“Who is eligible to enter the inexhaustible conversation about how to experience life”? asks Michael Shapiro in this brilliant and wide-ranging book. Like a 21st century William James, Shapiro restages traditional questions of theology in connection with theatricality, cinema, and phenomenology. Focused on “media-involved disruptive events, either actual or imagined,” Shapiro moves from scenes of personal despair to worldly challenges like climate change. Following an itinerary both quirky and necessary, the Phenomenology of Religious Belief is a must-read for those working in religious studies, political theory, cinema studies, and phenomenology.

Bonnie Honig, Nancy Duke Lewis Professor, Modern Culture and Media (MCM) and Political Science, Brown University, USA

In this book, apostle Paul, Ingmar Bergman, Philip Dick, and William James hold dialogues about theophanies and the will to believe. Participating in their unexpected encounters brings striking insights in how genres and media impact narratives of religious experience and situate religious communities. A seminal approach to phenomenology of belief.

Martin Nitsche, Institute of Philosophy, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague