Autumn Rights Medical Guide 2019

NEUROLOGY
NEUROLOGY AND RELIGION
Edited by Alasdair Coles
University of Cambridge
and Joanna Collicutt
University of Oxford
November 2019
234 x 156 mm 304pp
14 b/w illus.
978-1-107-08260-1 Hardback
£49.99
This intriguing and innovative book examines what can be learnt about the
brain mechanisms underlying religious practice from studying people with
neurological disorders, such as strokes, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease.
Using a clinical case-study approach, the book analyses the interaction of
social influences, religious upbringing, and neurological disorders on beliefs in
a number of different religions. The interdisciplinary angle of the book ensures
a variety of perspectives to help understand how religious beliefs are affected
when cognitive function is impaired. Real examples are used throughout
the book, enabling readers to view people’s religious experience in context
as opposed to simulated scenarios. Examples include people whose beliefs
change due to neurological conditions, as well as how faith can help people in
coping with these disorders.
WHY IT WILL SELL
• The first book of its kind to
explore the relationship between
neurological disorders and belief
systems and practices
• A multidisciplinary text that
will appeal to neuroscientists,
psychologists, theologians and
pastors
• Uses an approach based on
clinical case studies, making
results more true-to-life
CONTENTS
Editor’s introduction; Part I. Basic Issues in the Neurological Study of Religion: 1. The discipline of
neurology; 2. The scientific study of religion; 3. Methodological hazards in the neuroscientific study of
religion; 4. Embodied cognition and the neurology of religion; 5. Phenomenology, neurology, psychiatry,
and religious commitment; 6. Philosophical hazards in the neuroscientific study of religion; 7. The glass
onion and the mereological fallacy; 8. Toward an Islamic neuropsychiatry: a classification of the diseases
of the head in Abul-Hasan ‘Alibn Sahl At-Tabari’s paradise of women; Part II. Neurology and Religion: 9.
Temporal lobe epilepsy, Dostoyevsky and irrational significance; 10. Parkinson’s disease, religious belief
and spirituality; 11. Beyond reasonable doubt: cognitive and neuropsychological implications for religious
disbelief; 12. Ramadam fasting and neurological disorders; 13. Autism and the panoply of religious
belief, disbelief and experience; 14. Personhood and religion in people with dementia; 15. Religion and
frontotemporal dementia; 16. Religion and spirituality in neuro-rehabilitation: a case study; 17. Eastern
spirituality, mind-body practices and neuro-rehabilitation; 18. Examining the continuum of life to determine
death: a Jewish perspective; 19. Near death and out of body experience: a case for dialogue between
scientist and theologian?
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Level: medical specialists/consultants, academic researchers
www.cambridge.org/rights
foreignrights@cambridge.org
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