Books by Daniel Gold

This book addresses a fundamental dilemma in religious studies. Exploring the tension between humanistic and social scientific approaches to thinking and writing about religion, Daniel Gold develops a line of argument that begins with the aesthetics of academic writing in the field. He shows that successful writers on religion employ characteristic aesthetic strategies in communicating their visions of human truths. Gold examines these strategies with regard to epistemology and to the study of religion as a collective endeavor.

Provincial Hinduism explores intersecting religious domains of a medium-sized Indian city. Temples and Sufi shrines, the dynamics of caste and class, and specifically modern gurus and movements are described in a Hindu world that has experienced impacts of globalization but is still close to its traditional roots.