Education Projects

National University of Singapore

Each of the courses recommend certain books and articles that offer insights into the interrelationship between faiths and globalisation. The readings for the National University of Singapore course are grouped in themes and listed here:

Querying the category ‘religion': Conceptual and Metholodological Issues

Asad, Talal. 1993. Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, pp 27-54.

Dubois, Thomas. "Imperialism, Hegemony and the Construction of Religion in East and Southeast Asia" History & Theory, Vol. 44, 4, Theorizing Empire theme issue, 2005.

Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1925. Magic, Science and Religion and Other Essays. Boston, Mass: Beacon Press, pp 1-71.

Tambiah, Stanley. 1984. Magic, Science, Religion and Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 1-32.

Worsley, Peter. 1969(1966). "Religion as a Category" In Roland Robertson (ed) Sociology of Religion: Selected Readings, Penguin, pp 221-236.

Tu Wei-ming (1999), "The Quest for Meaning: Religion in the People's Republic of China," The Secularization of the World: Resurgent Religion and World Politics, Peter L. Berger (ed.) (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing), pp. 85-101.

Wang Gungwu (2002), "State and Faith: Secular Values in Asia and the West," in Eric Hershberg and Kevin W. Moore eds., Critical Views of September 11: analyses from around the world (New York: New Press), 224-42

Yang Fenggang (2004), "Between Secularist Ideology and Desecularizing Reality: The Birth and Growth of Religious Research in Communist China," Sociology of Religion 65(2): 101-119.

Religion and Migration: global and transnational processes at work

Beyer, Peter. Religions in global society. London: Routledge, 2006

Levitt, Peggy. God needs no passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape. New York: New Press: Distributed by W.W. Norton & Company, 2007.

Beyer, Peter and Lori Beaman (eds) Religion, globalization, and culture, Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Rudolph, Susane Hoeber and James Piscatori (eds.) Transnational religion and fading states. Boulder, Colo. : Westview Press, 1997.

Religious Conversions and Religious Switching: Shifting Religious consciousness

Lamb, Christopher and M Darrol Bryant (eds.) Religious conversion : contemporary practices and controversies . London ; New York : Cassell, 1999.

Levtzion, N. (ed.), Conversion to Islam. New York & London: Holmes and Meier, 1979

Robinson, Rowena and Sathianathan Clarke (eds.) Religious conversion in India: modes, motivations, and meanings. New Delhi ; New York : Oxford University Press, c2003.

Tong Chee Kiong. Religious conversion and revivalism: a study of Christianity in Singapore . Singapore : Ministry of Community Development, 1989

Tong Chee Kiong. Rationalizing religion: religious conversion, revivalism and competition in Singapore society. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Warburg, Margit. Theorising Conversion: Can we use Conversion Accounts as Sources to Actual Past Processes? In Eileen Barker (ed.) The centrality of religion in social life: essays in honour of James A. Beckford, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 131-145, 2008.

Washburn, Dennis and Kevin Reinhart (eds.) Converting cultures : religion, ideology and transformations of modernity. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2007.

Gender and Religion: Feminism and the question of equality

Almond, Philip C. "The Heathen in his Blindness?" Cultural Dynamics 8, 2: 137-145, 1996.

Carroll, Michael P. "Stark realities and Eurocentric/Androcentric bias in the Sociology of Religion" Sociology of Religion, 57, 3: 225-239, 1996.

King, Ursula. "Introduction" in Ursula King (ed), Religion and Gender, Oxford: Blackwell, pp 1-38, 1995.

Turner, Bryan. Religion and Social Theory. 2nd Edition. New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp 15-37, 1991.

Wallace, Ruth A. "The Mosaic of Research on Religion: Where are the Women? 1995 Presidential Address". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 36(1): 1-12, 1997.

Wallace, Ruth A. 1996. "Feminist Theory in North America: New Insights for the Sociology of Religion". Social Compass, 43(4): 467-479.

Young, Katherine K. 1987. "Introduction" in Arvind Sharma (ed.), Women in World Religions. New York: State University of New York Press, 1987, pp 1-35.
‘Merchandising' Religion: Issues of Commodification and Commercialisation

D'Alisera, Joann. ‘I love Islam; Popular religious commodities, sites of inscription and transnational Sierra Leonean Identity'. Journal of Material Culture 6:91-110, 2001.

Geary, Patrick. 1986. ‘Sacred commodities: the circulation of medieval relics.' In Arjun Appadurai (ed.) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 169-194.

Long, Carolyn Morrow. Spiritual Merchants; Religion, Magic and Commerce. Knoxville: The University of Texas Press, 2001.

Kitiarsa, Pattana (ed.) Religious commodifications in Asia : marketing gods. London; New York : Routledge, 2008.

Strasser, Susan (ed.) Commodifying Everything; Relationships of the Market. New York & London: Routledge, 2003.

Yee, Shirley. ‘Material interests and morality in the trade of Thai talismans.' Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 24:1-21, 1996.

Zaidman, Nurit. ‘Commercialization of religious objects: a comparison between traditional and new age religions'. Social Compass 50(3): 345-360.

Urban forms of religiosity: Sacralizing the city as a lived environment

Goh, Robbie. "Religion" and "Religious Sites." Theory, Culture and Society 23: 2-3: 448-452, 2006.

Kong, Lily. "In search of permanent homes: Singapore's house churches and the politics of space", Urban Studies, 39, 9, 1573-86, 2002.

Kong, Lily. "Religious landscapes", in J Duncan, N Johnson and R Schein (eds.) A Companion to Cultural Geography, Oxford: Blackwell, 365-81, 2004.

Kong, Lily. "Religion and spaces of technology: constructing and contesting nation, transnation and place", Environment and Planning A, Special issue on Geographies and Politics of Transnationalism, 38, 903-18, 2006.

Sinha, Vineeta. "Merging different sacred spaces: enabling religious encounters through pragmatic utilization of space?" Contributions to Indian Sociology, 37, 3: 459-494, October 2003

van Bruinessen, Martin & Julia Day Howell (eds). Sufism and the ‘modern' in Islam. London & New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007.

Religion and Technology: the growth of website religion and religion in cyberspace

Cobb, Jennifer J. 1998. Cybergrace; The Search of God in the Digital World. New York: Crown Publishers, Inc, pp 34-45, 73-85, 121-125, 234-239.

Goh, Robbie. "The Internet and Christianity in Asia: Cultural Trends, Structures and Transformations" International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 29: 4, 2005.

Waters, Sarah. 1997. "Ghosting the Interface: Cyberspace and Spiritualism" Science as Culture, 6, 3: 414-443.

Valovic, Thomas. Digital Mythologies: the Hidden complexities of the Internet. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2000.

Zaleski, Jeff. 1997. The Soul of Cyberspace; how new technology is changing our spiritual lives. San Francisco: Harper Edge

Comparative Religious ‘Fundamentalisms': Violence in the name of religion

Antooun, Richard T. Understanding fundamentalism : Christian, Islamic, and Jewish movements. Lanham, Md. : Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2008.

Caplan, Lionel (ed.) Studies in religious fundamentalism. Hampshire: Macmillan, 1987.

Chopra, V D (ed.) Religious fundamentalism in Asia. New Delhi : Gyan Pub. House in collaboration with International Institute for Asia Pacific Studies, 1994.

Fernandes, Edna. Holy warriors : a journey into the heart of Indian fundamentalism. London : Portobello Books, 2008.

Hood, Ralph A Jr., Peter C. Hill, W. Paul Williamson. The psychology of religious fundamentalism. New York: Guilford Press, 2005.

Lawrence, Bruce. ‘From fundamentalism to fundamentalisms: a religious ideology in multiple forms' In Heelas and Martin (eds.) Religion, Modernity and Post-modernity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, pp 88-101, 1998.

Marty, Martin E. & R. Scott Appleby (eds.) Fundamentalism Observed. Volume 1 Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.

______Fundamentalisms and society: reclaiming the sciences, the family, and education, Volume 2, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

______Fundamentalisms and the state: remaking polities, economies, and militance. Volume 3, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

________Accounting for fundamentalisms: the dynamic character of movements. Volume 4, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.

______Fundamentalisms comprehended, Volume 5, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Saha, Santosh C. and Thomas K. Carr (eds.) Religious fundamentalism in developing countries. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2001.

Stump, Roger W. Boundaries of faith: geographical perspectives on religious fundamentalism. Lanham, Md: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000.

Weinberg, Leonard and Ami Pedahzur (eds.) Religious fundamentalism and political extremis., London: Frank Cass, 2004.

Religion and Politics: Secularity and the nation state

Haynes, Jeff. 1998. Religion in Global Politics. London and New York: Longman.

Keightley, David. "The Religious Commitment: Shang Theology and the Genesis of Chinese Political Culture," History of Religions 17(3/4): 211-25, 1978.

Lee, Raymond. 1992. "The Structuration of disenchantment: Secular agency and the Reproduction of Religion" Journal of Theory of Social Behaviour, 22, 4:381-402.

Martin, David. The Religious and the Political, In Eileen Barker (ed.) The centrality of religion in social life: essays in honour of James A. Beckford, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 161-174, 2008.

Norris, Pippa. Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Ownby, David. Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in mid-Qing China: The Formation of a Tradition. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.

Perry, Elizabeth. Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 2001.

Riis, Ole. 1998. "Religion Re-emerging: The Role of Religion in Legitimating Integration and Power in Modern Societies." International Sociology, 13, 2:249-272.

Wilson, Bryan. 1967. "Religion in secular society" In Roland Robertson (ed) Sociology of Religion: Selected Readings, Penguin, pp 152-162.

Wuthnow, Robert. 1991. "Understanding Religion and Politics" Daedalus, 120, 3:1-20.

Yu, Anthony. State and Religion in China. La Salle: Open Court, 2005.

Religion in the public sphere: What are the points of engagement?

Babb, Lawrence and Susan S. Wadley (eds). 1995. Media and the transformation of religion in South Asia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Bellah, Robert. 1967. "Civil Religion in America" In Beyond Belief: Essays on Religion in a Post-traditional World. New York: Harper & Row, pp

Casanova, Jose. 1994. Public Religions in the Modern World. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Herbert, David. Religion and Civil Society: Rethinking Public Religion in the Contemporary World. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.

Juergensmeyer, Mark (ed.) Religion in global civil society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.

Roberts, Richard H. (ed.) Religion and the transformations of capitalism: comparative approaches. London: Routledge, 2005.

Susumu Shimazono. Contemporary Religions and the Public Arena: Centring on the Situation in Japan. In Eileen Barker (ed.) The centrality of religion in social life : essays in honour of James A. Beckford, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 203-214, 2008.

Woodhead, Linda and Paul Heelas (eds). Religion in the modern times: an interpretative anthology. Mass: Blackwell. 2002.

Religious innovations: Repackaging ‘traditional' religions and emergence of ‘New Religious Movements'

Beckerlegge, Gwilym. Colonialism, Modernity, and Religious Identities : Religious Reform Movements in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press 2008.

Clarke, Peter (ed.) Japanese new religions in global perspective. Richmond: Curzon, 2000.

Lewis, James R. 1992. ‘Approaches to the Study of the New
Age Movement" In James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton (eds) Perspectives on the New Age. Albany: State
University of New York Press, pp 1-12.

Melton, Gordon. 1995. "The Changing Scene of New Religious Movements: Observations from a Generation of Research" Social Compass, 42, 2: 265-276.

Miller, Donald E. 1977. Reinventing American Protestantism. Christianity in the New Millennium. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press.

Robbins, Thomas. 1999. "Quo Vadis" the Scientific Study of New Religious Movements? Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, pp 515-522.

Swatos, William Jr. (ed). Twentieth-century world religious movements in neo-Weberian perspective. Lewiston" E. Mellen Press, 1992.

Wittberg, Patricia. 1997. "Deep Structures in Community Cultures: The Revival of Religious Orders in Roman Catholicism" Sociology of Religion, 58, 3: 239-259.

Multi-religiosity and inter-religious encounters: from dialogue to action

Alatas, Farid et al. (eds.) Asian Inter-faith Dialogues; Perspectives on Religion, Education and Social Cohesion. Singapore: RIMA and the World Bank, 2003.

Alatas, Syed Farid. An Islamic perspective on the commitment to inter-religious dialogue. Kuala Lumpur : International Institute of Advanced Islamic Studies (IAIS), 2008.

Forward, Martin. Inter-religious dialogue : a short introduction. Oxford: Oneworld, 2001.

Norris. H. T. Popular Sufism in Eastern Europe : Sufi brotherhoods and the dialogue with Christianity and 'heterodoxy.' New York: Routledge, 2006.

Keown, Damien. Buddhist studies from India to America : essays in honor of Charles S. Prebish, Part 4: Inter-religious dialogue. London ; New York : Routledge, 2006.

Lee, Cheuk Yin. "Islamic values in Confucian terms: Wang Daiyu and his Zhengjiao Zhenquan". In Islam and Confucianism: A Civilizational Dialogue , ed. Osman BAKAR, 75-94. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1997. 19 pp.

Sinha, Vineeta. Theorising ‘talk' about religious harmony and religious pluralism in Singapore' Journal of Contemporary Religion, 20, 1: 25-40, 2005.

Wiggins, James. In praise of religious diversity. New York : Routledge, 1996.