Thanks, Flora, for pointing out that fact. There is, obviously, a bias here, but not necessarily in DB and PG---two additional while males! I think the study of "emergence" can be seen as a luxury topic. People may see it as non-critical, and do not see it as a field of inquiry that will immediately solve real problems. (I beg to differ). I suspect that the few women and other underrepresented groups are attracted, first, to the major topics, and slowly diffuse into "fringe" areas. I know in Computer Science, when the economy is bad, the numbers of students going into CS drops. But the numbers of women and other underrepresented groups going into CS is hit even harder. So, it may be that there really are fewer books about emergence by non-white males. It may be an emergent effect of many other social issues. But we will be on the look out for realted topics that don't necessaily use the same keywords. Having said that, here are two more old white guys commenting on agency and religion. Dan Dennett has a new book out titled "Breaking the spell". In a NYTimes bookreview, Leon Wieseltier writes: What follows [in the book] is, in brief, Dennett's natural history of religion. It begins with the elementary assertion that "everything that moves needs something like a mind, to keep it out of harm's way and help it find the good things." To this end, there arose in very ancient times the evolutionary adaptation that one researcher has called a "hyperactive agent detection device, or HADD." This cognitive skill taught us, or a very early version of us, that we live in a world of other minds — and taught us too well, because it instilled "the urge to treat things — especially frustrating things — as agents with beliefs and desires." This urge is "deeply rooted in human biology," and it results in a "fantasy-generation process" that left us "finding agency wherever anything puzzles or frightens us." This is very relevant to agency and current discussions here. This book (and others by Dennett) may also be interesting choices for midterm book reports.