This book presents a broad sociological perspective on the contemporary issues facing Christian monasticism. Since the founding work of Max Weber, the sociology of monasticism has received little attention. However, the field is now being revitalized by some new research. Focusing on Christian monks and nuns, the contributors explore continuity and discontinuity with the past in what superficially might appear a monolithic tradition. Contributors speak not only about monasticism in Europe and the United States but also in Africa and Latin America, a different landscape where the question of recruitment does not figure among issues considered as problematic.

Isabelle Jonveaux is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Graz, Austria. After completing her doctoral research about monastic economy in modern monasteries in Europe at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), and at the University of Trento (Italy), she continued post-doctoral research about asceticism in Catholic monasticism. She is currently preparing her habilitation (University of Fribourg, Switzerland) about secular asceticism and aspirations to simple life. Publications: Le Monastére au travail. Paris: Bayard, 2011, and Dieu en ligne. Paris: Bayard, 2013.

Stefania Palmisano is Lecturer in the Sociology of Organization and of the Sociology of Religious Organizations at the University of Turin; Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion in Lancaster University (UK) and at the Department of Sociology in Boston University. She is currently writing a book entitled Exploring New Monastic Communities to be published by Routledge.

Introduction. Monasticism: Crucial Questions

Chapter 1. The Benedictine Tradition since Vatican II: Catholic Monasticism in the Modern World

Chapter 2. Current Mutations of the Monastic Novitiate: Emerging Institutional Imperatives, New Forms of Obedience

Chapter 3. Does Monasticism Still Have a Future? Demographical Evolution and Monastic Identity in Europe and Outside Europe

Chapter 4. Economic Management under a Vow of Poverty: Monastic Management in Burkina Faso

Chapter 5. Visiting Abbeys: Changing Monastic Identities and the Attraction of Abbeys

Chapter 6. Holy Holidays: Why is Monastic Tourism Attractive? Insight from Italian Catholic Monasticism

Chapter 7. Prayer in an American Cistercian Monastery

Chapter 8. A Worldly Monasticism: New Catholic Spiritualities and Secularisation of Monastic Culture in Latin America

Chapter 9. New Monasticism as 'Reflexive Spirituality': A Case Study of the Simple Way

Chapter 10. The Community of the Resurrection: A Case Study in the (Re)Emergence/Evolution of Anglican/English Monasticism

Chapter 11. The Everyday Life of Monks: English Benedictine Identity and the Performance of Proximity

Chapter 12. The Making of the Relational Christian Self of New Monastics in the UK, US, and Canada