Part religious studies, part feminist theory, part philosophy, part indescribable: such is Numinous Subjects. Described by the author as ‘a kaleidoscopic exploration of why three gendered figures of the sacred matter within western culture,’ the experience of reading this text truly is akin to gazing through a constantly turning kaleidoscope. Images, concepts, phrases and quotes are continually revisited, recombined, though never repeated in quite the same way. From these tumbling constellations arises a new understanding and wary appreciation of the figures of the virgin, the mother, and the whore. Drawing on the insights of thinkers as diverse as Rudolph Otto, Julia Kristeva, Simone de Beauvoir, and Martin Buber, Numinous Subjects simultaneously expands and focuses our attention on the myth of the sacred and its implications for female subjects in western culture today.

This book addresses a fundamental dilemma in religious studies. Exploring the tension between humanistic and social scientific approaches to thinking and writing about religion, Daniel Gold develops a line of argument that begins with the aesthetics of academic writing in the field. He shows that successful writers on religion employ characteristic aesthetic strategies in communicating their visions of human truths. Gold examines these strategies with regard to epistemology and to the study of religion as a collective endeavor.

The eighteenth-century Scottish empiricist David Hume has been regarded as a notorious enemy of religion. Still, his discussion of religion is systematic, sophisticated, and sustained. Focusing mainly on two of Hume’s works, the relatively neglected Natural History of Religion and the more widely read Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Keith Yandell analyzes Hume’s treatment of a subject that he described as "a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery." In so doing, he explores the relationships between Hume’s philosophy of religion and his general philosophy. Hume’s "evidentialism," applied to religion, can be summed up by saying that it is unreasonable to accept a religious belief unless one has evidence for it. Since it is also Hume’s view that there is no evidence for any religious belief, he concludes that no one is ever reasonable in accepting a religious belief. Yandell examines the explanations that Hume gave for such acceptance in Natural History of Religion. Addressing the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, he compares Hume’s views to those of such authors as Herbert of Cherbury and Bishop Joseph Butler, traces changes in Hume’s theory of meaning, and discusses the ontological and cosmological arguments and Hume’s treatment of the problem of evil. Yandell then considers other lesser known writings by Hume that are relevant to his philosophy of religion.

The critical work examines the vampire as a spiritual figure--whether literal or metaphorical--analyzing how the use of the vampire in literature has served to convey both a human sense of alienation from the divine and a desire to overcome that alienation. While expressing isolation, the vampire also represents the transcendent agent through which individuals and societies must confront questions about innate good or evil, and belief in the divine and the afterlife. Textual experiences of the numinous in the form of the vampire propel the subject on a spiritual journey involving both psychological and religious qualities. Through this journey, the reader and the main character may begin to understand the value of their existence and the divine. A variety of works, poetry and fiction by British and American authors, is discussed, with particular concentration on Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, as representative of the Romantic, Victorian, and late twentieth century periods of literature. A conclusion looks at the future of the literary vampire.

What has Jung to do with the Postmodern? Chris Hauke's lively and provocative book, puts the case that Jung's psychology constitutes a critique of modernity that brings it in line with many aspects of the postmodern critique of contemporary culture. The metaphor he uses is one in which 'we are gazing through a Jungian transparency or filter being held up against the postmodern while, from the other side, we are also able to look through a transparency or filter of the postmodern to gaze at Jung. From either direction there will be a new and surprising vision.' Setting Jung against a range of postmodern thinkers, Hauke recontextualizes Jung' s thought as a reponse to modernity, placing it - sometimes in parallel and sometimes in contrast to - various postmodern discourses. Including chapters on themes such as meaning, knowledge and power, the contribution of architectural criticism to the postmodern debate, Nietzsche's perspective theory of affect and Jung's complex theory, representation and symbolization, constructivism and pluralism, this is a book which will find a ready audience in academy and profession alike.

"Sacred Tropes" interweaves Tanakh, New Testament, and Qur'an essays which collectively and individually enlist literary approaches including environmental, cultural studies, gender, psychoanalytic, ideological, economic, historicism, law, and rhetorical criticisms. "Sacred Tropes" represents a pioneering, comparatist approach to Abrahamic studies.

This book focuses on the first and second stages of Soloveitchik’s philosophy, through a systematic and detailed discussion of some of his essays. Schwartz exposes the philosophical methodology of Soloveitchik's religious thought (1945-1965).