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In a volume that surpasses other studies in tracking, identifying, contextualizing, and interpreting Sri Lankan Buddhism in its sectarian, ethnic, cultural, social, and political dimensions, Ananda Abeysekara lays down a challenge to postcolonial and postmodern theory. He argues that although criticisms have undermined the orientalist constructions of culture, they cannot help us understand, let alone theorize, the emergence of contemporary authoritative discourses that define distinctions involving religion and violence, identity and difference. Supplanting that aim, Abeysekara illuminates the shifting configurations that characterize the relations connected with postcolonial religious identity and culture. Drawing on extensive field research in Sri Lanka, Abeysekara illustrates how differing meanings of such religious and national concepts come into central view and then fade, denying them fixity. Proposing an alternative, he develops the concept of \"minute conjunctures of contingency\" and places it in modest opposition to the work of Michel Foucault and other leading postmodern thinkers. Abeysekara attends to these minute conjunctures of contingency to understand such categories as religion and difference, Buddhism and politics, civilization and terror. He thereby resists today's antiessentialist arguments without falling back on yesterday's foundationalist claims. Viewing religion through this lens, Abeysekara contends, has profound political implications for how we might more generally think about and begin to disrupt entrenched presumptions of postcolonial cultural difference.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49626004521233,"sku":"GOR013700068","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1570034672.jpg?v=1751150106"},{"product_id":"self-and-secrecy-in-early-islam-book-ruqayya-yasmine-khan-9781570037542","title":"Self and Secrecy in Early Islam","description":"This book presents an original inquiry into the meanings of concealment and revelation in early Arabo-Islamic texts. In this comparative analysis of the significance of keeping and revealing secrets in early Islamic culture, Ruqayya Yasmine Khan draws from a broad range of Arabo-Islamic texts to map interconnections between concepts of secrecy and identity. 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These works represent divergent approaches to spiritual, ethical, and romantic life in early Islam; yet Khan extrapolates from each a shared construction of secrecy and revelation.In advancing our understanding of the dynamic tensions between secrecy and revelation as depicted in these early Arabo-Islamic discourses, Khan illustrates that the creation of individual identity and subjectivity was inherently tied to these same tensions. 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Scholars of Islamic studies have collaborated to produce this volume which both integrates Muslim thinking into the field of applied ethics and introduces readers to an aspect of the religion long overlooked in the West. This collective effort sets forth the relationship between Islamic ethics and law, revealing the complexity and richness of the Islamic tradition as well as its responsiveness to these controversial modern issues. The contributors analyze classical sources and survey the modern ethical landscape to identify guiding principles within Islamic ethical thought. Clarifying the importance of pragmatism in Islamic decision-making, the contributors also offer case studies related to specialized topics, including \"\"wrongful birth\"\" claims, terrorist attacks, and brain death. The case studies elicit possible variations on common Muslim perspectives. 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