Textbook Gods

Bengt-Ove Andreassen is Associated Professor at the Department of Education at University of Troms He is also guest scholar in religious studies at University of Bergen during 2011-2013. One of his areas for research is religion in education and how perspectives from the academic study of religion can be applied to develop education about religion in public schools. James R. Lewis is Professor at the University of Troms. His most recent books include Sacred Schisms (edited with Sarah Lewis, Cambridge University Press, 2009), Children of Jesus and Mary (with Nicolas Levine, Oxford University Press, 2010), Islamic Sects and Movements (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), Modern Satanism (with Asbjn Dyrendal and Jesper A. Petersen, Oxford University Press, forthcoming) and Introduction to New Religious Movements (with Danielle Kirby, Routledge, forthcoming). He is editor of the Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements.

• Introduction - Theoretical perspectives on textbooks / textbooks in religious studies research 1. Torsten Hylen (Dalarna University) Closed and open conceptions of religion: The problem of essentialism in teaching about religion 2. Satoko Fujiwara (University of Tokyo) Establishing Religion through Textbooks: Religions in Japans Ethics Program 3. Katharina Frank (University of Zurich) Bad Religions and Good Religions: The Representation of Religion and Religious Traditions in a New Swiss Textbook 4. Sivane Hirsch (University of Montreal) To Learn about the Other and to Get to Know Him: Judaism and the Jewish community of Quebec as represented in Ethics and Religious Culture textbooks 5. Barbara Wintersgill Researching materials used to teach about world religions in schools in England 6. Carole M. Cusack (University of Sydney) Representations of Indigenous Australian Religions in New South Wales (NSW) Higher School Certificate Studies of Religion Textbooks 7. Mary Hayward Visual engagement: textbooks and the materiality of religion 8. Suzanne Anette Thobro (University of Tromso) Cartographic representations of religion(s) in Norwegian textbooks 9. Bengt-Ove Andreassen A reservoir of symbols. On the conceptualization of religion in introduction books for RE in Teacher Education in Norway 10. James A. Lewis Stones and Bones: Indigenous African Religions and the Evolution of World Religions 11. Annika Hvithamar (University of Southern Denmark) Christianity or the Christianity that is the question 12. Jens Andre Herbener (University of Southern Denmark) School Bible in the service of The Danish National Church A Case Study

"...all anthropologists with an interest in religion, and all religious studies scholars, should experience this book, and I hope that it inspires similar studies of the U.S., southern Europe, and the non-Western textbook industry." -- Jack David Eller, Anthropology Review Database