Routledge Religion in Contemporary Asia Series

Much work on contemporary religion in Asia considers the subject from the perspective of the great religions, often focusing on the development of official beliefs, and the development of formal institutions.  The books in this series, on the other hand, examine the actual practice of religion in everyday life in modern Asian societies.  They reveal a very rich picture of varying religious practices, many of them new and non-traditional.  The religions of Asia are undergoing much radical change not only communal religious revivalism, but also an explosion of urban piety, popular preaching, charismatic churches, and on-line religion.  The books cover a wide range of subjects in the countries of East, Southeast, South and Central Asia.  The series welcomes innovative approaches to theory and methods in the study of religion and religions, and work which considers religion in relation to culture, politics, ethnicity or gender. 

Bryan S. Turner has had a long and distinguished career as a leading scholar of religion, having worked previously in various universities in Singapore, The Netherlands, Germany and the United States. He is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Graduate Center CUNY USA, and is currently Professor of Sociology at the Australian Catholic University, Honorary Professor at Potsdam University Germany, and Honorary Fellow at the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion, University of Birmingham, UK.