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White reviews Handbook of the Sociology of Religion edited by Michele Dillon.

The potential of visual research methods in the sociology of religion is vast, but largely untapped. This comes as a surprise, however, given the visual, symbolic, and material nature of religion and spirituality. Evidence of religious faith and practice is materially present in everything from clothing and jewelry to artifacts found in people's homes and workplaces. Not only is religion's symbolic and material presence palpable throughout society, it also informs attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of countless people worldwide. Words-and-numbers approaches to social research, however, sometime.

This article offers an example of a global approach to teaching the sociology of religion, a course that typically focuses on American religious phenomena. It builds on three interventions in the movement for a global sociology: connecting the local and global, moving beyond methodological nationalism, and developing an ethical orientation toward sociological questions. Such an approach encourages students to question taken-for-granted assumptions about religion and gain conceptual clarity. Specifically, the course goals are to challenge students' preconceptions about the global South as well as the global North and complicate and historicize the definition of religion. I describe class content and activities on five major themes, each carefully connected to globalization: defining religion, orthodox women, secularism, conversions and revivals, and violence. Assessment of student learning includes a compilation of student responses to final exam questions and their own final statements of what they learned.

Regardless of the role religion plays in the world today, ie despite the significant deprivatization of faith in the sociocultural space & in politics, contemporary Czech sociology of religion is in rather poor shape. The author presents a number of factors to explain this, including the legacy of the communist regime, & low levels of church attendance in the Czech Republic, the latter having been erroneously interpreted as non-religiosity. But the author focuses mainly one other reason: the discordant legacy of Czech pre-communist sociology of religion & the neighboring field of social studies. Two different traditions of the subject are identified - the 'profane' sociology of religion, founded by T. G. Masaryk, & Catholic religious sociology. Although the former legacy declared itself non-religious & even anti-clerical, in the case of many of its followers this claim was only partially true. In the 1930s & 1940s, when they (especially Prague's sociological school, which formed a certain opposition to Masaryk) turned more toward Durkheimian attitudes, they emphasized, for example, their own religious experience as a necessary tool for understanding piety. On the other hand, Catholic religious sociology was closely related to church activism, policy, & contemporary social work, ie, strictly conservative & anti-modern. Its way of understanding modern society was discounted by the former group of scholars, though to at least some degree, the two legacies shared similar methodological approaches. Both certainly seem outdated today, but their theoretical & methodological discussions & their findings remain of importance. Consequently, a re-thinking of these legacies & their theoretical backgrounds is still significant for the sociology of religion today.

This Handbook showcases research and thinking in the sociology of religion. The contributors, all active writers and researchers in the area, provide original chapters focusing on select aspects of their own engagement with the field. Aimed at students and scholars who want to know more about the sociology of religion, this handbook also provides a resource for sociologists in general by integrating broader questions of sociology (e.g. demography, ethnicity, life course, inequality, political sociology) into the analysis of religion. Broadly inclusive of traditional research topics (modernity, secularization, politics) as well as newer interests (feminism, spirituality, faith based community action), this handbook illustrates the validity of diverse theoretical perspectives and research designs to understanding the multi-layered nature of religion as a sociological phenomenon

1. Visual sociology and the sociology of religion / Roman R. Williams -- 2. Exploring an urban ecology visually : spatial approaches to studying social contrasts along Germantown Avenue / Katie Day -- 3. Mapping congregational responses to re-urbanization and gentrification / Mark T. Mulder -- 4. Seeing Islam in global cities : a spatial semiotic analysis / Jerome Krase and Timothy Shortell -- 5. Religious symbols on rearview mirrors : displays of faith or hopes for safe travel? / Anders Vassenden and Mette Andersson -- 6. From backstage to front : the role of the vestry in managing clergy self-presentation / Philip Richter -- 7. Visual experiencing and communicating : visual sociology as a truly comprehensive experience / Roberto Cipriani and Emanuela C. Del Re -- 8. Videographic analysis of religious and secular rituals : examples from a study on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day / Bernt Schnettler, Alejandro Baer, and Marlen Rabl -- 9. Visual ethics, feminist ethnography, and the study of Holocaust memorialization / Janet Jacobs -- 10. Reconfiguring stained glass : religion, domestic violence, and visual engagement / Catherine Holtmann and Nancy Nason-Clark -- 11. Why study religion visually? / Roman R. Williams.