Evil
A Critical Primer
by Kenneth G. MacKendrick
Paperback (Published)
(October 2023)
ISBN: 9781781796191
5.39 x 8.43 inches
Price: $29.95
In stock
Hardback (Published)
(October 2023)
ISBN: 9781781796184
5.39 x 8.43 inches
Price: $80.00
In stock
Evil: A Critical Primer begins with the claim that evil is a concept that is contextually bound. This means that we should not expect to find shared or similar notions of evil across cultures. Addressing evil in a way that is at once contextually specific and applicable to cross-cultural settings, this primer breaks with moral conceptions of evil by redescribing it within a new framework of dangers and aversions (i.e., things that cause harm and things to avoid). Doing so provides an empirical and heuristic framework as a new starting point for the study of religion.
Evil: A Critical Primer begins with the claim that evil is a concept that is contextually bound. This means that we should not expect to find shared or similar notions of evil across cultures. Addressing evil in a way that is at once contextually specific and applicable to cross-cultural settings, this primer breaks with moral conceptions of evil by redescribing it within a new framework of dangers and aversions (i.e., things that cause harm and things to avoid). Doing so provides an empirical and heuristic framework as a new starting point for the study of religion, deemphasizing things associated with evil (like the devil, wickedness, or a diabolic will) and focusing instead on attitudes and practices (like rituals of purity and impurity, notions of clean and dirty, or expressions of disgust). Introducing and reflecting on cultural and cognitive aspects of classification, myth, ritual, emotions, and morality, Evil: A Critical Primer argues that our colloquial conception of evil, as related exclusively to the moral domain, is usefully illuminated by attending to historical and cultural context and cross-cultural comparison.
- By (author) Kenneth G. MacKendrick
Other Titles in this Series
Similar Books
A Companion to Christianity and Sport in Europe and North America (19th-21st centuries)
Volume 1: Western and Eastern Europe
A Connecting Polemic in the Medieval Mediterranean
The Correspondence of Leo III and Ê¿Umar II
Volume 6
Ars Prophetica
Theology in the Poetry of Twentieth-Century Hebrew Poets Avraham Halfi, Shin Shalom, Amir Gilboa, and T. Carmi
As Messianism Turns to Heresy
The Regenstein Chair Lectures On Lurianic Kabbalah and Shabbatai Tzevi at Hebrew Union College - Cincinnati
Creating the Woman in Antiquity
Proceedings of the 16th Melammu Workshop, Innsbruck, 2–3 June 2022
Volume 13
Cultic Kisses
Fruitful Encounters Between Deities and Humans. Festschrift for Angelika Berlejung on the Occasion of Her 65th Birthday
De/colonizing Theologies
Glocal Histories, Contemporary Challenges, Theoretical Reflections
Volume 4
Drunk the Potion, No Whit Charmed
The Doctrine of Pure and Perfect Souls from Iamblichus to Damascius
Extracanonical Traditions and the Holy Land
Texts, Rituals, and Material Culture in Late Antique Palestine
Fear, Fear of God, God-Fearers
Philological and Historical Perspectives on the World of Ancient Judaism and Christianity
Gender and Iconography in Antiquity
Femininities, Masculinities, Ambiguities, and Beyond in the Ancient Levant, Near East, and Mediterranean