Sample of Books in the Catalog
The books listed below are just a sample of the electronic and physical books available in the library.
If, in your searching, you come across a book that is not available at Rowan, search for the book in WorldCat, an online catalog of thousands of libraries. Grab the ISBN from the entry on WorldCat, and then use EZ-Borrow to have the book delivered to Rowan.
If you find a book in the Rowan or WorldCat catalog that you think is appropriate and want to see similar titles look for the Library of Congress Subject Headings. Clicking on these headings will bring up every record in the Catalog that shares that heading and you'll find more books on the subject.
The books listed below are just a sample of the resources Rowan has. Please use the catalog to search for works that are related to your topic.
Finding Physical Books in the Library
Finding books through the Library Catalog can be challenging when you're first starting your research and you don't know the exact subject or keywords to search with. Or if you have found a book or two that are helpful and you want to find similar titles, browsing through the stacks can be very helpful.
To find out where in the stacks you should look, you need the Library of Congress Classification for your subject. If you click that link you will find a list of the broadest subjects. Click on the link that best describes your topic and you will be given all the sub-classifications in that topic.
In this case, you will probably pick "B-Philosophy, Psychology, Religion" and it will bring you to a list of the SubClasses. Each of those subclasses is further broken down. Click on which one seems most appropriate and you will be brought to the narrower topics within that subclass. Once you find your topic in that narrower list, look at the numbers and letters listed on the left. This is the range of call numbers in the library the book would have. The first two letters tell you where in Campbell library to look. Letters A-H are located in the stacks on the 3rd floor. Letters H-Z are in the stacks on the fourth floor. All the stacks have signs at the end of them to help you locate the books. Browse through the books that fall within the range of numbers after the letters to find books the library has on that topic.
For example, if you wanted to see books that dealt with Creation, you see that the classification is BL224-227. So you would then go to the 3rd floor stacks, look for BL and then browse through the books that had call numbers between BL224 and BL227.
Databases of Ebooks
- Ebook Central ebook collection This link opens in a new windowCollection of scholarly e-books in many academic disciplines.
- Humanities E-Book This link opens in a new windowAn online fully searchable collection of high-quality ebooks selected by scholars from across the humanities and available online to multiple users.
Books in Campbell Library
Digital Hinduism by
This edited volume seeks to build a scholarly discourse about how Hinduism is being defined, reformed, and rearticulated in the digital era and how these changes are impacting the way Hindus view their own religious identities. It seeks to interrogate how digital Hinduism has been shaped in response to the dominant framing of the religion, which has often relied on postcolonial narratives devoid of context and an overemphasis on the geopolitics of the Indian subcontinent post-partition. From this perspective, this volume challenges previous frameworks of how Hinduism has been studied, particularly in the West, where Marxist and Orientalist approaches are often ill-fitting paradigms to understanding Hinduism. This volume engages with and critiques some of these approaches while also enriching existing models of research within media studies, ethnography, cultural studies, and religion.
ISBN: 9781498559171Publication Date: 2017-11-01
Hinduism - Past and Present by
Hinduism is currently followed by one-fifth of humankind. Far from a monolithic theistic tradition, the religion comprises thousands of gods, a complex caste system, and hundreds of languages and dialects. Such internal plurality inspires vastly ranging rites and practices amongst Hinduism's hundreds of millions of adherents. It is therefore not surprising that scholars have been hesitant to define universal Hindu beliefs and practices. In this book, Axel Michaels breaks this trend. He examines the traditions, beliefs, and rituals Hindus hold in common through the lens of what he deems its "identificatory habitus," a cohesive force that binds Hindu religions together and fortifies them against foreign influences. Thus, in his analysis, Michaels not only locates Hinduism's profoundly differentiating qualities, but also provides the framework for an analysis of its social and religious coherence. Michaels blends his insightful arguments and probing questions with introductions to major historical epochs, ample textual sources as well as detailed analyses of major life-cycle rituals, the caste system, forms of spiritualism, devotionalism, ritualism, and heroism. Along the way he points out that Hinduism has endured and repeatedly resisted the missionary zeal and universalist claims of Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists. He also contrasts traditional Hinduism with the religions of the West, "where the self is preferred to the not-self, and where freedom in the world is more important than liberation from the world." Engaging and accessible, this book will appeal to laypersons and scholars alike as the most comprehensive introduction to Hinduism yet published. Not only is Hinduism refreshingly new in its methodological approach, but it also presents a broad range of meticulous scholarship in a clear, readable style, integrating Indology, religious studies, philosophy, anthropological theory and fieldwork, and sweeping analyses of Hindu texts.
ISBN: 0691089523Publication Date: 2003-12-28
After the Prophet by
Narrative history at its most compelling,After the Prophetallows readers to grasp the power and depth of the Shia-Sunni split as never before. Even as Muhammad lay dying, the battle over who would succeed him as the ruler of the Muslim people had begun. And as Lesley Hazleton shows in her gripping historyAfter the Prophet, the battle has never ended. This is the foundation story of the Shia-Sunni split in Islam, a magnificent tale of power, intrigue, assassination, and passionate faith. Starting in Arabia in the year 632 and reaching its terrible breaking point fifty years later in Iraq, it still shapes modern headlines from Iran’s Islamic Revolution to the Iraq civil war. The succession crisis set Muhammad’s son-in-law, the philosopher-warrior Ali, in opposition to the controversial Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite wife. She would defy all expectations by leading an army against Ali, urging on her warriors in the thick of battle. The ultimate breaking point came when soldiers of the first Sunni dynasty massacred seventy-two warriors led by Ali’s son, Hussein, at Karbala in Iraq, forging the Shia-Sunni split in blood. Hussein’s ordeal would quickly become the Passion story at the core of Shia Islam, and history would be transformed into sacred history. Balancing past and present, Lesley Hazleton shows how this story is alive in Middle Eastern hearts and minds today, as though it had just happened. Even as she tells what happened in the seventh century, she never lets the reader lose sight of where those events have left us, and why they matter so much now as the struggle for dominance in the Muslim world plays out in the cities and mountains of Iraq and Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Placed squarely at the volatile intersection of religion and politics, history and current events, the vividly narratedAfter the Prophetis compulsive reading-and an emotional and political revelation for Western readers. From the Hardcover edition.
ISBN: 0385523939Publication Date: 2009-09-15
American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism by
Following the events of September 11, 2001, American Muslims found themselves under unprecedented scrutiny. Muslim communities in the United States suffered from negative representations of their religion, but they also experienced increased interest in aspects of their faith and cultures. They seized the opportunity to shape the intellectual contribution of American Muslims to contemporary Muslim thought as never before. Muslim women in particular--often assumed to be silenced, oppressed members of their own communities--challenged stereotypes through their writing, seeking to express what it means to be a Muslim woman in America and carrying out intra-Muslim debates about gender roles and women's participation in society. Hammer looks at the work of significant female American Muslim writers, scholars, and activists, using their writings as a lens for a larger discussion of Muslim intellectual production in America and beyond. Centered on the controversial women-led Friday prayer in March 2005, Hammer uses this event and its aftermath to address themes of faith, community, and public opinion. Tracing the writings of American Muslim women since 1990, the author covers an extensive list of authors, including Amina Wadud, Leila Ahmed, Asma Barlas, Riffat Hassan, Mohja Kahf, Azizah al-Hibri, Asra Normani, and Asma Gull Hasan. Hammer deftly examines each author's writings, demonstrating that the debates that concern American Muslim women are at the heart of modern Muslim debates worldwide. While gender is the catalyst for Hammer's study, her examination of these women's intellectual output touches on themes central to contemporary Islam: authority, tradition, Islamic law, justice, and authenticity.
ISBN: 0292735553Publication Date: 2012-04-01
Black Crescent by
Beginning with Latin America in the fifteenth century, this book, first published in 2005, is a social history of the experiences of African Muslims and their descendants throughout the Americas, including the Caribbean. The record under slavery is examined, as is the post-slavery period into the twentieth century. The experiences vary, arguably due to some extent to the Old World context. Muslim revolts in Brazil are also discussed, especially in 1835, by way of a nuanced analysis. The second part of the book looks at the emergence of Islam among the African-descended in the United States in the twentieth century, with successive chapters on Noble Drew Ali, Elijah Muhammad, and Malcolm X, with a view to explaining how orthodoxy arose from varied unorthodox roots.
ISBN: 0521600790Publication Date: 2005-04-04
After the Evil by
The evil of the holocaust demands a radical rethink of the traditional Christian understanding of Judaism. This does not mean jettisoning Christianity's deepest convictions in order to make it conform to Judaism. Rather, Richard Harries develops the work of recent Jewish scholarship to discernresonances between central Christian and Jewish beliefs.This thought-provoking book offers fresh approaches to contentious and sensitive issues. A key chapter on the nature of forgiveness is sympathetic to the Jewish charge that Christians talk much too easily about forgiveness. Another chapter on suffering in Judaism and Christianity rejects the usualstereotypes and argues for important common ground, for example in the idea that God suffers in the suffering of his people. There are also chapters on the state of Israel and the place of Jerusalem in Christian and Jewish thought.Richard Harries argues that the basic covenant is not with either Judaism or Christianity but with humanity. These, like other religions, are different, distinctive voices in response to God's primal affirmation of human life, which for Christians is achieved and given in the life, death, andresurrection of Jesus Christ.In the light of this the author maintains - controversially - that Christians should not be trying to convert Jews to Christianity. Rather Jews and Christians should stand together and build on the great amount they have in common to work together for a better world.
ISBN: 0199263132Publication Date: 2003-08-14
American Reform Judaism by
The only comprehensive and up-to-date look at Reform Judaism, this book analyzes the forces currently challenging the Reform movement, now the largest Jewish denomination in the United States. To distinguish itself from Orthodox and Conservative Judaism, the Reform movement tries to be an egalitarian, open, and innovative version of the faith true to the spirit of the tradition but nonetheless fully compatible with modern secular life. Promoting itself in this way, Reform Judaism has been tremendously successful in recruiting a variety of people--intermarried families, feminists, gays and lesbians, and interracial families among others--who resist more traditional forms of worship. As an unintended result of this success, the movement now struggles with an identity crisis brought on by its liberal theology, which teaches that each Jew is free to practice Judaism more or less as he or she pleases. In the absence of the authority that comes from a theology based on a commanding, all-powerful God, can Reform Judaism continue to thrive? Can it be broadly inclusive and still be uniquely and authentically Jewish? Taking this question as his point of departure, Dana Evan Kaplan provides a broad overview of the American Reform movement and its history, theology, and politics. He then takes a hard look at the challenges the movement faces as it attempts to reinvent itself in the new millennium. In so doing, Kaplan gives the reader a sense of where Reform Judaism has come from, where it stands on the major issues, and where it may be going. Addressing the issues that have confronted the movement--including the ordination of women, acceptance of homosexuality, the problem of assimilation, the question of rabbinic officiation at intermarriages, the struggle for acceptance in Israel, and Jewish education and others--Kaplan sheds light on the connection between Reform ideology and cultural realities. He unflinchingly, yet optimistically, assesses the movement's future and cautions that stormy weather may be ahead.
ISBN: 0813532183Publication Date: 2003-04-29
