Spirituality and Alternativity in Contemporary Japan: Beyond Religion?

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Ioannis Gaitanidis (Chiba University, Japan) Bettina E Schmidt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David UK)

Spirituality and Alternativity in Contemporary Japan

Beyond Religion?

Ioannis Gaitanidis (Chiba University, Japan), Bettina E Schmidt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David UK), Steven Sutcliffe (University of Edinburgh UK) , William Sweetman (University of Otago New Zealand)

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English

Bloomsbury Academic
30 May 2024

Other non-Christian religions

Series: Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies

This book critically analyses the creation and effects of spirituality as both discourse and practice in Japan. It shows how the value of spirituality has been sustained by scholars who have wished for a more civic role for religion; by the publishing industry whose exponential growth in the 1980s fashioned those who later identified as the representatives of this “new spirituality culture”; by “spiritual therapists” who have sought to eke out a livelihood in an increasingly professionalized and regulated therapeutic field; and by the cruel optimism of an increasingly precarious workforce placing its hopes in the imagined alternative that the supirichuaru represents. Ioannis Gaitanidis offers a new transdisciplinary conceptualisation of ‘alternativity’ that can be applied across and beyond the disciplines of religious studies, media studies, popular culture studies and the anthropology/sociology of medicine.

By: Ioannis Gaitanidis (Chiba University Japan)
Edited by: Bettina E Schmidt (University of Wales Trinity Saint David UK), Steven Sutcliffe (University of Edinburgh UK), William Sweetman (University of Otago New Zealand)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781350262652
ISBN 10: 135026265X
Series: Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies
Pages: 264
Publication Date: 30 May 2024
Audience: College/higher education , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Ioannis Gaitanidis is Associate Professor at the Graduate School of Global and Transdisciplinary Studies, Chiba University, Japan.

Reviews for Spirituality and Alternativity in Contemporary Japan: Beyond Religion?

This book is essential reading for scholars and students interested in spirituality, what it does, and how it became a business, lifestyle and scholarly discipline in contemporary Japan. Rigorously researched and based on extensive original materials, it provides invaluable insights and is an important addition to the field. * Erica Baffelli, Professor of Japanese Studies, University of Manchester, UK * An important contribution to the study of contemporary Japanese religion. This volume is insightful and rich in ethnographic detail, portraying spiritual therapists as freelance workers in a precarious economy. It also provides much-needed correctives to academic narratives of the so-called “spirituality boom” or “commodification of religion”. * Aike P. Rots, Associate Professor of Japan Studies, University of Oslo, Norway *