Browse Results

Select your format based upon: 1) how you want to read your book, and 2) compatibility with your reading tool. To learn more about using Bookshare with your device, visit the Help Center.

Here is an overview of the specialized formats that Bookshare offers its members with links that go to the Help Center for more information.

• Bookshare Web Reader - A customized reading tool for Bookshare members offering all the features of DAISY with a single click of the "Read Now" link.
• DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System) - A digital book file format. DAISY books from Bookshare are DAISY 3.0 text files that work with just about every type of access technology that reads text. Books that contain images will have the download option of ‘DAISY Text with Images’.
• BRF (Braille Refreshable Format) - Digital Braille for use with refreshable Braille devices and Braille embossers.
• MP3 (MPEG audio layer 3) - Provides audio only with no text. These books are created with a text-to-speech engine and spoken by Kendra, a high quality synthetic voice from Ivona. Any device that supports MP3 playback is compatible.
• DAISY Audio - Similar to the DAISY option above; however, this option uses MP3 files created with our text-to-speech engine that utilizes Ivonas Kendra voice. This format will work with Daisy Audio compatible players such as Victor Reader Stream and Read2Go.
• EPUB - A standard e-book format that can be read on many tools, such as iBooks, Readium or others.
• Word - Accessible Word output, which can be unzipped and opened in any tool that allows .docx files

Sensing the Spirit: Toward the Future of Religious Life

Drawing on the work of Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, this book examines how secular culture affects both the living of Christian discipleship today and impacts how religious congregations engage in their own renewal and future. It argues that religious communities can do more than improve and fix the out of date conditions they met in the renewal after Vatican II. Calling on environmental, sociological and theological insights, this book asks how the ongoing “coming of the Kingdom” in the Spirit brings new gifts for these times and how congregations might respond beyond restorative or post-Christian solutions to new challenges confronting them. This book offers a renewed meaning of religious life in secular life and the gift it offers and receives from every culture in which it is embedded.

Sensing the Divine: Influences of Near-Death, Out-of-Body & Cognate Neurology in Shaping Early Religious Behaviours (New Approaches to the Scientific Study of Religion #9)

This book proposes another unique basis for the origins of religion from disturbances in brain function. It proposes the novel idea that near-death and out-of-body experiences (ND/OBE) engendered “a sense of the divine” in ancient man.As the author points out, key aspects of ND/OBE are thematic of all later established religions. These include journeys to heaven, sightings of brightly-lit godlike figures, and dead people now alive. Thus, ND/OBE could be the originating source of these spiritual motifs. To this, the author adds a fourth factor: various brain influences contribute to or modulate ND/OBE. Such cognate neurological disorders include REM-sleep intrusions, sleep paralysis, narcolepsy, and the Guillain-Barré syndrome. Errors due to aberrant switching between key neural control centers disrupt critical state-boundaries between consciousness and dreaming. This may induce NDE. Thus, in this state, subjects temporarily fail to understand where they are, undergo loss of self, and detached from the world. They imagine a “union with Gods.” Here, then, is the biological basis of ineffability.Ancient humans gained beliefs about the "supernatural" through day-to-day existence. This book argues that near death experiences and cognate neurological conditions, some genetically-determined, could have facilitated, even augmented such beliefs. Hence, in configuring another realm of “spiritual” experience beyond the known environment, these neurological possibilities offer effective traction.

Sensing Salvation in Early British Methodism: Accounts of Spiritual Experience, 1735-1765 (Routledge Methodist Studies Series)

This book examines the spiritual experiences of the first British Methodist lay people and the language used to describe those experiences. It reflects on physical manifestations such as shouting, weeping, groaning, visions, and out-of-body experiences and their role in the process of spiritual development. These experiences offer an intimate perspective on the surprisingly holistic origins of the evangelical revival. The study features autobiographical narratives and other first-hand manuscripts in which “ordinary” lay people recount their first impressions of Methodism, their conflicted feelings throughout the conversion process, their approach toward death and dying, and their mixed attitudes toward the task of writing itself. The book will be relevant to scholars of Methodism, evangelicalism and religious history as well as those interested in emotions and religious experience.

Sensing Salvation in Early British Methodism: Accounts of Spiritual Experience, 1735-1765 (Routledge Methodist Studies Series)

This book examines the spiritual experiences of the first British Methodist lay people and the language used to describe those experiences. It reflects on physical manifestations such as shouting, weeping, groaning, visions, and out-of-body experiences and their role in the process of spiritual development. These experiences offer an intimate perspective on the surprisingly holistic origins of the evangelical revival. The study features autobiographical narratives and other first-hand manuscripts in which “ordinary” lay people recount their first impressions of Methodism, their conflicted feelings throughout the conversion process, their approach toward death and dying, and their mixed attitudes toward the task of writing itself. The book will be relevant to scholars of Methodism, evangelicalism and religious history as well as those interested in emotions and religious experience.

Sensible Religion

Around the globe religion is under attack. Humanists, secularists and atheists depict believers as deluded and dangerous. The aim of this book is to challenge this perception. Sensible Religion defends the validity and emphasises the excitement of the religious quest across the faiths. It demonstrates that the practice of sensible religion is often a courageous path pitted against religious extremism and secularism. Written by committed believers from the major world's faiths, the book endorses the term 'sensible' as expressing religious reasonableness as well as sensitivity to criticism and new insights. Followers of the different traditions live ordinary lives in the mainstream of the world. This volume therefore addresses beliefs and the manner in which these convictions relate to social, political and ethical action. Countering the argument that religion is at root extremist and irrational, Sensible Religion brings together thoughtful and critical reflections by leading thinkers about humanity's spiritual quest.

Sensible Religion

Around the globe religion is under attack. Humanists, secularists and atheists depict believers as deluded and dangerous. The aim of this book is to challenge this perception. Sensible Religion defends the validity and emphasises the excitement of the religious quest across the faiths. It demonstrates that the practice of sensible religion is often a courageous path pitted against religious extremism and secularism. Written by committed believers from the major world's faiths, the book endorses the term 'sensible' as expressing religious reasonableness as well as sensitivity to criticism and new insights. Followers of the different traditions live ordinary lives in the mainstream of the world. This volume therefore addresses beliefs and the manner in which these convictions relate to social, political and ethical action. Countering the argument that religion is at root extremist and irrational, Sensible Religion brings together thoughtful and critical reflections by leading thinkers about humanity's spiritual quest.

Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History (Religion and Postmodernism)

Sensible Ecstasy investigates the attraction to excessive forms of mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers. With special attention to Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray, Amy Hollywood asks why resolutely secular, even anti-Christian intellectuals are drawn to affective, bodily, and widely denigrated forms of mysticism. What is particular to these thinkers, Hollywood reveals, is their attention to forms of mysticism associated with women. They regard mystics such as Angela of Foligno, Hadewijch, and Teresa of Avila not as emotionally excessive or escapist, but as unique in their ability to think outside of the restrictive oppositions that continue to afflict our understanding of subjectivity, the body, and sexual difference. Mystics such as these, like their twentieth-century descendants, bridge the gaps between action and contemplation, emotion and reason, and body and soul, offering new ways of thinking about language and the limits of representation.

Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History (Religion and Postmodernism)

Sensible Ecstasy investigates the attraction to excessive forms of mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers. With special attention to Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray, Amy Hollywood asks why resolutely secular, even anti-Christian intellectuals are drawn to affective, bodily, and widely denigrated forms of mysticism. What is particular to these thinkers, Hollywood reveals, is their attention to forms of mysticism associated with women. They regard mystics such as Angela of Foligno, Hadewijch, and Teresa of Avila not as emotionally excessive or escapist, but as unique in their ability to think outside of the restrictive oppositions that continue to afflict our understanding of subjectivity, the body, and sexual difference. Mystics such as these, like their twentieth-century descendants, bridge the gaps between action and contemplation, emotion and reason, and body and soul, offering new ways of thinking about language and the limits of representation.

Sensible Ecstasy: Mysticism, Sexual Difference, and the Demands of History (Religion and Postmodernism)

Sensible Ecstasy investigates the attraction to excessive forms of mysticism among twentieth-century French intellectuals and demonstrates the work that the figure of the mystic does for these thinkers. With special attention to Georges Bataille, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Lacan, and Luce Irigaray, Amy Hollywood asks why resolutely secular, even anti-Christian intellectuals are drawn to affective, bodily, and widely denigrated forms of mysticism. What is particular to these thinkers, Hollywood reveals, is their attention to forms of mysticism associated with women. They regard mystics such as Angela of Foligno, Hadewijch, and Teresa of Avila not as emotionally excessive or escapist, but as unique in their ability to think outside of the restrictive oppositions that continue to afflict our understanding of subjectivity, the body, and sexual difference. Mystics such as these, like their twentieth-century descendants, bridge the gaps between action and contemplation, emotion and reason, and body and soul, offering new ways of thinking about language and the limits of representation.

Senses Of Tradition: Continuity And Development In Catholic Faith

This book articulates a theory of Catholic tradition that departs from previous understandings. Drawing on the medieval concept of the four-fold sense of scripture, John Thiel proposes four interpretive senses of tradition. He also offers a theory of doctrinal development that reconciles Catholic belief in apostolic authority and continuity of tradition with a critical approach to the evidence of history.

Senses of Tradition: Continuity and Development in Catholic Faith

This book articulates a theory of Catholic tradition that departs from previous understandings. Drawing on the medieval concept of the four-fold sense of scripture, John Thiel proposes four interpretive senses of tradition. He also offers a theory of doctrinal development that reconciles Catholic belief in apostolic authority and continuity of tradition with a critical approach to the evidence of history.

The Senses of Scripture: Sensory Perception in the Hebrew Bible

The Senses of Scripture reveals the essence of biblical epistemology - the ways in which ancient Israelites thought about and used their sensorium. The theoretical introduction demonstrates that scholars need to liberate themselves from the Western bias that holds a pentasensory paradigm and prioritises the sense of sight. The discussion of the biblical material demonstrates that biblical scholars should follow a similar path. Through examination of associative and contextual patters the author reaches a septasensory model, including sight, hearing, speech, kinaesthesia, touch, taste, and smell. It is further demonstrated that the senses, according to the HB, are a divinely created physical experience, which symbolised human ability to act in a sovereign manner in the world. Despite the lack of a biblical Hebrew term 'sense', it seems that at times the merism sight and hearing serves that matter. Finally, the book discusses the longstanding dispute regarding the primacy of sight vs. hearing, and claims that although there is no strict sensory hierarchy evident in the text, sight holds a central space in biblical epistemology.

Senses of Mystery: Engaging with Nature and the Meaning of Life

In this beautifully written book, David E. Cooper uses a gentle walk through a tropical garden – the view of the fields and hills beyond it, the sound of birds, voices and flutes, the reflection of light in water, the play of shadows among the trees and the presence of strange animals – as an opportunity to reflect on experiences of nature and the mystery of existence. Covering an extensive range of topics, from Daoism to dogs, from gardening to walking, from Zen to Debussy, Cooper succeeds in conveying some deep and difficult philosophical ideas about the meaning of life in an engaging manner, showing how those ideas bear upon the practical question of how we should relate to our world and live our lives. A thought-provoking and compelling book, Senses of Mystery is a triumph of both storytelling and philosophy.

Senses of Mystery: Engaging with Nature and the Meaning of Life

In this beautifully written book, David E. Cooper uses a gentle walk through a tropical garden – the view of the fields and hills beyond it, the sound of birds, voices and flutes, the reflection of light in water, the play of shadows among the trees and the presence of strange animals – as an opportunity to reflect on experiences of nature and the mystery of existence. Covering an extensive range of topics, from Daoism to dogs, from gardening to walking, from Zen to Debussy, Cooper succeeds in conveying some deep and difficult philosophical ideas about the meaning of life in an engaging manner, showing how those ideas bear upon the practical question of how we should relate to our world and live our lives. A thought-provoking and compelling book, Senses of Mystery is a triumph of both storytelling and philosophy.

SENSE & SADNESS C: Syriac Chant in Aleppo

Sense and Sadness is an innovative study of music modality in relation to human emotion and the aesthetics of perception. It is also a musical story of survival through difficulty and pain. Focusing on chant at St George's Syrian Orthodox Church of Aleppo, author Tala Jarjour puts forward the concept of the emotional economy of aesthetics, which enables a new understanding of modal musicality in general and of Syriac musicality in particular. Jarjour combines insights from musicology and ethnomusicology, sound and religious studies, anthropology, history, East Christian and Middle Eastern studies, and the study of emotion, to seamlessly weave together multiple strands of a narrative which then becomes the very story it tells. Drawing on imagination and metaphor, she brings to the fore overlapping, at times contradictory, modes of sense and sense making. At once intimate and analytical, this ethnographic text entwines academic thinking with its subject(s) and subjectivities, portraying events, writing, people, and music as they unfold together through ritual commemorations and a devastating, ongoing war.

Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith

The image of the "cafeteria Catholic" -- one who blithely picks and chooses those doctrines that suit him -- is a staple of American culture. But are American Catholics really so nonchalant about how they integrate the ancient devotional practices of Catholicism with the everyday struggles of the modern world? For Sense of the Faithful, Jerome Baggett conducted 300 intensive interviews with members of six parishes to explore all aspects of this question. The book is an act of listening that allows ordinary Catholics to speak for themselves about how they understand their faith and how they draw upon it to find purpose in their lives. Many American Catholics, Baggett shows, do indeed have an uneasy relationship with the official teachings of the Church and struggle to live faithfully amidst the challenges of the modern world. But Baggett finds that it is a genuine struggle, one that reveals a dynamic and self-aware relationship to the Church's teachings. Moving beyond the simplistic categories of national surveys and the politically motivated pronouncements of pundits, Sense of the Faithful ultimately paints a more complex -- and more accurate -- portrait of what it is like to be Catholic in America today.

Sense of the Faithful: How American Catholics Live Their Faith

The image of the "cafeteria Catholic" -- one who blithely picks and chooses those doctrines that suit him -- is a staple of American culture. But are American Catholics really so nonchalant about how they integrate the ancient devotional practices of Catholicism with the everyday struggles of the modern world? For Sense of the Faithful, Jerome Baggett conducted 300 intensive interviews with members of six parishes to explore all aspects of this question. The book is an act of listening that allows ordinary Catholics to speak for themselves about how they understand their faith and how they draw upon it to find purpose in their lives. Many American Catholics, Baggett shows, do indeed have an uneasy relationship with the official teachings of the Church and struggle to live faithfully amidst the challenges of the modern world. But Baggett finds that it is a genuine struggle, one that reveals a dynamic and self-aware relationship to the Church's teachings. Moving beyond the simplistic categories of national surveys and the politically motivated pronouncements of pundits, Sense of the Faithful ultimately paints a more complex -- and more accurate -- portrait of what it is like to be Catholic in America today.

The Sense Of Suffering: Constructions Of Physical Pain In Early Modern Culture (Intersections Ser. #12)

The Sense of Self: Perspectives from Science and Zen Buddhism

At the heart of this book is one of the most ancient and profound question philosophers, spiritual seekers, and curious individuals have pondered since the beginning of history: “Who am I?”. Advances in modern science, and access to Zen tradition, have provided us with broader and richer understanding of this topic. Over the chapters the author, a psychologist and Zen master, investigates how the brain fosters a sense of an independent self, situating his research in the contexts of neuroscience, ecology, evolution, psychology, and of the principles Eastern wisdom traditions. The book explores a broad range of insights from brain science, evolutionary biology, astronomy, clinical psychology, thoughts and emotions, mental health disorders, and Zen Buddhism. This book will appeal to psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, counsellors, and researchers of Eastern traditions. General readers interested in the functioning of the brain will discover practical ways to integrate fascinating new findings on an age-old question into their everyday life.

The Sense of Creation: Experience and the God Beyond (Routledge Philosophy of Religion Series)

What kind of experience might help to confirm and make sense of the puzzling belief in divine creation, so central to the main monotheistic religions? Anselm and Aquinas developed a philosophical understanding of 'Creation' as an asymmetrical relationship between the world and God, that is, that the world is really related to God in a relationship of total dependence but God is in no way really related to or modified by this created world. This idea of an asymmetrical relationship is the key concept unifying all aspects of this book which discusses the three main inter-related questions in a philosophical discussion about God -- the question of meaning, the question of existence, and the question of co-existence. The book explores various 'ciphers' of this asymmetrical relationship in our pre-philosophical lived experience. These are experiences such as that of the relationship between our knowledge and what we know, or our sense of obligation to our vulnerable neighbour. It argues that deciphering such experiences helps to make sense of the 'asymmetrical' relation of creation and that it in turn makes sense of them. Masterson argues further that this idea of asymmetrical relationship provides insight into the main questions of philosophy of religion and is an illuminating source of critical dialogue with contemporary Anglo/American and Phenomenological approaches in philosophy of religion.

The Sense of Creation: Experience and the God Beyond (Routledge Philosophy of Religion Series)

What kind of experience might help to confirm and make sense of the puzzling belief in divine creation, so central to the main monotheistic religions? Anselm and Aquinas developed a philosophical understanding of 'Creation' as an asymmetrical relationship between the world and God, that is, that the world is really related to God in a relationship of total dependence but God is in no way really related to or modified by this created world. This idea of an asymmetrical relationship is the key concept unifying all aspects of this book which discusses the three main inter-related questions in a philosophical discussion about God -- the question of meaning, the question of existence, and the question of co-existence. The book explores various 'ciphers' of this asymmetrical relationship in our pre-philosophical lived experience. These are experiences such as that of the relationship between our knowledge and what we know, or our sense of obligation to our vulnerable neighbour. It argues that deciphering such experiences helps to make sense of the 'asymmetrical' relation of creation and that it in turn makes sense of them. Masterson argues further that this idea of asymmetrical relationship provides insight into the main questions of philosophy of religion and is an illuminating source of critical dialogue with contemporary Anglo/American and Phenomenological approaches in philosophy of religion.

The Sense of Biblical Narrative II: Structural Analyses in the Hebrew Bible (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)

These three studies continue the methods and aims of Volume I (1978, 2nd edn 1986), applying a structuralist method developed mainly from Claude LTvi-Strauss and A.J. Greimas to various texts and problems in the narrative sections of the Hebrew Bible. The new studies go beyond those of the previous volume, however, in two ways. They begin to take account of the deconstructive method of Derrida, the 'standing on its head' of structuralism; and they seek to make a contribution to feminist and liberation exegesis and hermeneutics. The first study is a deconstruction of Genesis 2-3, showing that the oppositions which the text purports to establish (including divine vs. human and male vs. female) are in fact assumed in advance. The second deals with the implicit political theory of the Deuteronomists, and discovers an 'indeterminate' attitude to monarchy. The third, inspired by Norman K. Gottwald and seeking, from a great methodological distance, to illuminate his problematic of Israel's origins, analyses the attitude implied by the Bible towards Transjordan and the Israelites who live there.

Sense of Biblical Narrative, I: Structural Analyses In The Hebrew Bible (The Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies)

David Jobling uses a structuralist method developed mainly from Claude Levi-Strauss and A.J. Greimas to apply to various texts and problems in the narrative sections of the Hebrew Bible. Areas of the Bible covered are 1 Samuel; Numbers 11-12, and 1 Kings 17-18.

A Sense of Belonging: Religion and Identity in British Fishing Communities (Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies)

Exploring the relationship between identity and religion in British Fishing Communities during the 19th and early 20th centuries, this volume focuses on three communities in the UK: Scarborough, Filey and Grimsby.The study offers a brief overview of the development of these communities and outlines the nature of the relationship between institutionalised and popular religion. It explores religion as a range of discourses or narratives that provide us with a way of viewing this matrix of meaning that has had a significant influence on the construction and maintenance of identity. It also examines the role of ritual and performance, both of which have been shown to play an important part in the daily lives of community members, not least in helping to provide and reinforce a sense of security, stability and belonging.

A Sense of Belonging: Religion and Identity in British Fishing Communities (Bloomsbury Advances in Religious Studies)

Exploring the relationship between identity and religion in British Fishing Communities during the 19th and early 20th centuries, this volume focuses on three communities in the UK: Scarborough, Filey and Grimsby.The study offers a brief overview of the development of these communities and outlines the nature of the relationship between institutionalised and popular religion. It explores religion as a range of discourses or narratives that provide us with a way of viewing this matrix of meaning that has had a significant influence on the construction and maintenance of identity. It also examines the role of ritual and performance, both of which have been shown to play an important part in the daily lives of community members, not least in helping to provide and reinforce a sense of security, stability and belonging.