Shop

Hegel and the Critical Theory of Religion. For over fifty years, Rudolf J. Siebert (b. 1927) has developed his Critical Theory of Religion and society out of the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory. Siebert’s Hegelian thought has developed in conversation with Christian theology, German Idealism, comparative religion, political-economics, sociology, psychology, and history. In this volume, Siebert demonstrates the centrality of Hegel in the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory, and develops it even further in his emancipatory “Dialectical Religiology.” As philosophers once again turn to Hegel in our troubled times, this book will prove to be a foundational study of the German philosopher.

Meeting the Others in their Differences: Toward a Christian Approach to the Scientific Study of Religion, by Francis Brassard. Is it possible to meet and embrace the different others without giving up one’s identity? For those who live in a pluralist environment, this is certainly a challenge. We can avoid it by taking refuge in a safe space, be it real or virtual, but sooner or later, it is going to catch up with us. We may instead take the initiative and face that challenge head-on before it becomes a crisis. The study of religions is assuredly one of the many arenas where we can take up such a challenge. This is the purpose of this book. Francis Brassard formulates a model highlighting the specificity of the major religions, a model where the Christian aspiration for reconciliation subsumes, without negating them, all aspirations, whether religious or secular.

Critical Theory of Religion: From the Frankfurt School to Emancipatory Islamic Thought. In this volume, Dustin J. Byrd explores the Frankfurt School’s Critical Theory of Religion and Society and extends its analysis of religion into the realm of Islamic thought, theology, and alternative forms of sociology. “The Frankfurt School must extend itself beyond the Western world, for its analysis must not only view the Islamic world as a subject of analysis, but rather as an interlocutor within the interrogation of the contemporary world.” ~ Dustin J. Byrd

The Frankfurt School and the Dialectics of Religion: Translating Critical Faith into Critical Theory. Many scholars assume that the Frankfurt School’s critical theory is a wholly secular affair, that is stands opposed to all forms of religion. However, as Dustin J. Byrd as shown, there is a theological core at the heart of critical theory. “Faith,” as Max Horkheimer understood it, was the “longing that unites all men so that the horrible events, the injustice of history so far would not be permitted to be the final, ultimate fate of the victims…” How such theological elements are preserved within the non-conformist political theory of the Frankfurt School is the subject of this book.

Ali Shariati: Expanding the Sociological Canon. Ali Shariati is known as the “ideologue of the Iranian Revolution of 1979,” but this definition does not do justice to Ali Shariati as a classical social theorist on the global stage. This is to argue that what is needed is to focus on the sociological dimensions of his thought, thus regarding him as one of the most significant classics of alternative social theory. ~ Seyed Javad Miri