The Category of ‘Religion’ in Contemporary Japan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Category of ‘Religion’ in Contemporary Japan write by Mitsutoshi Horii. This book was released on 2018-04-17. The Category of ‘Religion’ in Contemporary Japan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. This book critically examines the term ‘religion’ (shūkyō) as a social category within the sociological context of contemporary Japan. Whereas the nineteenth-century construction of shūkyō has been critically studied by many, the same critical approach has not been extended to the contemporary context of the Japanese-language discourse on shūkyō and Temple Buddhism. This work aims to unveil the norms and imperatives which govern the utilization of the term shūkyō in the specific context of modern day Japan, with a particular focus upon Temple Buddhism. The author draws on a number of popular publications in Japanese, many of which have been written by Buddhist priests. In addition, the book offers rich interview material from conversations with Buddhist priests. Readers will gain insights into the critical deconstruction, the historicization, and the study of social classification system of ‘religion’, in terms of its cross-cultural application to the contemporary Japanese context. The book will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines including Japanese Studies, Buddhology, Religious Studies, Social Anthropology, and Sociology.
Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan
Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan write by Ian Reader. This book was released on 2013-10-11. Religious Violence in Contemporary Japan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. The Tokyo subway attack in March 1995 was just one of a series of criminal activities including murder, kidnapping, extortion, and the illegal manufacture of arms and drugs carried out by the Japanese new religious movement Aum Shinrikyo, under the guidance of its leader Asahara Shoko. Reader looks at Aum's claims about itself and asks, why did a religious movement ostensibly focussed on yoga, meditation, asceticism and the pursuit of enlightenment become involved in violent activities? Reader discusses Aum's spiritual roots, placing it in the context of contemporary Japanese religious patterns. Asahara's teaching are examined from his earliest public pronouncements through to his sermons at the time of the attack, and statements he has made in court. In analysing how Aum not only manufactured nerve gases but constructed its own internal doctrinal justifications for using them Reader focuses on the formation of what made all this possible: Aum's internal thought-world, and on how this was developed. Reader argues that despite the horrors of this particular case, Aum should not be seen as unique, nor as solely a political or criminal terror group. Rather it can best be analysed within the context of religious violence, as an extreme example of a religious movement that has created friction with the wider world that escalated into violence.
Religion in Contemporary Japan
Religion in Contemporary Japan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Religion in Contemporary Japan write by Ian Reader. This book was released on 1991-04-01. Religion in Contemporary Japan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. What role does religion play in contemporary Japanese society and in the lives of Japanese people today? This text examines the major areas in which the Japanese participate in religious events, the role of religion in the social system and the underlying views within the Japanese religious world. Through a series of case studies of religion in action - at crowded temples and festivals, in austere Zen meditation halls, at home and at work, at dramatic fire rituals - it illustrates the immense variety, energy and colour inherent in Japanese religion. It also discusses the continued relevance and responses of religion in a rapidly modernizing and changing society.
Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religions
Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religions - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religions write by Inken Prohl. This book was released on 2012-09-03. Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religions available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Representing work by some of the leading scholars in the field, the chapters in this handbook survey the transformation and innovation of religious traditions and practices in contemporary Japan.
The Invention of Religion in Japan
The Invention of Religion in Japan - read free eBook in online reader or directly download on the web page. Select files or add your book in reader. Download and read online ebook The Invention of Religion in Japan write by Jason Ānanda Josephson. This book was released on 2012-10-03. The Invention of Religion in Japan available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Throughout its long history, Japan had no concept of what we call “religion.” There was no corresponding Japanese word, nor anything close to its meaning. But when American warships appeared off the coast of Japan in 1853 and forced the Japanese government to sign treaties demanding, among other things, freedom of religion, the country had to contend with this Western idea. In this book, Jason Ananda Josephson reveals how Japanese officials invented religion in Japan and traces the sweeping intellectual, legal, and cultural changes that followed. More than a tale of oppression or hegemony, Josephson’s account demonstrates that the process of articulating religion offered the Japanese state a valuable opportunity. In addition to carving out space for belief in Christianity and certain forms of Buddhism, Japanese officials excluded Shinto from the category. Instead, they enshrined it as a national ideology while relegating the popular practices of indigenous shamans and female mediums to the category of “superstitions”—and thus beyond the sphere of tolerance. Josephson argues that the invention of religion in Japan was a politically charged, boundary-drawing exercise that not only extensively reclassified the inherited materials of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Shinto to lasting effect, but also reshaped, in subtle but significant ways, our own formulation of the concept of religion today. This ambitious and wide-ranging book contributes an important perspective to broader debates on the nature of religion, the secular, science, and superstition.
