Faculty Publications
Be sure to read The Department of World Religions and Cultures at Western Michigan University faculty's publications, a selected list of which is proudly posted here:
Stephen G. Covell
Holy Waters: An Interdisciplinary Study of Religion and Alcohol
edited by Stephen G. Covell and Ryan Lemasters
Publisher: Routledge Press (2024)
Death, Dying and After Death
edited by Stephen G. Covell, Megan Leverage, Sue Caufield, and Rebecca Esterson
Publisher: Cognella (2024)
Religion and Sport in Japan
edited by Stephen G. Covell, Zach Smith, and Dennis Frost
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press (2024)
The Teachings and Teaching of Japanese Temple Buddhism
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press (2024)
Japanese Temple Buddhism: Worldliness in a Religion of Renunciation (Topics in Contemporary Buddhism)
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press (2005)
Traditional Buddhism in Contemporary Japan (Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 31:2 [2004])
edited by Stephen G. Covell and Mark Rowe
Anderson Hagler
Magic and Healing in Colonial New Spain
Publisher: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History (October 23, 2024)
Accessing the Divine: Indigenous Medical Specialists, Catholic Priests, and Non-Orthodox Methods of Healing in Colonial Mexico
Publisher: Ethnohistory 71, no. 1 (January 1, 2024): 27-45
'I Request Charity and Justice’: The Lives of Enslaved and Free African Descent Peoples in New Spain’s North Frontier.
Publisher: Slavery & Abolition 44, no. 4 (October 2, 2023): 741–59
Alisa Perkins
Islam in the Urban Sensorism: Diasphoric Sound and the Right to the City
Forthcoming. Publisher: Citizenship Studies, 19(2); (2015)
From the Mosque to the Municipality: The Ethics of Muslim Space in Midwestern City
Publisher: PhD. Dissertation, Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin; (2012)
Negotiating Alliances: Muslims, Gay Rights and the Christian Right in a Polish-American City
Publisher: Anthropology Today, 26(2) pp. 19-24; (2009)
Family, Gender, and Islamic Discourses in Canada
Publisher: The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures (EWIC); Koninklinke Brill; (2005)
A Man is like a Diamond: The Mudawwana Reforms and the Problem of Moroccan Masculinity
Published: Al Raida, 21, pp. 99-104; (2004)
Diane Riggs
Golden Robe or Rubbish Robe? Interpretations of the Transmitted Robe in Tokugawa period Zen Buddhist Thought. In Pamela Winfield and Steven Heine, eds. Zen and Material Culture.
Publisher: Oxford University Press; (2017)
Interpreting the Material Heritage of the 'Elephant Trunk Robe' in Sōtō Zen. In Steven Heine, ed. Dōgen and Sōtō Zen.
Publisher: Oxford University Press; (2014).
Materials appropriate for Buddhist robes: Two Edo period interpreters of the Rag robe (funzōe ) and Daoxuan's prohibition of silk robes.
In Indogaku Bukkyōgaku kenkyū, 55 (2007). Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, Proceedings of the Fifty-seventh Congress held at Taishō University; (2007).
Against the use of Silk robes in early modern Japanese Buddhism:
Ueda Shōhen's Daoxuan's prohibition of silk kesa. In The Annual of the Institute of Buddhist Cultural Studies Ryūkoku University, 32 (2007).
Fukudenkai: Sewing the Buddha's Robe in Contemporary Japanese Buddhist Practice.
Publisher: Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, 31 (2 2004): 311-356.
Cybelle Shattuck
Dharma in the Golden State: South Asian Religious Traditions in California
Publisher: Fithian Press (1996)
Hinduism (Religions of the World)
Publisher: Prentice Hall (1999)
The Pocket Idiot's Guide to Hinduism
Publisher: Alpha Books (2002)
This Sacred Earth: Scientific and Religious Perspectives on Nature and Humanity's Place Within It
Edited by Paul Kirbas Publisher: Wyndham Hall Press (2011), page 42 to 54
Cynthia J. Visscher
Eye on Religion: Understanding the Cultural/Religious Mélange in Treating Japanese Patients
Southern Medical Journal Volume 99. Number 12, (December 2006): p. 1448-1449
Eye on Religion: Understanding the Cultural/Religious Mélange in Treating Japanese Patients
Southern Medical Journal Volume 99. Number 6, (June 2006): p. 683-684
Health Care and Spirituality: spiritually sensitive care of the terminally ill Muslim patient
Interreligious Insight: a journal of dialogue and engagement Volume 3. Number 2, (April 2005): p. 68-77
Kevin J. Wanner
Snorri Sturluson and the Edda: The Conversion of Cultural Capital in Medieval Scandinavia
Publisher: University of Toronto Press (2008) Amazon Canada Listing
Brian C. Wilson
Christianity (Religions of the World)
Publisher: Prentice Hall (1999) Also available in Spanish, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese and German editions.
What is Religion? Origins, Definitions & Explanations
by Thomas Idinopulos (Editor), Brian C. Wilson (Editor)
Publisher: Brill (1999)
Reappraising Durkheim For the Study and Teaching of Religion Today
by Thomas Idinopulos (Editor), Brian C. Wilson (Editor)
Publisher: Brill (2001)
Religion as a Human Capacity: A Festschrift in Honor of E. Thomas Lawson
by Timothy Light (Editor), Brian C. Wilson (Editor)
Publisher: Brill (2004)
Yankees in Michigan (Discovering the Peoples of Michigan Series)
Publisher: Michigan State University Press (2008)
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg and the Religion of "Biologic Living"
Publisher: Indiana University Press (2014)
John E. Fetzer and the Quest for the New Age
Publisher: Wayne State University Press (2018)
The California Days of Ralph Waldo Emerson
Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press (2022)
Emeriti Publications
Byron Earhart
Japanese Religion: Unity and Diversity, 4th ed.
Publisher: Wadsworth (2003)
Religion in the Japanese Experience, 2nd ed.
Publisher: Wadsworth (1996)
The New Religions of Japan: A Bibliography of Western-Language Materials, 2nd ed.
Publisher: University of Michigan press (1983)
A Religious Study of the Mount Haguro Sect of Shugendo, Sophia University, 1970
(Japanese translation, Kobundo, 1985)
Translation of Nihon Hyakunen no Shukyo, by Shigeyoshi Murakami, as Japanese Religion in the Modern Century
Publisher: Tokyo University (1980)
Dentoteki Shukyo no Saisei: Gedatsu-kai no Shiso to Kodo (The Revival of Traditional Religion: The Thought and Practice of Gedatsu-kai)
by Byron Earhart, co-edited with Hitoshi Miyake, Meicho (1983)
Religions of Japan: Many Traditions Within One Sacred Way
Publisher: Waveland Press Inc (1998)
Japanese translation, Toki Shobo
Gedatsu-kai and Religion in Contemporary Japan: Returning to the Center,
Publisher: Indiana University (1989)
(editor), Religious Traditions of the World,
Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco (1992)
(translated into Russian, Kron, 1996; translated into Czech, Proctor, 1999)
(editor), Shugendo: Essays on the Structure of Japanese Folk Religion,
Publisher: University of Michigan press (2001)
Mount Fuji: Icon of Japan, University of South Carolina, forthcoming
Nancy Auer Falk
Living Hinduisms : An Explorer's Guide
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing (2005)
Unspoken Worlds : Women's Religious Lives
by Nancy Auer Falk, Rita M. Gross
Publisher: Wadsworth Publishing (2000)
Francis Gross
The Gospels with Salt: Jesus Wildman-Jesus Woman : Meditations on the Gospels
Publisher: Hamilton Books (2005)
The Making of a Mystic: Seasons in the Life of Teresa of Avila
by Francis Gross, Toni Perior Gross
Publisher: State University of New York Press (July 1993)
E. Thomas Lawson
Rethinking Religion : Connecting Cognition and Culture
by E. Thomas Lawson, Robert N. McCauley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press; Reprint edition (1993)
Bringing Ritual to Mind : Psychological Foundations of Cultural Forms
by E. Thomas Lawson, Robert N. McCauley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (2002)
Religions of Africa : Traditions in Transformation
Publisher: Waveland Press; (1998)
Rudolf J. Siebert
Manifesto of the Critical Theory of Society and Religion -
The Wholly Other, Liberation, Happiness and the Rescue of the Hopeless
Publisher: Brill (2010)
The Critical Theory of Religion : The Frankfurt School
Publisher: Scarecrow Press (2001)
From Critical Theory of Society to Theology of Communicative Praxis
Publisher: The Edwin Mellen Press Ltd (1987)