Books and Projects
What Matters? Ethnographies of Value in a not so Secular Age
Co-edited with Ann Taves
This edited volume, including contributions by anthropologists, religious studies scholars and sociologists calls attention to the shifting relations between religious, spiritual and secular formations. It is an outgrowth of conferences sponsored and hosted by the Social Science Research Council and the School for Advanced Research (Santa Fe) and is currently under review.
The New Metaphysicals
Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination
University of Chicago Press. May 2010
“Truly distinctive and distinguished. This is a remarkable book simply for recording these fascinating practitioners and helping readers understand their categories of experience in all their complexity. But her work does far more than merely record; it offers a compelling examination of how we may think anew about these categories and the people—metaphysicals and scholars alike—for whom they matter.” -- R. Marie Griffith, Harvard University
“Bender’s thick yet elegant descriptions of the institutions, discourses, and practices that create contemporary American mysticism provide a model for the study of religious traditions. And her reassertion of a more structured and culture-full version of practice theory is a must-read for ethnographers of any subject.” -- David Smilde, University of Georgia
After Pluralism
Reimagining Models of Religious Engagement
Forthcoming (2010) Columbia University Press.
Co-edited with Pamela Klassen
Contributors:Benjamin Berger, Amira Mittermaier, Anver Emon, Andrea Most, Rosemary Hicks, Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Michael McNally, Janet Jakobsen, Tracy Leavelle, Irene Becci, Genevieve Zubrzycki, and J. Terry Todd.
Heaven’s Kitchen
Living Religion at God’s Love We Deliver
University of Chicago Press 2003
“... theoretically important and elegantly written. Bender shows us how people craft moral arguments in everyday life and how they experience religious meanings indirectly, in settings not explicitly devoted to religion as such. This is a book filled with evocative stories that makes it a pleasure to read and ponder.” -- Nina Eliasoph, USC
Spirituality, Political Engagement and Public Life
Co-chair, Social Science Research Council Working Group
The SSRC's Religion and the Public Sphere Program launched a project in 2009 on Spirituality, Political Engagement, and Public Life, with support from the Ford Foundation. The project will explore how spiritual practice, identity, and experience shape social action, political participation, and public life in the United States. It is fundamentally concerned with how contemporary spiritual identity and practices present alternatives to--as well as critiques of and cautionary tales about--what it means to be socially and politically engaged in the United States. The project will convene a working group to explore the myriad forms of spiritual identity, social engagement, and political action.
Opportunities at the Edge: Decentering and Recentering the Sociology of Religion
Co-organizer
This project seeks to develop a more vigorous future for sociology of religion in the American academy. This project commenced with a two-day collaborative workshop hosted by the Princeton Center for the Study of Religion in October 2008. Ongoing projects include an edited volume, the development of working papers, an online syllabus collective and future conferences and collaborations.
