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Discursive study of religion (DSR) has become an increasingly recognised and applied approach to the study of religion. It asks: What passes for 'religion' in society? How do different constructions of 'religion' affect other social spheres such as politics, law, and everyday life, and vice versa? In this collection, Finnish scholars—many of them internationally recognized authorities on the subject—discuss DSR's theoretical underpinnings, map the variety of discursive approaches, and apply the approach to case studies of politics, spirituality, and history. The book can be used as a textbook for religion and method courses in various disciplines.

"Drawing on the debate on mediatization of politics this study identifies cultural meanings, institutional practices and styles of argumentation as three theoretical dimensions that illuminate both the construction of journalistic publicity and its potential uses in political action. Based on the theoretical model, environmental politics is identified as a specific context for mediatization. In environmental politics, the interplay of cultural meanings, institutional practices and styles of argumentation define the construction and use of journalistic publicity in a way that differs from other fields of politics.

The empirical part of this study analyzes the newspaper coverage of three Finnish environmental conflicts from 1971, 1994 and 2012. The theoretical model is transformed into an analytical framework that focuses on discursive construction of the conflicts (cultural meanings), journalistic frames, narration and opinion-giving in the coverage of the conflicts and the publicity practices adopted by actors during the conflicts (institutional practices) and legitimation of arguments (styles of argumentation).

According to this study, the relation between media and politics in the field of environmental politics is defined by the increasing cultural significance of environmental protection from the 1970s to the present. In the newspaper coverage of the three environmental conflicts studied, changes on the frames, narration and opinion-giving of journalism resonated with this cultural change. However, the significance of environmental protection in the framing, narration and opinion-giving of journalism was greater in the national newspaper studied compared to the local newspapers selected based on their proximity to the conflict sites. Styles of argumentation appeared to be more case dependent. The increasing cultural significance of environmental protection did not have a clear effect on how arguments were legitimated. "

"Matthias Alexander Castrén's (1813–1852) Luentoja suomalaisesta mytologiasta ('Lectures on Finnish Mythology', originally Swedish 'Föreläsningar i finsk mytologi') is a key work in the research history of Finnish mythology. This is the first Finnish translation of it. Despite 'Lectures' in the label, the work is a coherent book. It makes a systematic approach to ancient Finnish religion on the basis of earlier mythographers, Castrén's fieldwork among Finnic peoples and the latest European research trends of the first half of the 19th century. Even though Castrén's Lectures significantly developed Finnish mythography and it served as a standard work for half a century, its significance was largely forgotten when new research paradigms were introduced in the course of the 20th century. The work is an important part of the history of Finnish research in religions, linguistics and ethnography and it also reflects the state of the study of mythology in Europe in the middle of the 19th century. The book is lively written and therefore, it meets the taste of the general public in addition to researchers. This edition includes a concise introduction to Lectures' historical context, a scientific commentary and exhaustive indexes.

M. A. Castrén is renown especially as a linguist and explorer who worked among Siberian peoples but his work was marked also by interest in Finnishness at a time when the idea of a Finnish nation was developing. Lectures was Castrén's last work. He finished the book in his deathbed, and it was published posthumously in 1853.

The translator and editor of the Lectures, Joonas Ahola, PhD, is an expert in Old Norse language and mythology as well as kalevala-meter poetry. The other author of the introduction, Karina Lukin, PhD, is an expert of North Siberian cultures and 19th century expeditions among them.
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