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Baden-Baden: Nomos. ISBN 978-3-8487-8034-1 (Print), 978-3-7489-2426-5 (ePDF), 99 €, 496 pages, soft cover.

Introducing the new journal Crosscultural Studies of Religion and Theology –Interdisciplinary Perspectives I take a look at spirit possession and the many forms inwhich it is practiced in Africa today. I suggest four approaches to a crosscultural study ofpossession rituals: a comparative approach, a view towards entangled histories, a transregionalperspective and a reflection on academic theorizing which can be understood asa process of cultural translation itself. My research is grounded in aesthetics of religionwhich methodologically integrates performative, cognitive, material and historical aspectsof religion into a sensory paradigm. I provide examples of trance rituals and spiritpantheons from across the continent and the Diaspora to underscore the highly dynamicnature of this contemporary form of spirituality.