To view prices and purchase online, please login or create an account now.



Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed

Paperback / softback

Main Details

Title Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed
Authors and Contributors      By (author) Dr Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair
SeriesGuides for the Perplexed
Physical Properties
Format:Paperback / softback
Pages:256
Dimensions(mm): Height 216,Width 138
Category/GenreSikhism
ISBN/Barcode 9781441102317
ClassificationsDewey:294.6
Audience
General
Tertiary Education (US: College)

Publishing Details

Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic USA
Publication Date 6 June 2013
Publication Country United States

Description

Sikhism's short but relatively eventful history provides a fascinating insight into the working of misunderstood and seemingly contradictory themes such as politics and religion, violence and mysticism, culture and spirituality, orality and textuality, public sphere versus private sphere, tradition and modernity. This book presents students with a careful analysis of these complex themes as they have manifested themselves in the historical evolution of the Sikh traditions and the encounter of Sikhs with modernity and the West, in the philosophical teachings of its founders and their interpretation by Sikh exegetes, and in Sikh ethical and intellectual responses to contemporary issues in an increasingly secular and pluralistic world. Sikhism: A Guide for the Perplexed serves as an ideal guide to Sikhism, and also for students of Asian studies, Sociology of Religion and World Religions.

Author Biography

Arvind-Pal Singh Mandair is an Associate Professor and holder of the S.B.S.C. Endowed Chair in Sikh Studies at the University of Michigan, USA. His earlier books include: Religion and the Specter of the West: Sikhism, India, Postcoloniality and the Politics of Translation (2009), Teachings of the Sikh Gurus (with Christopher Shackle, 2005), Secularism and Religion-Making (2009). He is a founding editor of the journal Sikh Formations: Religion, Culture and Theory.

Reviews

Sikhism - A Guide for the Perplexed is an insightful and well-crafted introduction to the study of Sikhism as a dynamic and internally fluid tradition. Mandair offers a novel approach in this introductory text that avoids the common pitfalls of historicism and that denaturalizes the tendency to frame Sikhi as purely religious experience within the parameters of the secular-religious binary. Focusing on key issues that reflect what animates Sikh activity and the lived experiences of Sikhs today, Mandair is able to achieve what might seem incommensurable objectives: introducing novices to a field of study, while challenging those already engaged in Sikh Studies with new insights and perspectives. Intriguing and at times provocative, this text will without doubt stand out among introductory texts to Sikhism for its interdisciplinary format, its success in engaging readers intellectually, and its capacity to actively relate ideas from the history and philosophy of religion in a way in which the encounter between these disciplines and Sikhi as an emerging philosophy and way of life remains always in sight. -- Michael Nijhawan, Associate Professor of Sociology, York University, Canada