Overview
- Uniquely and simultaneously considers religious hair practices from the believer’s spiritual viewpoint, theology, history, sociology and psychology
- Conveys how head coverings like the hijab and turban and hair practices like shaving and cutting fit into the history and beliefs of the six largest religious traditions
- Uncovers the hidden meanings of cutting, shaving, and covering, through the insights of psychologists and sociologists
- Contains illustrations as well as interviews
Part of the book series: Popular Culture, Religion and Society. A Social-Scientific Approach (POPCULT, volume 4)
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About this book
This book explores the fascinating world of religious hair observances within six religious traditions that account for 77% of the world’s adherents: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Symbolic use of hair has been, and remains, prevalent in all six and carries significant amounts of religious and social meaning. Hair is a unique body substance. It can be shaped and colored, removed from us without pain but still retain an individual’s essence, signal our age, sex, and sexual maturity, and much, much more.
The book’s approach is to situate each practice within its tradition. That requires a study of its foundational leaders and their teachings, sacred texts (where they mention hair), its rites and rituals, ideas of religious power and subsequent historical development. Contemporary practitioners are interviewed for their motivations. Even more insight can be gleaned by searching beyond an overt religious purpose. Social scientists from anthropology, sociology, psychology, and related fields bring their research to deliver added perceptions.
The author reveals how hair practices are created from ancient psychological and cultural impulses, become modified by time, culture and religious intent, and are adopted by adherents for reasons ranging from personal religious expression to group identity. This book is written for the interested observer of our increasingly diverse society and for the student of comparative religion and sociology. It will change forever how you see hair.
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Keywords
- Hair and Religion
- Body as Symbol
- Comparative World Religions
- Religious ritual
- Religious Purity Rites
- Religious head coverings
- Female head coverings
- head shaving and religion
- hair and identity in ancient israel
- religious head shaving
- material religion
- hair as religious symbol
- religious purity and pollution
- religious gender boundaries
- Corinthians 11 meaning
- Mohammed’s hair or beard
- banning hijab in France
- Hindu hair rituals
- Buddha iconography
- Sikh turban
Table of contents (12 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Part III
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
“I personally learned a lot reading the book, which is probably the best criterion for evaluating the merits of any academic book. I learned a lot because as a natural scientist, the premises and methods used Innes were foreign to me. … For what it is, it is very good. I highly recommend it for anyone interested about learning more about the relationship between hair and religion from a historical and sociological perspective.” (Jay R. Feierman, Reviews in Science, Religion and Theology, Issue (1-2), June, 2022)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
William C. Innes, Jr. earned a PhD in Ecclesiastical History from the University of St. Andrews (Scotland), and has written over his career on religion and society. Currently, he teaches in Africa and Asia in an MAOL program through Development Associates International, and in the University of Delaware’s Life-Long Learning program.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Religious Hair Display and Its Meanings
Authors: William C. Innes, Jr
Series Title: Popular Culture, Religion and Society. A Social-Scientific Approach
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-69974-1
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Religion and Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69973-4Published: 01 May 2021
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-69976-5Published: 02 May 2022
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-69974-1Published: 30 April 2021
Series ISSN: 2509-3223
Series E-ISSN: 2509-3231
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XV, 279
Number of Illustrations: 73 b/w illustrations
Topics: Comparative Religion, Sociology of Religion, Religion and Psychology