Rethinking Marxism and Religion for an Emancipatory Future

This collection of essays responds to a growing resurgence of Marxist scholarship in the period since 2008. The Introduction describes why religion is a particular focus for Marxist scholarship in this conjuncture and sets out the rationale for this particular set of essays in terms of shared emphasis on the performative. Social actors operating under diverse contexts make use of Marxist and other ideas to pursue their interest in emancipation. The centrality of religion to these projects is a problem for Marxist theory, which predicts the decline of religious belief under modern conditions, and a challenge for Marxist practice, to which it has responded in various ways. The book is organised into two sections, the first on theory and the second a series of case studies that reflect the diversity of Marxism’s relationships with religion in the contemporary world.