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One hundred years after the publication of the great sociological treatise, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, this new volume shows how aptly Durkheim s theories still resonate with the study of contemporary and historical religious societies. The volume applies the Durkheimian model to multiple cases, probing its resilience, wondering where it might be tweaked, and asking which aspects have best stood the test of time. A dialogue between theory and ethnography, this book shows how Durkheimian sociology has become a mainstay of social thought and theory, pointing to multiple ways in which Durkheim s work on religion remains relevant to our thinking about culture.

Sondra L. Hausner is Oxford¹s first University Lecturer in the Study of Religion. An anthropologist by training, she teaches social and cultural theories of religion in the Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford. Her ethnographic work focuses on Himalayan and South Asian religions and the social dynamics of ritual. She won the Joseph W. Elder Prize in the Indian Social Sciences from the American Institute of Indian Studies for her Durkheim-inspired monograph, Wandering with Sadhus: Ascetics in the Hindu Himalayas (Indiana University Press, 2007).