Jonathan Miles-Watson

Helen Sooväli-Sepping

Hugo Reinert

This volume breaks new ground in the study of landscapes, both rural and urban. The innovative notion of this landscape collection is rupture. The book explores the ways in which societal, economic and cultural changes are transforming the meanings and understandings of landscapes. The text explores both how landscapes are contesting changes in society and changing society. The volume combines empirically fine-grained accounts of landscape rupture, from different parts of the world, with a sustained effort to explore, rethink and analytically extend the concept of rupture itself. The book therefore combines fresh empirical data with innovative theoretical approaches to open understanding of landscape as a dynamic, living entity subject to abrupt change and unpredictable disruptions. Through this dual reflection the volume is able to provide a powerful demonstration of the possibilities that are available for human action, social change and material landscape to combine.

Landscape, Identity and Social Change

Ruptured Landscapes

Vivian Asimos

What is myth? Why do myths exist? What do myths do? Where are myths going? This reader is organized into 4 parts which explore these questions. Drawing on over 10 years of experience teaching myth in religious studies and anthropology departments in the UK, USA and Continental Europe the editors have brought together key works in the theory of myth. Key features include: - a general introduction to the reader that outlines a comparative and interpretative framework - an introduction contextualizing each part and sub-section - an introduction to each reading by the editors - a companion website that provides discussion questions and further reading suggestions, including primary sources. From functionalism to feminism, nationalism to globalization, and psychoanalysis to spatial analysis, this reader covers the classic and contemporary theories and approaches needed to understand what myth is, why myths exist, what they do, and what the future holds for them.

The Bloomsbury Reader in the Study of Myth

Seth Daniel Kunin

This book provides a comprehensive selection of readings that relate to and explore the definition of religion. The texts come from a wide range of approaches, unified both by the questions they address and their broadly social scientific perspective. The disciplines covered include anthropology, phenomenology, psychology and sociology. The editors have also included some key texts relating to the feminist approach to and critique of religion. The initial section of the book includes some of the foundational texts, such as materials by Marx, Freud, and Durkheim. The remaining sections look at more recent discussions of the issues from the different disciplinary perspectives. Each reading is introduced by a biographical sketch of the author. The book also includes introductory discussions to each section that both raise the key issues developed in a particular discipline and address the disciplinary approaches from a more critical stance. Theories of Religion: A Reader is an invaluable critical resource, accessible to a broad audience as well as students of theology and religious studies.Seth D. Kunin, dean of Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Durham, is author of Religion: the Modern Theories, coeditor of A Companion to Religious Studies and Theology, and editor of Themes and Issues in Judaism. Jonathan Miles-Watson is lecturer in anthropology at the University of Wales Swansea.

Jonathan Miles-Watson

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