator: An introduction
In January 2009 I found myself helping three priests lure a reluctant cow into an elevator in the city of…
For the love of literature—A critique
No intervention in literature studies could be more urgent than the one offered in Michael Allan’s In the Shadow of…
The Myth of Disenchantment: An Introduction
A great many theorists have argued that precisely what makes the modern world “modern” is that people no longer believe…
Malediction, exorcism, and evil
It is best to begin by considering the word malediction in the simple sense of speaking evil or evil-saying. The…
Faith in diplomacy
When Secretary of State John Kerry launched the Office of Faith-Based Community Initiatives (OFBCI), he extolled the importance and urgency…
Reverberations of cognition and culture
A lively interdisciplinary discussion about cognition and culture has emerged from Reverberations, the new digital forum on prayer produced in conjunction with the…
Encountering the archive
Where on earth to begin with the rich but deeply disturbing material presented to us on BishopAccountability.org? (For an example,…
Studying religion
Over at Foreign Policy, anthropologist Scott Atran writes about the need for more social scientists to study how religion affects…