What Matters? Ethnographies of Value in a Not So Secular Age

(Columbia University Press) This collection considers religious and secular categories and what they mean to those who seek valuable, ethical lives. Bender and Taves particularly examine how these terms are used in a range of cultural sites, moving beyond theoretical definitions to determine empirically how these terms are currently used. Taves is a professor of religious studies at University of California Santa Barbara, and Bender is an associate professor of religion at Columbia University.