A comprehensive collection of the pioneering work of Leonard Norman Primiano, one of the preeminent scholars in religious studies
In 1995, Leonard Norman Primiano introduced the idea of -vernacular religion.- He coined this term to overcome the denigration implied in the concept of -folk religion- or -popular religion,- which was juxtaposed to -elite religion.- This two-tiered model suggested that religion existed somewhere in a pure form and that the folk version transforms it. Instead, Primiano urged scholars to adopt an inductive approach to the study of religion and to pay attention to experiential aspects of belief systems, ultimately redressing a heritage of scholarly misinterpretation.
Here for the first time, Leonard Norman Primiano-s pioneering works have been collected into one volume, providing a foundational look at one of the preeminent scholars of twentieth-century religious studies. Vernacular Religion makes visible the dimensions of vernacular