The Wiley Blackwell companion to the study of religion / edited by Robert A. Segal and Nickolas P. Roubekas.

"The first edition of the Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion appeared all the way back in 2006. The second edition, now named the Wiley-Blackwell Companion, is revamped. The first edition consisted of twenty-four entries. The second consists of thirty-one entries. The differences are major. There are new entries: on cognitive science, emotion, esotericism, functionalism, globalization, history, law, music, science, sex and gender, and terror and violence. Three entries from the first edition have been dropped: heaven and hell, holy men/holy women, and mysticism-all dropped for idiosyncratic reasons. The comparative method has been switched from an approach to a topic. Five of the entries have new authors. One entry, that on ritual, has been retained unaltered because of the author's sad death in the interim, but it now has a supplementary updating of the subject. All but one of the existing entries have been substantially revised. When the first edition appeared, I was a member of a department of theology and religious studies. Two years ago my department decided to drop almost all of religious studies and to rename itself sheer "divinity." What the difference is between divinity and theology I have no idea. But the exclusion of religions other than Christianity from "divinity"-or even the past needed addition of "religious studies" to "theology"-is not quite a universal terminology. In the United States, not least at esteemed venues like the Harvard Divinity School, the Yale Divinity School, and the University of Chicago Divinity School, "divinity" covers all religions, not just one religion. Whatever the difference between an approach to, say, Islam in a divinity school and an approach to it in a department of religious studies, Islam is assumed to be a fit topic of study for both."-- Provided by publisher.