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New Directions in Spiritual Kinship

Sacred Ties across the Abrahamic Religions

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  • © 2017

Overview

Editors:
  1. Todne Thomas

    1. Department of Religion, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA

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  2. Asiya Malik

    1. Independent Researcher, Toronto, Canada

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  3. Rose Wellman

    1. The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, USA

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  • The first volume specifically dedicated to the comparative study of “spiritual” or “sacred” kinship
  • Ethnographically explores the diverse manifestations of sacred kinship and articulates the significance of these manifestations to increase our understanding of the architecture of human societies
  • Brings together recent advances in the anthropological study of kinship and the religious study of the sacred to produce a highly innovative, fruitful investigation of the dimensions of possible intersections between kinship and the sacred

Part of the book series: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion (CAR)

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Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xxi
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  2. Introduction: Re-sacralizing the Social: Spiritual Kinship at the Crossroads of the Abrahamic Religions

    • Todne Thomas, Rose Wellman, Asiya Malik
    Pages 1-28

  3. Spiritual Kinship Between Formal Norms and Actual Practice: A Comparative Analysis in the Long Run (from the Early Middle Ages Until Today)

    • Guido Alfani
    Pages 29-49

  4. Spiritual Kinship in an Age of Dissent: Pigeon Fanciers in Darwin’s England

    • Gillian Feeley-Harnik
    Pages 51-83

  5. Kinship as Ethical Relation: A Critique of the Spiritual Kinship Paradigm

    • Don Seeman
    Pages 85-108

  6. Kinship in Historical Consciousness: A French Jewish Perspective

    • Joëlle Bahloul
    Pages 109-129

  7. “We All Ask Together”: Intercession and Composition as Models for Spiritual Kinship

    • Frederick Klaits
    Pages 131-149

  8. “Forever Families”; Christian Individualism, Mormonism and Collective Salvation

    • Fenella Cannell
    Pages 151-169

  9. Substance, Spirit, and Sociality Among Shi‘i Muslims in Iran

    • Rose Wellman
    Pages 171-194

  10. Expanding Familial Ties: From the Umma to New Constructions of Relatedness Among East African Indians in Canada

    • Asiya Malik
    Pages 195-217

  11. Rebuking the Ethnic Frame: Afro Caribbean and African American Evangelicals and Spiritual Kinship

    • Todne Thomas
    Pages 219-244

  12. The Seeds of Kinship Theory in the Abrahamic Religions

    • Carol Delaney
    Pages 245-261

  13. Back Matter

    Pages 263-273
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Keywords

About this book

This volume examines the significance of spiritual kinship—or kinship reckoned in relation to the divine—in creating myriad forms of affiliations among Christians, Jews, and Muslims.  Rather than confining the study of spiritual kinship to Christian godparenthood or presuming its disappearance in light of secularism, the authors investigate how religious practitioners create and contest sacred solidarities through ritual, discursive, and ethical practices across social domains, networks, and transnational collectives.  This book’s theoretical conversations and rich case studies hold value for scholars of anthropology, kinship, and religion. 

Reviews

“This is an impressive collection that sets out a vital new approach to the study of the intersection between religion and kinship.  Moving far beyond longstanding discussions of godparenthood to consider the many diverse ways the sacred shapes notions of relatedness both between persons and between people and the divine across the Abrahamic traditions, the volume breaks new ground in several fields and will interest a wide range of scholars in the social sciences and humanities.” (Joel Robbins, Sigrid Rausing Professor of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge, UK)

“This work is a fresh, timely,and original intervention; a series of rich essays which deftly show the intrinsic connections between kinship and religion. At the same time, it offers a productive framework for comparing the quarrelsome family of traditions descended from ‘father’ Abraham.” (Michael Lambek, Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Canada)

Editors and Affiliations

  • Department of Religion, University of Vermont, Burlington, USA

    Todne Thomas

  • Independent Researcher, Toronto, Canada

    Asiya Malik

  • The Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, Princeton University, Princeton, USA

    Rose Wellman

About the editors

Todne Thomas is Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Vermont, USA.

Asiya Malik is an anthropologist and independent researcher in Canada.

Rose Wellman is an anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at Princeton University, USA. 

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: New Directions in Spiritual Kinship

  • Book Subtitle: Sacred Ties across the Abrahamic Religions

  • Editors: Todne Thomas, Asiya Malik, Rose Wellman

  • Series Title: Contemporary Anthropology of Religion

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48423-5

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-48422-8Published: 25 April 2017

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-319-83939-4Published: 07 August 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-48423-5Published: 17 April 2017

  • Series ISSN: 2946-3475

  • Series E-ISSN: 2946-3483

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XXI, 273

  • Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: Social Anthropology, Religion and Society, Sociology of Religion

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