Armin W. Geertz - Origins of Religion, Cognition and Culture

ORIGINS OF RELIGION, COGNITION AND CULTURE

Religion, Cognition and Culture

Series Editors: Jeppe Sinding Jensen and Armin W. Geertz, Aarhus University

This series is based on a broadly conceived cognitive science of religion. It explores the role of religion and culture in cognitive formation and brings together methods, theories and approaches from the humanities, social sciences, cognitive sciences, psychology and the neurosciences. The series is associated with the Religion, Cognition and Culture (RCC) research unit at the Department of Culture and Society, Aarhus University (www.rcc.au.dk).

Published

The Burning Saints: Cognition and Culture in the Fire-walking Rituals of the Anastenaria

Dimitris Xygalatas

Mental Culture: Towards a Cognitive Science of Religion

Edited by Dimitris Xygalatas and William W. McCorkle Jr

Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography

Edited by Luther H. Martin and Jesper Srensen

Origins of Religion, Cognition and Culture

Edited by Armin W. Geertz

Religion as Magical Ideology: How the Supernatural Reflects Rationality

Konrad Talmont-Kaminski

Religious Narrative, Cognition and Culture: Image and Word in the Mind of Narrative

Edited by Armin W. Geertz and Jeppe Sinding Jensen

Origins of Religion, Cognition and Culture

Edited by

Armin W. Geertz

First published in 2013 by Acumen

Published 2014 by Routledge

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Editorial matter and selection Armin W. Geertz, 2013

Individual chapters individual contributors

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ISBN: 978-1-84465-701-8 (hardcover)

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Contents

Armin W. Geertz

Armin W. Geertz

Joseph Bulbulia

William E. Paden

Istvn Czachesz

Ellen Dissanayake

Donald Wiebe

Andreas Lieberoth

Luther H. Martin

Henrik Hgh-Olesen

Tom Sjblom

Jeppe Sinding Jensen

Mark Addis

Thomas Hoffmann

William S. Waldron

Uffe Schjoedt

Peter Jackson

Mads D. Jessen

Pierre Linard and Jesper Srensen

Gretchen Koch

William W. McCorkle Jr

Peter Westh

Mark Addis is Professor of Philosophy at Birmingham City University, Visiting Professor at the Department of Culture and Society at Aarhus University and a Research Associate at the Centre for Philosophy of Natural and Social Science at the London School of Economics. His publications on Wittgenstein include Wittgenstein: A Guide for the Perplexed (2006), Wittgenstein: Making Sense of Other Minds (1999) and he co-edited Wittgenstein and Philosophy of Religion (2001).

Joseph Bulbulia is a Senior Lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand and publishes widely in psychology, philosophy and evolutionary religious studies. His work on the evolution of religion focuses on costly signalling models and large-scale coordination problems. Among his many publications are First Shots Fired for the Phylogenetic Revolution in Religious Studies (co-authored, 2013) and Why Do Religious Cultures Evolve Slowly? (2013), and he is co-editor of The Evolution of Religion: Studies, Theories, & Critiques (2008).

Istvn Czachesz is Heisenberg Fellow and Privatdozent of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg. He is author of Commission Narratives: A Comparative Study of the Canonical and Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (2007) and The Grotesque Body in Early Christian Discourse: Hell, Scatology, and Metamorphosis (2012), and the books he has co-edited include Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies (2013).

Ellen Dissanayake is an Affiliate Professor in the School of Music at the University of Washington and an independent scholar, author and lecturer in many disciplines, including evolutionary biology, ethology, cognitive and developmental psychology, cultural and physical anthropology, neuroscience, and the history, theory and practice of the various arts. She is the author of What Is Art For? (1988), Homo Aestheticus (1992) and Art and Intimacy (2000), as well as over seventy scholarly and popular articles and book chapters.

Armin W. Geertz is Professor in the History of Religions at the Department of Culture and Society, Section for the Study of Religion, and Chair of the Religion, Cognition and Culture Research Unit (RCC), Aarhus University, Denmark. His publications in the cognitive science of religion range from religious narrative and evolutionary theory to the neurobiology of religion. His recent publications include Religious Narrative, Cognition and Culture (co-edited, 2011). He is co-editor of Acumens Religion, Cognition and Culture series, and senior co-editor of Journal for the Cognitive Science of Religion.

Thomas Hoffmann is Professor with special responsibilities at the Section for Biblical Exegesis at the Faculty of Theology, Copenhagen University, Denmark. He specializes in the study of the Quran and has published articles on cognitive poetics-approaches to the Quran and is currently working on a monograph on the cognitive Quran. His books include The Poetic Qurn: Studies on Qurnic Poeticity (2008).

Henrik Hgh-Olesen is Professor in Social and Personality Psychology and Head of the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark. His research interests include evolutionary and comparative perspectives on human mind and kind, human characteristics and the human condition. His recent edited books are Human Characteristics: Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Mind and Kind (co-edited, 2009) and Human Morality and Sociality: Evolutionary and Comparative Perspectives (2010).

Peter Jackson