Podcasts by New Books in Religion

Making Meaning Episode 23: Limits and Love from 2023-02-26T09:00

We are finite creatures who struggle to accept our finitude. But if we can learn to embrace our limits, we will find that our relations with one another, the created world, and God allow us to expe...

Making Meaning Episode 21: Throbbing with Life from 2023-02-24T09:00

Science often draws a picture of the world as a giant machine, a meaningless mechanical clock ticking and tocking forever. But religion and poetry offer a different view, one that is teeming with l...

Making Meaning Episode 9: Questing Spirits from 2023-02-12T09:00

The experience of existence is one of bewilderment and even anguish. Anguish because we feel that we are incomplete beings longing for completion, mired in immanence yet yearning for transcendence....

Out of TIme: Sacred Time and 'Time is Money' from 2023-01-31T09:00

Many of the earliest time technologies were used to mark sacred time -- time set apart for the divine. But with the Industrial Revolution, efficient time use became its own sacred value. We now liv...

Welcome to Valhalla: On a Progressive Paganism from 2023-01-25T09:00

Heathenry, a modern movement drawing on pre-Christian pagan religions, has become associated with the violent, racialized politics of the alt-right. Less well known is the fight to make heathenry —...

Progressive Souls: Religion and the Pursuit of a Just Society (Part 2) from 2023-01-22T09:00

Religious people have played an important role in progressive politics in the US for its entire history. Contemporary leftists should look to build bridges and include religious voices in the pursu...

Progressive Souls: Religion and the Pursuit of a Just Society (Part 1) from 2023-01-21T09:00

Religious people have played an important role in progressive politics in the US for its entire history. Contemporary leftists should look to build bridges and include religious voices in the pursu...

Spiritual Machines: Transhumanism and Religion from 2023-01-19T09:00

Ever since early scientists began experimenting with immortality elixirs in the middle ages, religion has been influencing transhumanism. Now, we’re beginning to see transhumanism influencing relig...

Nothing Matters: About the Idea of "Emptiness" from 2023-01-17T09:00

Between the Buddhist doctrine of ‘emptiness,’ the Jewish idea of Ayin, and the quantum mechanical zero-point energy of a vacuum, it turns out there’s quite a lot to be said about Nothing. GuestsJan...

Secular Salvations: Can Atheists be 'Saved?' from 2023-01-09T09:00

The decline of organized religion in the West has opened up new paths for individuals to pursue what once was once understood to be salvation. GuestsCraig Calhoun, President of the Berggruen Instit...

Secular Salvations: Can Atheists be 'Saved?' from 2023-01-09T09:00

The decline of organized religion in the West has opened up new paths for individuals to pursue what once was once understood to be salvation. GuestsCraig Calhoun, President of the Berggruen Instit...

On "The Book of Mormon" from 2022-09-13T08:00

In 1827 a young farmer named Joseph Smith was visited by an angel. The angel led him to a hillside where he uncovered a set of ancient gold plates written in strange characters in an ancient langua...

On "The Book of Mormon" from 2022-09-13T08:00

In 1827 a young farmer named Joseph Smith was visited by an angel. The angel led him to a hillside where he uncovered a set of ancient gold plates written in strange characters in an ancient langua...

On Queer and Feminist Religious Studies from 2022-03-11T09:00

Melissa M. Wilcox received her doctorate in Religious Studies from U.C. Santa Barbara in 2000. Her transdisciplinary research program focuses on gender studies and queer studies in religion, with p...

On Indigenous American Religion from 2022-03-01T09:00

Dennis Kelley is an associate professor of Religious Studies at the University of Missouri, Columbia. He received his Master’s and Doctorate from the University of California, Santa Barbara, with e...

Brian Greene, "Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe" (Random House, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Brian Greene is a Professor of Mathematics and Physics at Columbia University in the City of New York, where he is the Director of the Institute for Strings, Cosmology, and Astroparticle Physics, a...

Paul K.-K. Cho, "Myth, History, and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is the relationship between the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern myths? Combining theories of metaphor and narrative, Paul Cho argues that the Hebrew Bible is more deeply mythological tha...

Gregory Reichberg, “Thomas Aquinas on War and Peace” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When is war justified? What makes a just war? These are difficult questions to answer, but particularly so for Christians, followers of Jesus, who suffered violence without responding in kind. One...

Matthew A. Sutton, “American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism” (Harvard UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matthew Avery Sutton is the author of three books: Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (2007), Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right: A Brief History with D...

Pamela S. Nadell, "America’s Jewish Women: A History from Colonial Times to Today" (Norton, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jewish women have consistently played a vital and significant role in American history more broadly, and American Jewish history specifically. Through a variety of different ways, from engaging in ...

Randall Stephens, "The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock n’ Roll" (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I was immediately drawn to the book The Devil’s Music by Dr. Randall Stephens, Associate Professor of British and American Studies at the University of Oslo. Dr. Stephens and I came across one anot...

David Mitchell, “The Song of Ascents: Psalms 120 to 134 in the Worship of Jerusalem’s Temples” (Campbell Publications, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Psalms 120-134, designated the “Songs of Ascents,” form their own distinct collection within the Psalter. Who wrote these psalms and for what occasion? David Mitchell, a biblical scholar, musicolog...

Michael Hawkins, “Making Moros: Imperial Historicism and American Military Rule in the Philippines’ Muslim South” (NIU Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For many Muslim communities particular religious identities were formulated or hardened within colonial realities. These types of cultural encounters were structural for the various Muslim tribes i...

Monique A. Bedasse, "Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization" (UNC Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jah Kingdom: Rastafarians, Tanzania, and Pan-Africanism in the Age of Decolonization (UNC Press, 2017), examines Rastafarian repatriation to Tanzania in the 1970s and 1980s. In doing so, Monique A....

Thomas A. Wayment, "The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints" (BYU, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Thomas A. Wayment, professor of Classics at Brigham Young University, has done something remarkable — he has retranslated the New Testament. This new translation from the best available Greek m...

Patrick J. Hayes, “The Civil War Diary of Rev. James Sheeran, Confederate Chaplain and Redemptorist” (Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

During the Civil War Father James Sheeran served as a Catholic chaplain for the 14th Louisiana Infantry. Between his various responsibilities Sheeran kept a journal in which he recounted his experi...

Timothy Michael Law, “When God Spoke Greek: The Septuagint and the Making of the Christian Bible” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When a contemporary reader opens up their Bible they may be unaware of the long historical process that created the pages within. One of the key components in this history is the Septuagint, the Gr...

Chiara Formichi, "Islam and Asia: A History" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Challenging the geographical narrative of the history of Islam, Chiara Formichi’s new book Islam and Asia: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2020), helps us to rethink how we tell the story of...

Su'ad Abdul Khabeer, “Muslim Cool: Race, Religion, and Hip Hop in the United States” (NYU Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Islam in American has been profoundly shaped by the Black Muslim experience. However, Black Muslims are often marginalized both within their own religious communities and in public discourse about ...

Jon Mills, “Inventing God: Psychology of Belief and the Rise of Secular Spirituality” (Routledge, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are many fronts in the argument against the existence of a god or gods and veracity of religious narratives. Some familiar approaches are to critique the philosophical underpinnings of religi...

Ernest P. Young, “Ecclesiastical Colony: China’s Catholic Church and the French Religious Protectorate” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In theory, Christian missionaries plan only on working in a country until an indigenous leadership can take over management of the church. Theory is one thing, but practice is quite another, as Dr....

Vanessa Cook, "Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left" (U Penn Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this episode of the podcast, Vaneesa Cook discusses her new book Spiritual Socialists: Religion and the American Left (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). The book shows that there is a dee...

Andrea Miller, "The Day The Buddha Woke Up" (Wisdom Publications, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Andrea Miller is the deputy editor of Lion's Roar magazine (formerly the Shambhala Sun)  and the author of two picture books: The Day the Buddha Woke Up and My First Book of Canadian Birds. She's a...

Ashon T. Crawley, “Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility” (Fordham UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Blackpentecostal Breath: The Aesthetics of Possibility (Fordham University Press, 2016) is innovative and lyrical, challenging and beautiful. Ashon Crawley brings together black studies, queer theo...

Yaacov Ariel, “An Unusual Relationship: Evangelical Christians and Jews” (NYU Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“In no other instance,” notes Yaacov Ariel, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, “have members of one community of faith considered another group to hold...

Joel Thiessen and Sarah Wilkins-Laflamme, "None of the Above: Nonreligious Identity in the US and Canada" (NYU Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In recent decades, the number of Americans and Canadians who identify has nonreligious has risen considerably. With nearly one quarter of Canadian and American adults identifying as nonreligious, r...

Brad Stoddard and Craig Martin, “Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Clichés” (Bloomsbury, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

You’ve heard them all before. “Religions are Belief Systems.” “Religion is a Private Matter.” “I'm spiritual but not religious.” Our culture is full of popular stereotypes about religion, both posi...

Sarah Ruden, “The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible” (Pantheon, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On this program, we talk to Sarah Ruden about her new book, The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible (Pantheon, 2017). Novelist J. M. Coetzee praised the book, saying, “If...

Todd H. Weir, “Secularism and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Germany” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you look up the word “secular” in just about about any English-language dictionary, you’ll find that the word denotes, among other things, something that is not religious. This “not-religious-ne...

Yassir Morsi, “Radical Skin, Moderate Masks: De-radicalising the Muslim and Racism in Post-racial Societies” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Muslims living in locations like Australia, Europe, or North America exist within a context dominated by white racial norms and are forced to grapple with those conventions on a daily basis. If the...

Vivian Percy, "Saving Jenny: Rescuing Our Youth from America's Opioid and Suicide Epidemic" (Radius Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Normal turned to PTSD and a substance abuse nightmare for Jenny the instant a taxi struck her, catapulting her twenty feet across a busy New York City street. Jenny is one of the lucky ones to have...

Don Baker, “Catholics and Anti-Catholicism in Choson Korea” (U. Hawaii Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Shortly after the introduction of Catholicism into Korea in the late 18th century, Korea’s Confucian government began to persecute Catholics. Why would a Confucian government torture and kill the p...

Pamela Klassen, “Spirits of Protestantism: Medicine, Healing, and Liberal Christianity” (University of California Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Liberal Protestants are often dismissed as reflecting nothing more than a therapeutic culture or viewed as a measuring rod for the decline of Christian orthodoxy. Rarely have they been the subjects...

Yaacov Yadgar, "Israel’s Jewish Identity Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Yaacov Yadgar discusses his new book, Israel’s Jewish Identity Crisis: State and Politics in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2020) with Peter Bergamin. An important and topical contrib...

Bhikkhu An?layo, "Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Research" (Wisdom Publications, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In today’s podcast, I speak with German professor and Buddhist monk Bhikkhu An?layo about his book Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Research (Wisdom Publications, 2018). Bhikkhu An?layo skillf...

Jeanette Jouili, “Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe” (Stanford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jeanette Jouili‘s fascinating new book Pious Practice and Secular Constraints: Women in the Islamic Revival in Europe (Stanford University Press, 2015) navigates practices and challenges of living ...

Sahar Amer, “What is Veiling?” (UNC Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are few concepts commonly associated with Islam and Muslims today that evoke more anxiety, phobia, and paranoia than the veil, commonly translated as the hijab. Seen by many as the most quint...

Johan Elverskog, "The Buddha’s Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia" (U Penn Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Challenging the popular image of Buddhism as a religion intrinsically concerned with the environment, Dr. John Elverskog’s new monograph, The Buddha’s Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia (U...

Bruce Van Orden, "We’ll Sing and We’ll Shout: The Life and Times of W. W. Phelps" (BYU, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you’re a Latter Day Saint, you’ve probably heard of W. W. Phelps, and no doubt, you’ve probably sung some of his hymns. But did you know that he printed the Book of Commandments and other early ...

Leonard Barkan, “Berlin for Jews: A Twenty-First Century Companion” (U. Chicago Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Berlin for Jews: A Twenty-First Century Companion (University of Chicago Press, 2016), Leonard Barkan, the class of 1943 University Professor at Princeton, examines the complex histories of Jewi...

Vahid Brown and Don Rassler, “Fountainhead of Jihad: The Haqqani Nexus, 1973-2012” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Vahid Brown and Don Rassler‘s Fountainhead of Jihad: The Haqqani Nexus, 1973-2012 (Oxford University Press, 2013) is a meticulously researched and remarkably detailed exposition of the Haqqani netw...

C. M. Driscoll and M. R. Miller, “Method as Identity: Manufacturing Distance in the Academic Study of Religion” (Lexington, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the study of religion there are various camps that each approach their subjects in unique ways. Each method is shaped by particular interpretive choices, such as to be objectively neutral, exper...

Joel Elliot Slotkin, "Sinister Aesthetics: The Appeal of Evil in Early Modern Literature" (Palgrave, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why did creative writers in early modern England write so forcefully about the relationship between aesthetics and morality? How did they imagine creative work to reflect religious categories and m...

David Bryan and David Pao, eds, “Ascent into Heaven in Luke – Acts” (Fortress Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The ascension of Christ is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity, and yet Luke’s two-volume work contains the only narrative depictions of Jesus’ ascent into heaven in the New Testament–all the mo...

Clark Chilson, “Secrecy’s Power: Covert Shin Buddhists in Japan and Contradictions of Concealment” (University of Hawaii Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Clark Chilson‘s new book, Secrecy’s Power: Covert Shin Buddhists in Japan and Contradictions of Concealment (University of Hawai’i Press, 2014) examines secret groups of Shin (i.e., True Pure Land ...

Kathleen Gallagher Elkins, "Mary, Mother of Martyrs" (FSR, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Throughout Christian history, the Virgin Mary has been idealized as a self-sacrificing mother and a model for all Christian women to emulate. However, she is one of many ancient maternal figures wh...

Jules Evans, "The Art of Losing Control: A Philosopher's Search for Ecstatic Experience" (Canongate Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

People have always sought ecstatic experiences - moments where they go beyond their ordinary self and feel connected to something greater than them. Such moments are fundamental to human flourishin...

Maya Barzilai, “Golem: Modern Wars and Their Monsters” (NYU Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This episode of New Books in Jewish Studies features Maya Barzilai, Assistant Professor of Hebrew Literature and Jewish Culture at the University of Michigan and the author of Golem: Modern Wars an...

Edward E. Andrews, “Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World” (Harvard UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Often when we think of missions to Native Americans or people of African descent, we think of white missionaries. In his book Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic ...

Betsy Gaines Quammen, "American Zion: Cliven Bundy, God and Public Lands in the West" (Torrey House, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 2014, the cattle rancher Cliven Bundy entered the national spotlight after a showdown against federal officials over grazing rights on public lands. Two years later, his sons seized the Malheur ...

Deborah E. Lipstadt, "Antisemitism: Here and Now" (Schocken, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Over the past decade, and especially in the last several years, anti-Semitic crimes have increased significantly. According to FBI Statistics, hate crimes against Jews in the US spiked 37% between ...

Matthew J. Walton, “Buddhism, Politics and Political Thought in Myanmar” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Burmese Buddhist monks have featured in the news quite a lot in recent times, not as peaceful practitioners of self-abnegation, but at activists at the forefront of political movements characterize...

Michael Cook, “Ancient Religions, Modern Politics: The Islamic Case in Comparative Perspective” (Princeton UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael Cook, a widely-respected historian and scholar of Islam begins his book with a question that everyone seems to be asking these days: is Islam uniquely violent or uniquely political? Why doe...

Sarah Schneewind, "Shrines to Living Men in the Ming Political Cosmos" (Harvard Asia Center, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What recourse did you have in Ming China if your very excellent local official was leaving your area and moving on to a new jurisdiction? You could try to block his path, you could wail and tear yo...

Linda K. Wertheimer, "Faith Ed: Teaching About Religion in an Age of Intolerance" (Beacon Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Faith Ed: Teaching About Religion in an Age of Intolerance (Beacon Press, 2017) by Linda K. Wertheimer profiles the beauty and difficulty of teaching about religion in public schools. Teaching abou...

William Kolbrener, “The Last Rabbi: Joseph Soloveitchik and Talmudic Tradition” (Indiana UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Last Rabbi: Joseph Soloveitchik and Talmudic Tradition (Indiana University Press, 2016), William Kolbrener, professor of English at Bar Ilan University in Israel, explores the life and thoug...

Amy Evrard, “The Moroccan Women’s Rights Movement” (Syracuse University Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Amy Evrard‘s first book, The Moroccan Women’s Rights Movement (Syracuse University Press, 2014), examines women’s attempts to change their patriarchal society via their movement for equality and ri...

Jacqueline H. Fewkes, "Locating Maldivian Women's Mosques in Global Discourses" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is a mosque? What are women's mosques specifically? What historical values do women's mosques offer, and what is the relationship between mosque spaces and women's religious work? How do women...

Borayin Larios, "Embodying the Vedas: Traditional Vedic Schools of Contemporary Maharashtra" (De Gruyter, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Embodying the Vedas: Traditional Vedic Schools of Contemporary Maharashtra(De Gruyter, 2017; open access) probes the backbone of what makes Hinduism the world’s oldest living tradition: the unbroke...

S. Brent Plate ed., “Key Terms in Material Religion” (Bloomsbury, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In recent years, several scholars of religion have moved away from the examination of discursive textual domains or the meaning of ritual practices towards analyzing the material worlds in which th...

Jonathan A. C. Brown, “Misquoting Muhammad” (Oneworld Publications, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many people have described Muslims modernities as being fundamentally disrupted by individual and civilizational encounters with western society. Wether rejecting or accepting alternative modes of ...

Brendan McGeever, "Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Antisemitism and the Russian Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Dr Brendan McGeever,  Lecturer in Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London, traces the complex history of the Antis...

Margaret Arnold, "The Magdalene in the Reformation" (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mary Magdalene’s story of conversion from sinner to saint is one of Christianity’s most compelling and controversial stories. The identity of this woman, but more likely women, has been disputed si...

Rosemary Corbett, “Making Moderate Islam: Sufism, Service, and the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Controversy” (Stanford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Among the most powerful and equally insidious aspects of the new global politics of religion is the discourse of religious moderation that seeks to produce moderate religious subjects at ease with ...

Paul Copp, “The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism” (Columbia UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Paul Copp‘s new book, The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Columbia University Press, 2014), focuses on Chinese interpretations and uses of two writ...

John D. Caputo, "Hoping Against Hope" (Fortress Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John D. Caputo has a long career as one of the preeminent postmodern philosophers in America. The author of such books as Radical Hermeneutics, The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida, and The Wea...

Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more democratic. How can publishers and authors contri...

Lewis Glinert, “The Story of Hebrew” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For this episode, New Books in Jewish Studies interviews Lewis Glinert, Professor of Hebrew Studies at Dartmouth College, where he is also affiliated with the Program in Linguistics. His book, The...

Amanullah De Sondy, “The Crisis of Islamic Masculinities” (Bloomsbury, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What gets to count as Islam? In the current political climate this question is being repeated in a variety of contexts. The tapestry of various Islamic identities is revealed in an investigation of...

Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette, "Dialogue and Doxography in Indian Philosophy" (Routledge, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This ground-breaking work on Indian philosophical doxography examines the function of dialectical texts within their intellectual and religious milieu. In Dialogue and Doxography in Indian Philosop...

Nathan McGovern, "The Snake and The Mongoose: The Emergence of Identity in Early Indian Religion" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The history of Indian religions in the centuries leading up to the common era has been characterized in the scholarship by two distinct overarching traditions: the Brahmans (associated with Vedic t...

Rhiannon Graybill, “Are We Not Men? Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Rhiannon Graybill‘s Are We Not Men? Unstable Masculinity in the Hebrew Prophets (Oxford University Press, 2016) offers an innovative approach to gender and embodiment in the Hebrew Bible, revealing...

Sarah Bowen Savant, “The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah Bowen Savant, Associate Professor at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations at the Aga Khan University in London, addresses important questions about conversion among Persian peo...

Richard McBride II, "Doctrine and Practice in Medieval Korean Buddhism: The Collected Works of ?ich’?n" (U Hawaii Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today I talked to Richard McBride II about Doctrine and Practice in Medieval Korean Buddhism: The Collected Works of ?ich’?n (University of Hawaii Press, 2016). The book is a comprehensive study of...

Gregory Dawes, "Galileo and the Conflict between Religion and Science" (Routledge, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Open conflict between religion and science may not be inevitable, but a germ of discord resides in some of the fundamental commitments of both; in this sense, war is always, potentially, just aroun...

Alec Ryrie, “Protestants: The Faith that Made the Modern World” (Viking, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

500 years ago, a German monk and professor named Martin Luther started a well-intentioned movement to reform “the Church” (Jesus founded only one, after all). Luther’s object was not to split the C...

Chun-fang Yu, “Passing the Light: The Incense Light Community and Buddhist Nuns in Contemporary Taiwan” (U of Hawaii Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Chan-fang Yu‘s new book, Passing the Light: The Incense Light Community and Buddhist Nuns in Contemporary Taiwan (University of Hawaii Press, 2013), focuses on a community of nuns in Taiwan founded...

Kevin McGrath, "Vy?sa Redux: Narrative in Epic Mah?bh?rata" (Anthem Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Vy?sa Redux: Narrative in Epic Mah?bh?rata (Anthem Press, 2019), Kevin McGrath examines the complex and enigmatic Vy?sa, both the primary creative poet of the Sanskrit epic Mah?bh?rata and a key...

Claire Pamment, "Comic Performance in Pakistan: The Bh?nd" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Claire Pamment’s book Comic Performance in Pakistan: The Bh?nd (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) is a fantastic new book centered on the Punjabi folk art of the Bh?nd, or comic performance. Pamment explor...

Scott A. Mitchell, “Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts” (Bloomsbury, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Scott A. Mitchell‘s recent monograph, Buddhism in America: Global Religion, Local Contexts (Bloomsbury, 2016), provides a much-needed up-to-date overview of Buddhism in the United States. To tackle...

Anthony Santaro, “Exile & Embrace: Contemporary Religious Discourses on the Death Penalty” (Northeastern UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The death penalty is a subject that can easily inflame emotions. However, in his book, Exile & Embrace: Contemporary Religious Discourses on the Death Penalty (Northeastern University Press, 2013),...

Maria Rashid, "Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army" (Stanford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her spellbindingly brilliant new book, Dying to Serve: Militarism, Affect, and the Politics of Sacrifice in the Pakistan Army (Stanford University Press, 2020), Maria Rashid conducts an intimate...

Jessica Hardin, "Faith and the Pursuit of Health: Cardiometabolic Disorders in Samoa" (Rutgers UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jessica Hardin's new book Faith and the Pursuit of Health: Cardiometabolic Disorders in Samoa (Rutgers University Press, 2018)explores how Pentecostal Christians manage chronic illness in ways that...

Brandon D. Crowe, “The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels” (Baker Academic, 2017). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One scholar famously referred to the Gospels of the New Testament as passion narratives with long introductions. Such a view, however, tends to minimize the theological importance of Jesus’ life an...

Donald Holbrook, “The Al-Qaeda Doctrine: The Framing and Evolution of the Leadership’s Public Discourse” (Bloomsbury, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Donald Holbrook‘sThe Al-Qaeda Doctrine: The Framing and Evolution of the Leadership’s Public Discourse (Bloomsbury, 2014)represents a significant scholarly contribution to the study of Al-Qaeda and...

A Conversation with Nicholas Sutton of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today I talked to Dr. Nicholas Sutton speaks about his work at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. We discuss his teaching philosophy, his mandate of making the study of Hinduism accessible to pub...

Ian Johnson, "The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao" (Pantheon, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ian Johnson’s new book, The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (Pantheon, 2017),  was called "a masterpiece of observation and empathy" by The New York Review of Books, and The Econom...

Yuval Harari, “Jewish Magic before the Rise of Kabbalah” (Wayne State UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jewish Magic Before the Rise of Kabbalah (Wayne State University Press, 2017) opens new vistas not only on the history of the practice of magic throughout Jewish history, but on the variety and syn...

Mariam al-Attar, “Islamic Ethics: Divine Command Theory in Arabo-Islamic Thought” (Routledge, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mariam al-Attar, Islamic Ethics: Divine Command Theory in Arabo-Islamic Thought (Routledge, 2010)  explores the meaning, origin and development of “Divine Command Theory” in Islamic thought. In the...

Ayala Fader, "Hidden Heretics: Jewish Doubt in the Digital Age" (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What would you do if you questioned your religious faith, but revealing that would cause you to lose your family and the only way of life you had ever known? Dr. Ayala Fader explores this question ...

Whitney G. Gamble, "Christ and the Law: Antinomianism at the Westminster Assembly" (Reformation Heritage Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Westminster Assembly (1643-53) was one of the most important ecclesiastical councils in the history of Reformed Protestantism, but until very recently it had received little in the way of schol...

Joseph Lumbard, “The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary” (HarperOne, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Study Quran: A New Translation and Commentary (HarperOne, 2015) represents years of effort from a team of dedicated translators and editors (Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Joseph Lumbard, Maria Dakake, C...

Iqbal Sevea, “The Political Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal: Islam and Nationalism in Late Colonial India” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The towering Indian Muslim poet and intellectual Muhammad Iqbal (d. 1938) is among the most contested figures in the intellectual and political history of modern Islam. Heralded by some as the fath...

Brian Collins, "The Other R?ma: Matricide and Genocide in the Mythology of Para?ur?ma" (SUNY Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Brian Collins' book The Other R?ma Matricide and Genocide in the Mythology of Para?ur?ma (SUNY Press, 2020) examines a fascinating, understudied figure appearing in Sanskrit narrative texts: Para?u...

Joyce Antler, "Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement" (NYU Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Joyce Antler is the Samuel J. Lane Professor Emerita of American Jewish history and culture at Brandeis University. Jewish Radical Feminism: Voices from the Women’s Liberation Movement (New York Un...

Sarah Hammerschlag, “Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida, and the Literary Afterlife of Religion” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Broken Tablets: Levinas, Derrida, and the Literary Afterlife of Religion (Columbia University Press, 2016), Sarah Hammerschlag, Associate Professor of Religion and Literature at the University o...

Nabil Matar, “Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam: The Originall and Progress of Mahometanism” (Columbia UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam: The Originall and Progress of Mahometanism (Columbia University Press, 2014), Nabil Matar masterfully edits an important piece of scholarship from seven...

Shay Welch, "The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System: Dancing with Native American Epistemology (Palgrave Macmillian, 2019), Shay Welch investigates the phenomenological ways that dance choreogr...

Meido Moore, "The Rinzai Zen Way: A Guide to Practice" (Shambhala, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Meido Moore Roshi is the abbot of Korinji monastery in Wisconsin. He studied under three Rinzai Zen masters: Tenzan Toyoda Rokoji (under whom he also endured training in traditional martial arts), ...

Elizabeth Hayes Alvarez, “The Valiant Woman: The Virgin Mary in Nineteenth-Century American Culture” (UNC Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When people think of the Virgin Mary in terms of American religious history, there is a tendency to focus on opposition. For instance, Catholic devotion to Mary on the one side, and Protestant crit...

Rebecca Rossen, “Dancing Jewish: Jewish Identity in American Modern and Postmodern Dance” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How does an author craft a work that speaks across the boundaries of dance studies, Jewish studies and gender studies? What does it mean for dance to function as a site for probing complex question...

Peter Adamson, "Classical Indian Philosophy" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Classical Indian Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2020), Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri survey both the breadth and depth of Indian philosophical traditions. Their odyssey touches on the ...

Michael Ruse, "The Problem of War: Darwinism, Christianity, and Their Battle to Understand Human Conflict" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What accounts for the antagonism between Christianity and Darwinism? For Michael Ruse, a professor of the history and philosophy of science at Florida State University, the answer is simple: Darwin...

Richard Weikart, “Hitler’s Religion: The Twisted Beliefs that Drove the Third Reich” (Regnery History, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Trying to figure out what Hitler “really” thought about anything is difficult because he was–among many other things–a clever, opportunistic politician and a very prolix one at that. Over the cours...

Albert Park and David Yoo, eds., “Encountering Modernity: Christianity in East Asia and Asian America” (University of Hawaii Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Modernity and religion have often been seen as fundamentally at odds. However, the articles in Encountering Modernity: Christianity in East Asia and Asian America (University of Hawaii Press, 2014 ...

Leslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. Brophy, is the first edited collection of schola...

Jeffrey D. Long, "Perspectives on Reincarnation: Hindu, Christian, Scientific" (MDPI Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What happens after you die? The book brings together fascinating theological and religious studies perspectives on a controversial yet pervasive idea: reincarnation. An estimated 1 on 5 Americans s...

Molly Worthen, “Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Beginning with a network of reformed figures that orbited around Billy Graham, from J. Howard Pew’s money to Carl Henry’s passion for cultural esteem, Molly Worthen’s Apostles of Reason: The Crisis...

Jolyon Thomas, “Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan” (University Of Hawai’i Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The worlds of cinema and illustrated fiction are replete with exciting data for the historian of religion. Drawing on Tradition: Manga, Anime, and Religion in Contemporary Japan (University Of Hawa...

Archana Venkatesan, "Endless Song: Tiruvaymoli" (Penguin, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Endless Song (Oxford University Press, 2019) is Dr. Archana Venkatesan’s exquisite translation of the Tiruvaymoli (sacred utterance), a brilliant 1102-verse ninth century tamil poem celebrating the...

Guy Axtell, "Problems of Religious Luck: Assessing the Limits of Reasonable Religious Disagreement" (Lexington, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Our lives are shot through with contingency – where, when, and into what circumstances we are born is largely a matter of chance. And yet those features play determining roles in our lives. The lan...

Jordan D. Rosenblum, “The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Jewish Dietary Laws in the Ancient World Jordan D. Rosenblum explores how cultures critique and defend their religious food practices. In particular he focuses on how ancient Jews defended t...

William Chittick, “Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God” (Yale UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Where does love come from and where will it lead us? Throughout the years various answers have been given to these questions. In Divine Love: Islamic Literature and the Path to God (Yale University...

Courtney M. Dorroll, “Teaching Islamic Studies in the Age of ISIS, Islamophobia and the Internet” (Indiana UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Islamic Studies classrooms have grown significantly over several generations. While once we could only find courses on the tradition in the most prestigious of institutions now Islam classes are ta...

Richard Salomon, "The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandh?ra: An Introduction with Selected Translation" (Wisdom Publications, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this episode of New Books in Buddhist Studies, Dr. Richard Salomon speaks about his book The Buddhist Literature of Ancient Gandh?ra: An Introduction with Selected Translation (Wisdom Publicatio...

Paul Harvey, “Bounds of Their Habitation: Race and Religion in American History” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Paul Harvey is a professor of history at the University of Colorado. His book Bounds of Their Habitation: Race and Religion in American History (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) provides an accessible...

Samuel Scheffler, “Death and the Afterlife” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Our moral lives are constructed out of projects, goals, aims, and relationships or various kinds. The pursuit of these projects, and the nurturing of certain relationships, play central role in giv...

Magda Teter, "Blood Libel: On the Trail of an Antisemitic Myth" (Harvard UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The myth of Jews killing Christian children emerged in 1144 CE, with the death of a boy named William in Norwich, England. Over the course of several centuries, this myth gained traction and became...

Martin Demant Frederiksen, "An Anthropology of Nothing in Particular" (Zero Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

An Anthropology of Nothing in Particular (Zero Books, 2018) is an “exploration of what goes missing when one looks for meaning” (p. 1). The book is both an experimental ethnography and a theoretica...

Benjamin Schonthal, “Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of the Law: The Pyrrhic Constitutionalism of Sri Lanka” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his recent monograph, Buddhism, Politics and the Limits of Law: The Pyrrhic Constitutionalism of Sri Lanka (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Benjamin Schonthal examines the relationship betwee...

Ovamir Anjum, “Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Politics, Law, and Community in Islamic Thought: The Taymiyyan Moment (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Ovamir Anjum explores a timely topic, even though his focus is hundreds of years in the ...

Elizabeth A. Cecil, "Mapping the P??upata Landscape" (Brill, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Elizabeth A. Cecil's Mapping the P??upata Landscape: Narrative, Place, and the ?aiva Imaginary in Early Medieval North India (Brill, 2020) weaves together material from the Sanskrit text Skandapur?...

Matthew Bowman, "Christian: The Politics of a Word in America" (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The intersection of religion and politics in the United States is one of the nation's most enduring conversations. Christian: The Politics of a Word in America(Harvard University Press, 2018) by Dr...

Steven Dilday, “The Exegetical Labors of the Reverend Matthew Poole” (Master Poole Publishing, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matthew Poole (1624-1679) was an English Nonconformist theologian educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge; he held the rectory of St Michael le Querne in London from 1649 to 1662. Poole is principa...

Matthew Hedstrom, “The Rise of Liberal Religion: Book Culture and American Spirituality in the Twentieth Century” Oxford University Press, 2012 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Expressions of religious belief through popular media are a regular occurrence in our contemporary age. But the circulation and negotiation of religious identities in public contexts has a fairly l...

Robert Elmer, "Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans" (Lexham Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Elmer, who is a communications specialist at Seattle Pacific University, a prolific writer of historical fiction, and the author of over fifty published titles, has published a ground-breaki...

Geraldine Heng, "The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages (Cambridge University Press 2018), Geraldine Heng collects a remarkable array of medieval approaches to race that show the breadth and depth of ...

Benjamin Schreier, “The Impossible Jew: Identity and the Reconstruction of Jewish American Literary History” (NYU Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is Jewish about Jewish American literature? While the imaginative possibilities are numerous many scholars approach literary products with an established notion of a Jewish identity before the...

Shabana Mir, “Muslim American Women on Campus: Undergraduate Social Life and Identity” (UNC, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the post 9/11 era in which Muslims in America have increasingly felt under the surveillance of the state, media, and the larger society, how have female Muslim students on US college campuses im...

Christiane Gruber, “The Praiseworthy One: The Prophet Muhammad in Islamic Texts and Images" (Indiana UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In our most recent public memory, images of the Prophet Muhammad have caused a great deal of controversy, such as satirical cartoons of Muhammad in French magazine Charlie Hebdo, or Danish newspape...

Matthew Bingham, "Orthodox Radicals: Baptist Identity in the English Revolution" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matthew Bingham, who teaches theology and church history at Oak Hill College, London, has written what must be one of the most startling accounts of religion in mid-seventeenth-century England. His...

David Rohl, “Exodus: Myth or History? (Thinking Man Media, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Archaeologists and scholars of the ancient Near East regularly make statements to the effect that there is absolutely no archaeological evidence for many events of the Bible, including Israel’s soj...

John P. Turner, “Inquisition in Early Islam” (I.B. Tauris, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Scholars of Islam and historians have frequently pointed to the Miḥna, translated as ‘trial’ or ‘test,’ as a crossroad in the landscape of Islamic history. Professor John P. Turner of Colby Colle...

Henry R. Carse, "Sinai: The Abundant Emptiness" (Ziggurat Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Henry R. Carse is a is a poet, a pilgrim, a practitioner theologian and a peace activist. He is the founder of Kids4Peace International – an interfaith youth movement that teaches and practices...

Alexandre Kojève, "Atheism," trans by Jeff Love (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Columbia University press has just released a new translation of a work by philosopher Alexandre Kojève, simply titled Atheism, translated by Professor Jeff Love. Considered to be one of the twenti...

Kerry Pimblott, “Faith in Black Power: Religion, Race, and Resistance in Cairo, Illinois” (U. Press of Kentucky, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When you think of black power, do you think about churches and religious institutions, or do you relate them more to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s? How do the social justice stru...

Kevin Schilbrack, “Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto” (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Very often evaluative questions about cultural phenomena are avoided for more descriptive or explanatory goals when approaching religions. Traditionally, this set of concerns has been left to philo...

Gregory Scott, "Building the Buddhist Revival: Reconstructing Monasteries in Modern China" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gregory A. Scott's Building the Buddhist Revival: Reconstructing Monasteries in Modern China (Oxford University Press, 2020) is the first major work in any language to address the topic of Buddhist...

Matthew C. Godfrey, ed., "The Joseph Smith Papers: Documents, Volume 7" (Church Historians Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Joseph Smith, the nineteenth-century American prophet who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, can, at times, be considered an elusive historical figure. There were many forces ...

Piotr Kosicki, “Vatican II Behind the Iron Curtain” (Catholic Univ. of America Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many historians have documented the Second Vatican Council yet virtually no attention has been devoted to the Catholics who found themselves living behind an iron curtain at the end of the 1940s. P...

Ari Joskowicz, “The Modernity of Others: Jewish Anti-Catholicism in Germany and France” (Stanford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1873, the German scientist Rudolf Virchow declared in Parliament that liberals were locked in a Kulturkampf, a “culture war” with the forces of Catholicism, which he viewed as the chief hindranc...

Pankaj Jain, "Dharma in America: A Short History of Hindu-Jain Diaspora" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Pankaj Jain, Dharma in America: A Short History of Hindu-Jain Diaspora (Routledge, 2019) provides a concise history of Hindus and Jains in the Americas over the last two centuries, highlighting con...

Adriaan C. Neele, "Before Jonathan Edwards: Sources of New England Theology" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jonathan Edwards is by now widely recognised as America’s most important early philosopher and theologian. Much of the scholarship that exegetes his work is content to see it as something innovativ...

Nathan Hofer, “The Popularisation of Sufism in Ayyubid and Mamluk Egypt, 1173-1325” (Edinburgh UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Medieval Egypt had a rapid influx of Sufis, which has previously been explained through reactionary models of analysis. It was argued that the widespread popularity of Sufism was marked by a public...

Craig Martin, “Subverting Aristotle: Religion, History, and Philosophy in Early Modern Science” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Craig Martin‘s new book carefully traces religious arguments for and against Aristotelianism from the eleventh through the eighteenth centuries. Based on a close reading of a staggering array of pr...

Shadaab Rahemtullah, "Qur'an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Shadaab Rahemtullah's book Qur'an of the Oppressed: Liberation Theology and Gender Justice in Islam (Oxford University Press, 2017) offers a compelling comparative analysis of the works of four Mus...

Gil Ben-Herut, "?iva’s Saints: The Origins of Devotion in Kannada according to Harihara’s Raga?ega?u (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Studies of Hindu saints tend to focus primarily on the saints themselves—their words, teachings, and practices—rather than tending to the often complex and complicated world of texts and traditions...

Joshua Guthman, “Strangers Below: Primitive Baptists and American Culture” (UNC Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Before the Bible Belt fastened itself across the South, competing factions of evangelicals fought over the faith’s future, and a contrarian sect, self-named the Primitive Baptists, made its stand. ...

Brian A. Catlos, “Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, c.1050-1614” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the current political climate it might be easy to assume that Muslims in the ‘West’ have always been viewed in a negative light. However, when we examine the historical relationship between Musl...

Brian A. Stauffer, "Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion" (U New Mexico Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion (University of New Mexico Press, 2019), Brian A. Stauffer reconstructs the history of Mexico's forgotten "Religionero" rebellion of ...

Duncan Williams, “American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War” (Harvard UP, 2019 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In American Sutra:  A story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War (Harvard University Press, 2019), Duncan Ry?ken Williams recenters the role of faith in the Japanese-American experience in ...

David Willgren, “The Formation of the ‘Book’ of Psalms” (Mohr Siebeck, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How was the ‘Book’ of Psalms formed, and why? The first question relates to the diachronic growth of the collection, while the second relates to issues of purpose–to what end are psalms being juxta...

Jacqueline E. Whitt, “Bringing God to Men: American Military Chaplains and the Vietnam War” (University of North Carolina Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this original and innovative study of the American military chaplaincy, Jacqueline E. Whitt examines the institution’s challenges and struggles in the post-World War II era, with the Vietnam War...

Knut A. Jacobsen, "Yoga in Modern Hinduism: Harihar?nanda ?ra?ya and S??khyayoga" (Routledge, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book Yoga in Modern Hinduism: Harihar?nanda ?ra?ya and S??khyayoga (Routledge, 2017), Knut A. Jacobsen examines the K?pil Ma?h, a S??khyayoga institution emerging in the late nineteenth cent...

Samuel Hayim Brody, "Martin Buber's Theopolitics" (Indiana UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Martin Buber is known as one of the 20th century's greatest Jewish scholars and thinkers, but he is less well known for his political theory and activism. In Martin Buber's Theopolitics (Indiana Un...

Erik W. Davis, “Deathpower: Buddhism’s Ritual Imagination in Cambodia” (Columbia UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his recent monograph, Deathpower: Buddhism’s Ritual Imagination in Cambodia (Columbia University Press, 2015), Erik W. Davis explores funerary ritual in contemporary Cambodian Buddhism and the w...

William Arnal and Russell T. McCutcheon, “The Sacred Is the Profane: The Political Nature of Religion” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What brings us together as scholars in Religious Studies? Are the various social phenomena commonly grouped together as religion really that similar? The Sacred Is the Profane: The Political Nature...

Christine Fair, "In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The attacks on the luxurious Taj Hotel in Mumbai in 2008 put Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, a jihadist terrorist group, in the international / Western spotlight for the first time, though they had been deadly ...

Justine Howe, “Suburban Islam” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The study of Islam is often focused on subjects involved in legal debates or ritual practice. But our understanding of Muslims should also be informed by everyday practices found in the suburbs. In...

Alan J. Levinovitz, “The Limits of Religious Tolerance” (Amherst College Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Pope said that Donald Trump wasn’t much of a Christian if all he can think about is building walls. Trump replied that it was “disgraceful” for a any leader, even the Pope, “to question another...

Luke E. Harlow, “Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Luke E. Harlow, Religion, Race and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) examines the role of religion, and more specifically, conservative evangelical Pr...

Kate Imy, "Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army" (Stanford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her fascinating and remarkable new book Faithful Fighters: Identity and Power in the British Indian Army (Stanford University Press, 2019), Kate Imy explores the negotiation of religious identit...

R. B. Jamieson, "Jesus’ Death and Heavenly Offering in Hebrews" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When and where did Jesus offer himself to God? What role does Jesus’ death play in his high-priestly self-offering in heaven? Answering these questions are crucial for understanding the book of Heb...

Matthew Pehl, “The Making of Working-Class Religion” (U. Illinois Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Matthew Pehl is an associate professor of history at Augustana University. His book, The Making of Working-Class Religion (University of Illinois Press, 2016), gives us a rich and deep study of wor...

Rachel Rinaldo, “Mobilizing Piety: Islam and Feminism in Indonesia” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Are Islam and feminism inherently at odds? Is there a contradiction between piety and gender justice? This is the guiding theme for Rachel Rinaldo, professor of Sociology at the University of Virgi...

C. Baker and P. Phongpaichit, "From the Fifty J?taka: Selections from the Thai Paññ?sa J?taka" (Silkworm Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The J?taka tales, or stories of the Buddha’s previous lives as a bodhisatta, are included in the P?li Canon and have for centuries been a rich source of inspiration in Theravada Buddhism. In additi...

Caleb Simmons, "Nine Nights of the Goddess: The Navaratri Festival in South Asia" (SUNY Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Nine Nights of the Goddess: The Navaratri Festival in South Asia (SUNY Press, 2018), edited by Caleb Simmons, Moumita Sen, and Hillary Peter Rodrigues, is a diverse collection of cutting-edge inter...

Ellie Schainker, “Confessions of the Shtetl: Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817-1906” (Stanford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Confessions of the Shtetl: Converts from Judaism in Imperial Russia, 1817-1906 (Stanford University Press, 2016), Ellie Schainker, the Arthur Blank Family Foundation Assistant Professor of Histo...

J. Matthias Determann, “Historiography in Saudi Arabia: Globalization and the State in the Middle East” (Tauris, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Saudi Arabia is, for most Westerners, a mysterious place. It’s home to one of the most conservative forms of Islam around and ruled by one of the least democratic regimes in the world. Yet it’s a g...

Benjamin E. Park, "Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier" (Norton, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Kingdom of Nauvoo: The Rise and Fall of a Religious Empire on the American Frontier (W. W. Norton, 2020), Benjamin E. Park, an assistant professor at Sam Houston State University, examines a neg...

Thomas Patton, "The Buddha’s Wizards: Magic, Protection, and Healing in Burmese Buddhism" (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his recent monograph, The Buddha’s Wizards: Magic, Protection, and Healing in Burmese Buddhism(Columbia University Press, 2018), Thomas Patton examines the weizz?, a figure in Burmese Buddhism w...

Fr. Gary Selin, “Priestly Celibacy: Theological Foundations” (Catholic UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the particular markers of the Latin rite of the Catholic Church is priestly celibacy. How did this discipline develop there? Why did it develop? What does it mean? Since it is a discipline t...

Thomas McFaul and Al Brunsting, “God is Here to Stay: Science, Evolution, and Belief in God” (Wipf and Stock, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The book discussed in this interview is God is Here to Stay: Science, Evolution, and Belief in God (Wipf and Stock, 2014) by Thomas McFaul and Al Brunsting, two authors with very different backgrou...

Jin Y. Park, "Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iry?p" (U of Hawaii Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Women and Buddhist Philosophy: Engaging Zen Master Kim Iry?p (University of Hawaii Press, 2017) by Jin Y. Park, professor of philosophy and religion at American university, is an account of the Kor...

Fred S. Naiden, "Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life of Alexander the Great" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Macedonian king Alexander III is best remembered today for his many martial accomplishments and the empire he built from them. Yet as Fred S. Naiden details in Soldier, Priest, and God: A Life ...

David W. Stowe, “Song of Exile: The Enduring Mystery of Psalm 137” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On today’s program we will be speaking with David W. Stowe about his recent book Song of Exile: The Enduring Mystery of Psalm 137 (Oxford University Press, 2016). Song of Exile weaves together the ...

James Carter, “Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth-Century Monk” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jay Carter‘s new book follows the life of one man as a way of opening a window into the lived history of twentieth-century China. Heart of Buddha, Heart of China: The Life of Tanxu, a Twentieth-Cen...

G. Clinton Godart, "Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine: Evolutionary Theory and Religion in Modern Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine. Evolutionary Theory and Religion in Modern Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2017), G. Clinton Godart (Associate Professor at Tohoku University’s Department of G...

Kevin Ingram, "Converso Non-Conformism in Early Modern Spain: Bad Blood and Faith from Alonso de Cartagena to Diego Velázquez" (Palgrave, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It was a delight to catch up with Kevin Ingram, professor of history at Saint Louis University, Madrid, to discuss his very impressive new book. Converso Non-Conformism in Early Modern Spain: Bad B...

Sylvester Johnson, “African American Religions, 1500-2000: Colonialism, Democracy, and Freedom” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When and where do African American religions begin? Sylvester Johnson, Associate Professor of African American Studies and Religious Studies at Northwestern University, disrupts the traditional tem...

Hugh Talat Halman, “Where The Two Seas Meet” (Fons Vitae, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Where The Two Seas Meet (Fons Vitae, 2013), Hugh Talat Halman unpacks one of the most provocative narratives in the Islamic tradition. In the 18th chapter of the Qur’an, Surat al-Kahf (The Cave)...

Matt Cook, "Sleight of Mind: 75 Ingenious Paradoxes in Mathematics, Physics, and Philosophy" (MIT Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Paradox is a sophisticated kind of magic trick. A magician's purpose is to create the appearance of impossibility, to pull a rabbit from an empty hat. Yet paradox doesn't require tangibles, like ra...

Richard Gombrich, "Buddhism and Pali" (Mud Pie Slices, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Richard Gombrich's new book, Buddhism and Pali (Mud Pie Slices, 2018), puts the richness of the Pali language on display. He introduces the reader to the origins of Pali, its linguistic character, ...

Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup, eds., “Recovering Buddhism in Modern China” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The essays in Jan Kiely and J. Brooks Jessup’s new edited volume, Recovering Buddhism in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2016), collectively make a compelling argument that Buddhism and Bu...

Isaac Weiner, “Religion Out Loud: Religious Sound, Public Space, and American Pluralism” (NYU Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 2004, the traditionally Polish-Catholic community of Hamtramck Michigan became the site of a debate over the Muslim call to prayer. Members of the Hamtramck community engaged in a contest about...

Christopher M. Blumhofer, "The Gospel of John and the Future of Israel" (Cambridge UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Gospel of John presents many challenges for interpreters—how best should this book be read? How are we to understand issues like its unity or its critical stance to the characters known as ‘the...

Adrienne Mayor, "Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology" (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos. This wondrous machine was created not by the MIT Robotics Lab, but by Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention. More than 2,500 year...

Amir Hussain, “Muslims and the Making of America” (Baylor UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Muslims and the Making of America (Baylor University Press, 2016) offers a succinct and gripping account of Muslim presence in the United States. The book gives attention to the contemporary moment...

Marci A. Hamilton, “God vs. the Gavel: Religion and the Rule of Law” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The constitution guarantees Americans freedom of religious practice and freedom from government interference in the same same. But what does religious liberty mean in practice? Does it mean that th...

Edward E. Curtis IV, "Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy" (NYU Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book Muslim American Politics and the Future of US Democracy (New York University Press, 2019), Edward E. Curtis IV interrogates the limitations of American liberalism in light of the st...

B.R. Ambedkar, "Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition" (Verso, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition, edited by S. Anand (Verso, 2016) and with an Introduction ‘The Doctor and the Saint’ by Arundhati Roy, is based on a speech by Dr. B.R. Ambeda...

Noah Salomon, “For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan’s Islamic State (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In popular discourse today, few concepts are more sensationalized and maliciously caricatured than that of the Islamic State. In his fascinating new book For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of ...

Mark Levene, “The Crisis of Genocide” (Oxford University Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I imagine one of the greatest compliments an author of an historical monograph can receive is to hear that his or her book changed the way a subject is taught. I will do just that after reading Ma...

Maurice Finocchiaro, "On Trial for Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book On Trial for Reason: Science, Religion, and Culture in the Galileo Affair (Oxford University Press, 2019), Maurice Finocchiaro shows that there were (and are) really two Galileo “af...

Andrew R. Holmes, "The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative Theology, Evangelical Experience, and Modern Criticism, 1830-1930" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Earlier today I caught up with my colleague at Queen’s University Belfast, Andrew R. Holmes, to discuss his outstanding new book, The Irish Presbyterian Mind: Conservative Theology, Evangelical Exp...

Michael Brown, “The Irish Enlightenment” (Harvard UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Traditionally histories of the Enlightenment era exclude Ireland in the belief that the movement left little impression on developments. In The Irish Enlightenment (Harvard University Press, 2016),...

Najam Haider, “The Origins of the Shia: Identity, Ritual, and Sacred Space in Eighth-Century Kufa” (Cambridge UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When did groups in Kufa begin forming unique identities leading to the development of Shiism? Najam Haider, professor of Religion at Barnard College of Columbia University, answers this question in...

Yael Shy, "What Now? Meditation for Your Twenties and Beyond" (Parellax Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Early adulthood is filled with intense emotions and insecurity. What if you never fall in love? What if you can't find work you’re passionate about? You miss home. You miss close friends. You’re lo...

Mani Rao, "Living Mantra: Mantra, Deity, and Visionary Experience Today" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What role does mantra play in the lives of Hindu practitioners? Mani Rao takes us on a journey to three sacred sites across India’s Andhra-Telangana region. The practitioners she engages at these s...

Dov Weiss, “Pious Irreverence: Confronting God in Rabbinic Judaism” (U. Pennsylvania Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Judaism is often described as a religion that tolerates, even celebrates arguments with God. Unlike Christianity and Islam, it is said, Judaism endorses a tradition of protest as first expressed in...

Marwa Elshakry, “Reading Darwin in Arabic, 1860-1950” (University of Chicago Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The work of Charles Darwin, together with the writing of associated scholars of society and its organs and organisms, had a particularly global reach in the late nineteenth and early twentieth cent...

Ahmet T. Kuru, "Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ahmet T. Kuru’s new book Islam, Authoritarianism and Underdevelopment, A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is a ground-breaking history and analysis of the evoluti...

Zeb Tortorici, "Sins Against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain" (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Sins Against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain (Duke University Press, 2018), Zeb Tortorici analyzes a vast corpus of documents in order to understand how sex acts that were conside...

Gretchen Buggeln, “The Suburban Church: Modernism and Community in Postwar America” (U. Minnesota Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

After World War II, America’s religious denominations spent billions on church architecture as they spread into the suburbs. Gretchen Buggeln’s latest monograph, The Suburban Church: Modernism and ...

M. Gail Hamner, “Imaging Religion in Film: The Politics of Nostalgia” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When we watch film various visual elements direct our understanding of the narrative and its meaning. The subjective position of each viewer informs their reading of images in a multitude of ways. ...

Adrian J. Boas, "The Crusader World" (Routledge, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Crusader World (Routledge, 2015), edited by Adrian J. Boas, is a multidisciplinary survey of the current state of research in the field of crusader studies, an area of study which has become in...

John Torpey, "The Three Axial Ages: Moral, Material, Mental" (Rutgers UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Since its initial postulation by Karl Jaspers, the concept of an “axial age” in the development of human thought and religion has exerted enormous influence in the fields of history and sociology. ...

Lena Salaymeh, “Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her brilliant new book Beginnings of Islamic Law: Late Antique Islamicate Legal Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2016), Lena Salaymeh, Associate Professor of Law at Tel Aviv University, p...

Sean Anthony, “Crucifixion and Death as Spectacle” (American Oriental Society, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Crucifixion is one of the most widely envisioned symbols in history. So much so, that for a contemporary reader the notion almost immediately plants an image of Jesus on the cross. Sean Anthony, As...

Michael Daise, "Quotations in John: Studies on Jewish Scripture in the Fourth Gospel" (T and T Clark, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Without question the Gospel of John makes rich use of both the Jewish scriptures and the feasts of the Jewish liturgical year. In this double-feature program, with speak with Michael A. Daise about...

Brannon D. Ingram, "Revival from Below: The Deoband Movement and Global Islam" (U California Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Revival from Below: The Deoband Movement and Global Islam (University of California Press, 2018) by Brannon D. Ingram is a timely study of the Deoband movement from its inception in India to its tr...

Anthony M. Petro, “After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and American Religion” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Emerging in the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic was not just a public health crisis. It was a moral crisis too, argues Anthony M. Petro in his new book, After the Wrath of God: AIDS, Sexuality, and Americ...

Sa’diyya Shaikh, “Sufi Narratives of Intimacy: Ibn Arabi, Gender and Sexuality” (University of North Carolina Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many Muslim debates regarding women are solely situated in legal or political frameworks. For example, we often find this tendency in conversations about women’s leadership in the mosque or the pol...

Robert P. George and R. J. Snell, "Mind, Heart, and Soul: Intellectuals and the Path to Rome" (TAN Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Mind, Heart, and Soul: Intellectuals and the Path to Rome (TAN Books, 2018), a cradle Catholic (Robert P. George; McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program i...

Elliott Sober, "The Design Argument" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The story goes: you are walking in the woods and see a wrist-watch on the ground; you don’t know how it got there or why it has come to be abandoned here, but you can surmise that someone somewhere...

Scott Bruce, ed., “The Penguin Book of the Undead: Fifteen Hundred Years of Supernatural Encounters” (Penguin, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Like so many Americans, I’m a big fan of the undead. I look forward to a night of nail-biting when a new episode of The Walking Dead airs and I get excited when Hollywood gears up for the next big-...

Vincent Goossaert and David A. Palmer, “The Religious Question in Modern China” University of Chicago Press, 2011 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Social phenomena that some people like to call ‘religion’ has long shaped Chinese culture. In the twentieth century, defining the boundaries of what constitutes ‘religion’ has been central to the c...

Spencer Dew, "The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali" (U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his dazzling new book The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali (University of Chicago Press, 2019), Spencer Dew treats his readers to a riveting and often counterintuitive ac...

Daromir Rudnyckyj, "Beyond Debt: Islamic Experiments in Global Finance" (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Recent economic crises have made the centrality of debt, and the instability it creates, increasingly apparent. In Beyond Debt: Islamic Experiments in Global Finance (University of Chicago Press, 2...

Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle, “The Art of the Bible: Illuminated Manuscripts from the Medieval World” (Thames and Hudson, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On today’s program, I talk with Scot McKendrick and Kathleen Doyle about their new book, The Art of the Bible Illuminated Manuscripts from the Medieval World, published by Thames and Hudson (and di...

Laura Silver, “Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food” (Brandeis University Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Something nice and filling for you here! Laura Silver‘s book Knish: In Search of the Jewish Soul Food (Brandeis University Press, 2014) concerns itself not only with the round — or is it square? — ...

Carl W. Ernst, “Hallaj: Poems of a Sufi Martyr” (Northwestern UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“I am the Real,” is the ecstatic statement often associated with the early Sufi poet Mansur al-Hallaj. In popular narratives about Hallaj this declaration of absolute unity with God is what led to ...

Jamal Elias, "Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion, and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies" (U California Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his groundbreaking new book, Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emotion, and Visual Culture in Islamic Societies (University of California Press, 2018), Jamal Elias takes his readers on a riveting in...

Federica Goffi, “Time Matter(s): Invention and Reimagination in Built Conservation” (Routledge, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Assistant Professor Federica Goffi fills a blind spot in current architectural theory and practice with this book, Time Matter(s): Invention and Re-Imagination in Built Conservation: The Unfinished...

Greta Christina, “Coming out Atheist: How to do it, How to Help Each Other, and Why” (Pitchstone Publishing, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Coming out atheist isn’t always easy, but Greta Christina, atheist activist and blogger, has tips to make it easier for those who struggle. After scouring hundreds of coming-out-atheist stories, sh...

Michael O’Sullivan, "Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965" (U Toronto Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How did Catholic mysticism shape politics and religion in 20th-century Germany? What do seers, stigmatics, and Marian apparitions reveal about broader cultural trends? Michael O’Sullivan’s award wi...

Ben Gatling, "Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan" (U Wisconsin Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

George Mason University professor Ben Gatling’s debut book, Expressions of Sufi Culture in Tajikistan (University of Wisconsin Press, 2018), is a beautifully written ethnography exploring the lives...

Christian Lange, “Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christian Lange’s Paradise and Hell in Islamic Traditions (Cambridge University Press, 2015), which was recently awarded the British-Kuwaiti Friendship Society’s Book Prize, presents a rich, challe...

Zareena Grewal, “Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority” (NYU Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Zareena Grewal‘s monograph Islam is a Foreign Country: American Muslims and the Global Crisis of Authority (NYU Press, 2013), seamlessly interweaves ethnographic research with an in-depth historica...

Salman Sayyid, "Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonization and World Order" (Hurst, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his paradigm shifting book, Recalling the Caliphate: Decolonization and World Order (Hurst, 2014), which was recently translated into Arabic as Isti‘adat al-Khilafa Tafkik al-Isti‘mar wa al-Niza...

Nicholas J. Moore, "Repetition in Hebrews: Plurality and Singularity in the Letter to the Hebrews, Its Ancient Context, and the Early Church" (Mohr Siebeck, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Is repetition always bad? The Letter to the Hebrews lies at the heart of a tradition that views repetition always negative. But is this the best understanding of Hebrews? Nicholas Moore says, ‘No.’...

Patrick Jory, “Thailand’s Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man” (SUNY Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Thailand’s Theory of Monarchy: The Vessantara Jataka and the Idea of the Perfect Man (SUNY Press, 2016; in paperback from 2017), Patrick Jory offers a compelling reinterpretation of religious te...

Steven L. Jacobs, “Lemkin on Genocide” (Lexington Books, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It’s hard to overestimate the role of Raphael Lemkin in calling the world’s attention to the crime of genocide.  But for decades his name languished, as scholars and the broader public devoted thei...

Steven D. Smith, "Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac" (Eerdmans, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does an American political progressive in the 21st Century have in common with a pagan of ancient Rome? More than you may think, according to law professor, Steven D. Smith. In his important, ...

Omid Safi, “Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition” (Yale UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It's often touted that Rumi is one of the best-selling poets in the United States. That may be the case but popular renderings of the writings of this 13th-century Muslim have largely detached him ...

Benjamin L. Gladd and Matthew S. Harmon, “Making All Things New: Inaugurated Eschatology for the Life of the Church” (Baker Academic, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Benjamin L. Gladd is Assistant Professor of New Testament at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. He completed his Ph.D. from Wheaton College in New Testament in 2008, and teaches...

John Cornwell, “The Dark Box: A Secret History of Confession” (Basic Books, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I’ve never been in a confessional box, but I’ve seen a lot of them in films. And if the depiction of them in films is in any way a reflection of popular attitudes toward confession, then I can say ...

Darryl Li, "The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity" (Stanford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

No contemporary figure is more demonized than the Islamist foreign fighter who wages jihad around the world. Spreading violence, disregarding national borders, and rejecting secular norms, so-calle...

Jesse A. Zink, "Christianity and Catastrophe in South Sudan: Civil War, Migration, and the Rise of Dinka Anglicanism" (Baylor UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The most recent addition to Baylor University Press’s Studies in World Christianity is Christianity and Catastrophe in South Sudan: Civil War, Migration, and the Rise of Dinka Anglicanism (Baylor U...

Donald Berry, “Glory in Romans and the Unified Purpose of God in Redemptive History” (Pickwick Publications, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this program, we discuss Glory in Romans and the Unified Purpose of God in Redemptive History (Pickwick Publications, 2016), a revision of Donald Berry’s doctoral dissertation. With this publica...

Nathan Schneider. “God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet” (University of California Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Nathan Schneider‘s monograph, God in Proof: The Story of a Search from the Ancients to the Internet (University of California Press, 2013), explores the timeless challenge of how to explain God. Ar...

Lynn Neal, "Religion in Vogue: Christianity and Fashion in America" (NYU Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christian imagery, symbols, and motifs have long been used and incorporated in fashion. Famous designers such as Coco Chanel, Gianni Versace, and Dolce and Gabbana have made Christianity trendy and...

Alan Jacobs, "The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Alan Jacobs is a renowned literary critic, with a talent for writing that books that speak to our current predicaments. A professor at Baylor University, his recent work includes a “biography” of t...

Rupa Viswanath, “The Pariah Problem: Caste, Religion, and the Social in Modern India” (Columbia UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The so called “Pariah Problem” emerged in public consciousness in the 1890s in India as state officials, missionaries and “upper”caste landlords, among others, struggled to understood the situation...

Lincoln Harvey, “A Brief Theology of Sport” (SCM Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Does God care who wins the game? According to a recent survey, plenty of American fans think so. The Public Religion Research Institute found that a quarter of fans said that they had prayed to God...

Olivier Roy, "Is Europe Christian?" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Olivier Roy, who is professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies in the European University Institute, Florence, Italy, is one of the most influential analysts of religion and secula...

Pamela E. Klassen, "The Story of Radio Mind: A Missionary's Journey on Indigenous Land" (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

At the dawn of the radio age in the 1920s, Frederick Du Vernet—Anglican archbishop and self-declared scientist—announced a psychic channel by which minds could telepathically communicate across dis...

April Dammann, “Corita Kent: Art and Soul: The Biography” (Angel City Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sister Mary Corita, IHM (1918-1986), was a beloved artist and teacher whose role as the rebel nun continues to inspire contemporary audiences. Corita joined the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of M...

Kathleen D. Singh, “The Grace in Dying: A Message of Hope, Comfort and Spiritual Transformation” (HarperOne, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this brilliantly conceived and beautifully written book, Kathleen Dowling Singh illuminates the profound psychological and spiritual transformations experiences by the dying as the natural proce...

Nicole Lovald, "Om Sweet Om: A Corporate Junkie’s Search for Enlightenment" (Wise Ink, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Om Sweet Om is the inspiring story of how a stressed-out corporate junkie found her way to a yoga mat--and eventually, back to herself. After fifteen years of working in the land of cubicles, unrea...

Harry O. Maier, "New Testament Christianity in the Roman World" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I had the opportunity to catch up with Harry O. Maier, professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the Vancouver School of Theology, to discuss his new book, New Testament Christianity in ...

Caroline Winterer, “American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason” (Yale UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Caroline Winterer is the Anthony P. Meier Family Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University. American Enlightenments: Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason (Yale University Press, 2016) g...

Ayesha Chaudhry, “Domestic Violence and the Islamic Tradition” (Oxford University Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do people make sense of their scriptures when they do not align with the way they envision these texts? This problem is faced by many contemporary believers and is especially challenging in rel...

Sarah Abrevaya Stein, "A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century" (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Family Papers: A Sephardic Journey Through the Twentieth Century (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2019), Sarah Abrevaya Stein weaves a narrative tapestry whose threads are drawn from the archives of ...

Victoria Smolkin, "A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism" (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The specter of the “Godless” Soviet Union haunted the United States and continental Western Europe throughout the Cold War, but what did atheism mean in the Soviet Union? What was its relationship ...

Arie L. Molendijk, “Friedrich Max Muller and the Sacred Books of the East” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Arie L. Molendijk is Professor of the History of Christianity and Philosophy in the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He has written Friedri...

Joshua Dubler, “Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In almost every prison movie you see, there is a group of fanatically religious inmates. They are almost always led by a charismatic leader, an outsized father-figure who is loved by his acolytes a...

SherAli Tareen, "Defending Muhammad in Modernity" (U Notre Dame Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020), SherAli Tareen, an associate professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College, takes us into t...

Thomas Borchert, “Educating Monks: Minority Buddhism on China’s Southwest Border” (U Hawaii Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What makes a Buddhist monk? This is the motivating question for Thomas Borchert, Professor of Religion at the University of Vermont, as he explores the social and educational formation of Buddhists...

Nile Green, “Terrains of Exchange: Religious Economies of Global Islam” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The historical convergence of European imperialism and technological innovation in communication and travel made multiple social sites of intersection between the local and global possible. Nile Gr...

Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I have a colleague at Newman who takes students to Guatemala every summer.  Since I arrived she’s encouraged me to join her.  I would stay with the order of sisters who sponsor our university. I’d ...

Jennifer B. Saunders, "Imagining Religious Communities: Transnational Hindus and their Narrative Performances" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Imagining Religious Communities: Transnational Hindus and their Narrative Performances (Oxford University Press, 2019) tells the story of the Gupta family through the personal and religious narrati...

McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty...

Robert Orsi, “History and Presence” (Harvard UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Beginning with the Catholic doctrine of the literal, embodied presence of Christ, scholar of religion Robert Orsi imagines an alternative to the future of religion that early moderns proclaimed was...

Ellen J. Amster, “Medicine and the Saints” (University of Texas Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is the interplay between the physical human body and the body politic? This question is at the heart of Ellen J. Amster‘s Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in...

Phillipa Chong, “Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times” (Princeton UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How does the world of book reviews work? In Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times (Princeton University Press, 2020), Phillipa Chong, assistant professor in sociology at McM...

Alireza Doostdar, "The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny" (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Winner of the Middle East Studies Association’s 2018 Albert Hourani Book Award, Alireza Doostdar’s The Iranian Metaphysicals: Explorations in Science, Islam, and the Uncanny (Princeton University P...

Jay Green, “Christian Historiography: Five Rival Versions” (Baylor UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does it mean to be a Christian historian? Can there be such a thing as Christian history? In his new book, Christian Historiography: Five Rival Versions (Baylor University Press, 2015), Jay Gr...

Josef Stern, “The Matter and Form of Maimonides’ Guide” (Harvard UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The medieval Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides’ most famous work, The Guide of the Perplexed, has been interpreted variously as an attempt to reconcile reason and religion, as a guide to philosophers...

Jaap Doedens, "The Sons of God in Genesis 6:1-4: Analysis and History of Exegesis" (Brill, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Who were the ‘sons of God’ in the book of Genesis—and what did they do? The elusive text of Genesis 6:1-4, with its references to ‘sons of God,’ ‘daughters of men,’ and ‘giants,’ has perplexed inte...

Tracy Fessenden, “Religion Around Billie Holiday” (Penn State UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Billie Holiday is one of the most iconic jazz performers of all time. Her voice is certainly unmistakable but for many her religious sensibilities may be invisible. In Religion Around Billie Holida...

Dale S. Wright, “What is Buddhist Enlightenment?” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The words “Buddhism” and “enlightenment” are, at least in the West, tightly connected. “Everyone” knows that the goal–or at least one of the goals–of Buddhist practice is “enlightenment.” But what ...

Karen Pechilis, “South Asian Religions: Tradition and Today” (Routledge, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you’re going to teach a broadly themed survey course, you’ll probably need to assign some readings. One option is to assemble one of those photocopied course readers, full of excerpts taken from...

L. Benjamin Rolsky, "The Rise and Fall of the Religious Left" (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As someone who grew up watching All in the Family and Sanford and Son, I’ve long been familiar with Norman Lear and his work. What I didn’t know, as a young child sitting cross-legged in front of t...

Arlene M. Sánchez Walsh, “Pentecostals in America” (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Arlene M. Sánchez Walsh‘s Pentecostals in America (Columbia University Press, 2018) offers a critical look at the history, key figures, and ideas that make Pentecostalism unique and challenges the ...

Rory Dickson, “Living Sufism in North America: Tradition and Transformation” (SUNY Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Rory Dickson’s Living Sufism in North America: Between Tradition and Transformation (SUNY Press, 2015) is the first monograph in English to focus on Sufism in North America. On this note, Dickson t...

Steven Engler and Michael Stausberg, eds., “The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Religious Studies” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In almost every graduate program in Religious Studies and many undergraduate majors you will find a course on theories and methods in the study of religion. Usually, in these types of courses you w...

Stephanie Kaza, "Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times" (Shambhala, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stephanie Kaza is Professor Emerita of Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont, and has written widely on Buddhism and the environment. She describes herself as a long-time lover of tree...

Lilian Calles Barger, “The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A searching and richly textured history of the affinities and common origins of Latin American and North American liberation theologies, The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation...

Carsten Schapkow, “Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation” (Lexington Books, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why were German Jews so fascinated by Iberian Sephardic history? In Role Model and Countermodel: The Golden Age of Iberian Jewry and German Jewish Culture during the Era of Emancipation (Lexington ...

Ahmad Atif Ahmad, “The Fatigue of the SharÄ«’a” (Palgrave, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the book, The Fatigue of the SharÄ«’a (Palgrave, 2012), Ahmad Atif Ahmad explores a centuries-old debate about the permanence, or impermanence, of God’s law, and guidance, in the lives of Muslim...

Randal Schnoor, "Jewish Family: Identity and Self-Formation at Home" (Indiana UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Jewish Family: Identity and Self-Formation at Home (Indiana University Press, 2018), Alex Pomson and Randal Schnoor examine the impact of the family on Jewish identity. Through interviewing a sa...

Paul Djupe and Ryan L. Claassen, eds., “The Evangelical Crackup?: The Future of the Evangelical-Republican Coalition” (Temple UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 2016, despite only mixed support from evangelical leaders, Donald Trump won an enormous share of the white evangelical vote. How did Trump manage to overcome the seeming mix-match between his re...

David M. Krueger, “Myths of the Rune Stone: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America” (U. of Minnesota Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What do our myths say about us? Why do we choose to believe stories that have been disproven by science? In Myths of the Rune Stone: Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America (University of Minn...

Barbara Bonner, “Inspiring Generosity” (Wisdom Publications, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“You can measure the depth of people’s awakening by how they serve others.” This quotation by Kobo Daishi, the ninth-century Japanese Buddhist monk, is only one of many observations that fill this ...

John Tweeddale, "John Calvin: For a New Reformation" (Crossway, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John Calvin continues to be the focus of a huge amount of scholarly attention. An annual bibliography records the thousands of items that are published every year on this most seminal of early mode...

Zoe Knox, “Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Secular World: From the 1870s to the Present” (Palgrave, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jehovah’s Witnesses are one of the most successful “new religious movements” to have emerged from the prophetic ferment within later nineteenth-century Protestantism. Always controversial, often pe...

Fleming Rutledge, “The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ” (Eerdmans, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On this program, I talk with Fleming Rutledge about her new book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ (Eerdmans, 2015), and the themes and motifs surrounding the topic in the h...

Afsar Mohammad, “The Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in South India” (Oxford University Press, 2013 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Several studies about Islam in Asian contexts highlight the pluralistic environment that Muslims inhabit and interplay of various religious traditions that color local practice and thought. In The ...

Christopher J. Shepherd, "Haunted Houses and Ghostly Encounters: Ethnography and Animism in East Timor, 1860-1975" (NIAS Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anyone who tries to understand the history, religion, and especially the “culture” of Southeast Asia, will soon encounter the phenomenon of animism, the belief that landscapes, natural objects, tre...

Philip Lutgendorf, “The Epic of Ram” (Harvard University Press, 2016-) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Philip Lutgendorf is Retired Professor of Hindi and Modern Indian Studies at the University of Iowa. He is currently working on a seven-volume translation of the Hindi devotional text, the R?mc...

Matthew Pierce, “Twelve Infallible Men: The Imams and the Making of Shiism” (Harvard UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The story of the martyrdom of Husayn, the prophet Muhammad’s grandson, is recounted annually around the world. More broadly, the communal retelling of the lives of Shia imams has played an importan...

Sarah Pessin, “Ibn Gabirol’s Theology of Desire: Matter and Method in Jewish Medieval Neoplatonism” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Neoplatonists, including the 11th century Jewish philosopher-poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol, are often saddled with a cosmology considered either as outdated science or a kind of “invisible floating Kans...

Abigail Shinn, "Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England: Tales of Turning" (Palgrave, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why did early modern people change their religious affiliation? And how did they represent that change in writing? In this outstanding new book, Conversion Narratives in Early Modern England: Tales...

Donald H. Akenson, “Exporting the Rapture: John Nelson Darby and the Victorian Conquest of North American Evangelicalism” (Oxford UP/McGill-Queen’s UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Don Akenson, who is Douglas Professor of Canadian and Colonial History at Queen’s University, Ontario, is one of the most eminent scholars of Irish history. Exporting the Rapture: John Nelson Darby...

Adam Rovner, “In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel” (New York UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book, In the Shadow of Zion: Promised Lands Before Israel (New York University Press, 2014), Adam Rovner, Associate Professor of English and Jewish Literature at the University of Denver, ex...

John L. Modern, “Secularism in Antebellum America” (University of Chicago Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The notion of secularism is something that has a ubiquitous presence in contemporary society. And while there is a general everyday use of this term, meaning ‘not religious,’ the understanding of t...

Juliane Hammer, "Peaceful Families: American Muslim Efforts Against Domestic Violence" (Princeton UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do Muslim Americans respond to domestic violence? What motivates Muslim individuals and organizations to work towards eradicating domestic violence in their communities? Where do Muslim provide...

Anand Taneja, “Jinnealogy: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi” from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anand Taneja’s Jinnealogy: Time, Islam, and Ecological Thought in the Medieval Ruins of Delhi (Stanford University Press, 2017) is a landmark publication that interrogates modes of religious practi...

Martha Nussbaum, “Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anger is among the most familiar phenomena in our moral lives. It is common to think that anger is an appropriate, and sometimes morally required, emotional response to wrongdoing and injustice. In...

Rebecca Williams, “Muhammad and the Supernatural: Medieval Arab Views” (Routledge, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Rebecca Williams‘ book Muhammad and the Supernatural: Medieval Arab Views (Routledge, 2013) is one of the newest additions to the Routledge Studies in Classic Islam series. Despite the Qur’anic pro...

Shai M. Dromi, "Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector" (U Chicago Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How should we understand humanitarian NGOs? In Above the Fray: The Red Cross and the Making of the Humanitarian NGO Sector (University of Chicago Press, 2020), Shai M. Dromi, a lecturer in sociolog...

Iain Provan, “The Reformation and the Right Reading of Scripture” (Baylor UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Exactly five centuries after Martin Luther posted his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Christians continue to debate the best approach to the reading of their sacred book. ...

Benjamin Fagan, “The Black Newspaper and the Chosen Nation” (U. of Georgia Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the decades leading up to the Civil War, antebellum African Americans elites turned to the newspaper as a means of translating their belief in black “chosenness” into programs for black liberati...

Judith Orloff, “The Ecstasy Of Surrender: 12 Surprising Ways Letting Go Can Empower Your Life” (Harmony Books, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Surrender is a difficult concept for many people in Western societies, where everything seems to evolve around the desire for control, predictability and power. In our age of anxiety, certainty and...

James K. Wellman, Jr., "High on God: How Megachurches Won the Heart of America" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the United States, the number of megachurches increased from 350 in 1990 to over 1,600 in 2011 with that number continuing to grow exponentially in subsequent years. By 2015, a Hartford Institut...

Robert G. Ingram, “Reformation Without End: Religion, Politics and the Past in Post-Revolutionary England” (Manchester UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert G. Ingram’s Reformation Without End: Religion, Politics and the Past in Post-Revolutionary England (Manchester University Press, 2018) radically reinterprets the English Reformation. Subject...

Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, “The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Myth of the Cultural Jew: Culture and Law in Jewish Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2015), Roberta Rosenthal Kwall, the Raymond P. Niro Professor of Intellectual Property Law at DePaul U...

Brent Nongbri, “Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept” (Yale University Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We all know that religion is a universal feature of human history, right? Well, maybe not. In Before Religion: A History of a Modern Concept (Yale University Press, 2013), Brent Nongbri, Post Docto...

Bari Weiss, "How to Fight Anti-Semitism" (Crown, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anti-semitism is on the rise in the U.S. and other parts of the world. 6 people died this week in Jersey City, New Jersey, in a shootout at a kosher supermarket. The two gunmen appear to have been ...

James S. Bielo, “Ark Encounter: The Making of a Creationist Theme Park” (NYU Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Ark Encounter: The Making of a Creationist Theme Park (NYU Press, 2018), James Bielo, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Miami University, goes behind the scenes at Grant Count...

Akiko Takenaka, “Yasukuni Shrine: History, Memory, and Japan’s Unending Postwar” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Akiko Takenaka’s new book looks carefully at Yasukuni Shrine as a war memorial, examining its role in waging war, honoring the dead, promoting peace, and building a modern national identity. Yasuku...

Ahmed El Shamsy, “The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History” (Cambridge UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his brilliant new book, The Canonization of Islamic Law: A Social and Intellectual History (Cambridge UP, 2013), Ahmed El Shamsy, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Chic...

Mario T. García, "Father Luis Olivares, A Biography: Faith Politics and the Origins of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles" (UNC Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As the leader of the Sanctuary Movement in Los Angeles during the 1980s, Father Luis Olivares brazenly defied local Catholic authorities and the federal government by publicly offering sanctuary to...

Stephen Batchelor, “Secular Buddhism: Imagining the Dharma in an Uncertain World” (Yale UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As the practice of mindfulness permeates mainstream Western culture, more and more people are engaging in a traditional form of Buddhist meditation. However, many of these people have little intere...

Jonathan Garb, “Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah” (U. of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Yearnings of the Soul: Psychological Thought in Modern Kabbalah (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Jonathan Garb, the Gershom Scholem Professor in the Department of Jewish Thought at the Hebre...

Leora Batnitzky, “How Judaism Became a Religion: An Introduction to Modern Jewish Thought” (Princeton UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

From her first book about the Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig, Leora Batnitzky has been heralded as a rising star in contemporary Jewish thought and the philosophy of religion. Batnitzky, a pro...

Jay Wexler, "Our Non-Christian Nation" (Redwood Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Less and less Christian demographically, America is now home to an ever-larger number of people who say they identify with no religion at all. These non-Christians have increasingly been demanding ...

David C. Posthumus, “All My Relatives: Exploring Lakota Ontology, Belief, and Ritual” (U Nebraska Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In All My Relatives: Exploring Lakota Ontology, Belief, and Ritual (University of Nebraska Press, 2018), David C. Posthumus, Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Native American Studies at the U...

Silvia Jonas, “Ineffability and Its Metaphysics: The Unspeakable in Art, Religion, and Philosophy” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There is a long history in philosophy, art and religion of claims about the ineffable from The One in Plotinus to Kant’s noumena or thing-in-itself to Wittgenstein’s famous remark at the end of Tra...

James A. Lindsay, “Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus God Equals Folly” (Onus Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the depths of the internet there is many an article discussing the infinity of God. Its authors argue that God is infinite and endless and knows no bounds (what the difference is among those att...

Jonathan A. C. Brown, "Slavery and Islam" (Oneworld Academic, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his majestic and encyclopedic new book Slavery and Islam (Oneworld Academic, 2019), Jonathan A. C. Brown presents a sweeping analysis of Muslim intellectual, political, and social entanglements ...

Ann Taves, “Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I’ve often asked myself this question: “How do religions begin?” I don’t know about you, but I think I would be very, very skeptical if someone told me that they’d had just received a revelation, c...

Paul M. Cobb, “The Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Crusades loom large in contemporary popular consciousness. However, our public understanding has largely been informed from a western perspective, despite the fact that there is a rich textual ...

Lawrence J. Friedman, “The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love’s Prophet” (Columbia UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Erich Fromm, one of the most widely known psychoanalysts of the previous century, was involved in the exploration of spirituality throughout his life. His landmark book The Art of Loving, which sol...

Roberto Strongman, "Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou" (Duke UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Queering Black Atlantic Religions: Transcorporeality in Candomblé, Santería, and Vodou (Duke University Press, 2019), Roberto Strongman reveals the many non-heteronormative texts, practices and ...

Joshua J. F. Coutts, “The Divine Name in the Gospel of John” (Mohr Siebeck, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Unlike many of the other early Christian texts, the Gospel of John emphasizes the name of the Father alongside the name of Jesus—why? One reason, says Joshua Coutts, is because of the significance ...

Mark R. E. Meulenbeld, “Demonic Warfare: Daoism, Territorial Networks, and the History of a Ming Novel” (U. of Hawaii Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mark R. E. Meulenbeld’s new book looks closely at the relationship between vernacular novels and vernacular rituals in Ming China. Focusing on a particular novel called Canonization of the Gods (Fe...

Darrin M. McMahon, “Divine Fury: A History of Genius” (Basic Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Here’s an odd thing: there really haven’t been any universally-acclaimed geniuses since Einstein. At least I can’t think of any. Really smart people, yes. But geniuses per se, no. It seems Einstein...

Paul Lay, "Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate" (Head of Zeus, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In today’s episode, we catch up with Paul Lay, editor of the leading journal History Today, and a senior research fellow in early modern history at the University of Buckingham. Paul is the author ...

Brian Stanley, “Christianity in the Twentieth Century: A World History” (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today I talked with Brian Stanley, professor of World Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, about his new book, Christianity in the Twentieth Century: A World History (Princeton University P...

Peter Harrison, “The Territories of Science and Religion” (U. of Chicago Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Contemporary debates would lead you to believe that science and religion are eternally at odds with each other. In The Territories of Science and Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2014), Peter...

Carla Bellamy, “The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyday Healing in an Ambiguously Islamic Place” (University of California Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyday Healing in an Ambiguously Islamic Place (University of California Press, 2011), Carla Bellamy explores the role of saint shrines in India, while focusing on a pa...

SpearIt, “American Prisons: A Critical Primer on Culture and Conversion to Islam” (First Edition Design, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

America has the largest incarcerated population in the world. This staggering and troubling fact has driven a great deal of scholarship. Much of this research has shown that mass incarceration in A...

Matthew Harper, “The End of Days: African American Religion and Politics in the Age of Emancipation” (UNC Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the wake of the bloody Civil War, millions of slaves were emancipated. How did those freed slaves, along with African Americans freed before the Civil War, interpret this new post-war world? Dr....

Aisha Geissinger, “Gender and the Construction of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qur’an Commentary (Brill, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Aisha Geissinger’s monograph, Gender and the Construction of Exegetical Authority: A Rereading of the Classical Genre of Qur’an Commentary (Brill, 2015), contributes to the growing field of interse...

Rumee Ahmed, “Narratives of Islamic Legal Theory” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How should one understand Islamic law outside of its application? What happens when we think about religious jurisprudence theoretically? For medieval Muslim scholars this was the field where one c...

Catherine Newell, "Destined for the Stars: Faith, the Future, and America’s Final Frontier" (U Pittsburgh Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Catherine Newell talks about the religious roots of the final frontier, focusing on the collaboration of artist Chesley Bonestell, science writer Willy Ley, and the NASA rocket engineer Wernher von...

Samuel Helfont, “Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Samuel Helfont‘s Compulsion in Religion: Saddam Hussein, Islam and the Roots of Insurgencies in Iraq (Oxford University Press, 2018) makes an invaluable contribution to an understanding of Iraqi st...

Elizabeth Hurd, “Beyond Religious Freedom: The New Global Politics of Religion” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Among the most frequent demands made of Islam and Muslims today is to become more moderate. But what counts as moderate and who will decide so are questions with less than obvious answers. In her t...

Molly Worthen, “Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Molly Worthen, author most recently of Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2013), spoke with Ray Haberski about the ideas that moved a v...

K. Linder et al., "Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers" (Stylus Publishing, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If you’re a grad student facing the ugly reality of finding a tenure-track job, you could easily be forgiven for thinking about a career change. However, if you’ve spent the last several years work...

Irfan Ahmad, “Religion as Critique: Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace” (UNC Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the last few decades, questions relating to Islam’s compatibility with liberal secular democracy, or the question of why Islam remains incompatible with Western liberal norms of thought and poli...

Joseph Lam, “Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible: Metaphor, Culture, and the Making of a Religious Concept” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On this program, I spoke with Joseph Lam about his book, Patterns of Sin in the Hebrew Bible: Metaphor, Culture, and the Making of a Religious Concept (Oxford University Press, 2016). Joseph Lam is...

Vincent Geoghegan, “Socialism and Religion: Roads to Common Wealth” (Routledge, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“Christianity and socialism go together like fire and water,” remarked August Bebel, Germany’s leading socialist, in 1874. The anticlerical violence of revolutions in Mexico, Russia, and Spain in t...

Gerald Dawe, "The Sound of the Shuttle: Essays on Cultural Belonging and Protestantism in Northern Ireland" (Irish Academic Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the leading poets of his generation, Gerald Dawe is also a fellow emeritus and professor of English at Trinity College Dublin. Throughout his long writing career he has been thinking about t...

Tala Jarjour, “Sense and Sadness: Syriac Chant in Aleppo” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Religious music can be a source of comfort and release, but also a remembrance of sadness and loss. In Sense and Sadness: Syriac Chant in Aleppo (Oxford University Press, 2018), Tala Jarjour analyz...

Sandow Birk, “American Qur’an” (Liveright, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Could the Qur’an–understood, according to Muslims, as the verbatim word of God in Arabic–acquire a nationality? Specifically, could it be American? And written in English? Contemporary visual artis...

Robert K. C. Forman, “Enlightenment Ain’t What It’s Cracked Up To Be” (Changemakers Books, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In these times, when more and more people are looking for spiritual truth and engage in practices like meditation, it’s hard to know what to expect from attaining a lofty goal like Enlightenment. W...

Abraham Kuyper, "On Education" (Lexham Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Abraham Kuyper was one of the most important theologians in the Dutch Reformed tradition – and a newspaper editor, university founder and Prime Minister to boot. Lexham Press are publishing his "Co...

Adam D. Hensley, “Covenant Relationships and the Editing of the Hebrew Psalter” (T&T Clark, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Was the Hebrew Psalter purposefully shaped and arranged by editors to convey a particular theological message? Adam Hensley says yes. By examining the relationship between the Davidic covenant and ...

Saskia Coenen Snyder, “Building a Public Judaism” (Harvard UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Building a Public Judaism: Synagogues and Jewish Identity in Nineteenth-Century Europe (Harvard University Press, 2013), Saskia Coenen Snyder, Associate Professor of History at the University of...

Raphael Lataster, “There was no Jesus, There is no God” (Amazon Digital Services, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the preface of There was no Jesus, There is no God (Amazon Digital Services, 2013),Raphael Lataster states that “it is not my job to disprove Christianity or any other religion. It is not my int...

Scott C. Esplin, "Return to the City of Joseph: Modern Mormonism's Contest for the Soul of Nauvoo" (U Illinois Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the mid-twentieth century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) returned to Nauvoo, Illinois, home to the thriving religious community led by Joseph Smith before his murder in 1...

Robert D. Miller II, “Covenant and Grace in the Old Testament: Assyrian Propaganda and Israelite Faith” (Gorgias Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How would Israelites have understood their nation’s covenant relationship with Yahweh? Dr. Robert Miller II offers a study of the Old Testament language of covenant within its ancient context, espe...

Jon D. Levenson, “The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Love of God: Divine Gift, Human Gratitude, and Mutual Faithfulness in Judaism (Princeton University Press, 2016), Jon D. Levenson, Albert A. List Professor of Jewish Studies at Harvard Unive...

Agostino Cilardo, “The Early History of Islamili Jurisprudence” (I. B. Tauris, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Al-QÄ?á¸?Ä« al-Nu῾mÄ?n (d. 363/974) was the primary architect of IsmÄ?῾īlÄ« jurisprudence which was formed under the Fatamids. The Early History of Ismaili Jurisprudence (I. B. Tauris, 2013) p...

Anna M. Gade, “Muslim Environmentalisms: Religious and Social Foundations” (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The relationship between Islam and the environment has a long and rich history across various Muslim societies. Anna M. Gade, Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, outlines several stra...

Larry Shapiro, “The Miracle Myth: Why Belief in the Resurrection and the Supernatural Is Unjustified” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are many who believe Moses parted the Red Sea and Jesus came back from the dead. Others are certain that exorcisms occur, ghosts haunt attics, and the blessed can cure the terminally ill. Tho...

Richard B. Hays, “Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness” (Baylor UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Richard B. Hays is the George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke Divinity School. Internationally recognized for his work on the letters of Paul and on New Testament ethics, he has ...

Robert Yelle, “The Language of Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in British India” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is the nature of secularization? How distant are we from the magical world of the past? Perhaps, we are not as far as many people think. In the fascinating new book, The Language of Disenchant...

Emily Colbert Cairns, "Esther in Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora: Queen of the Conversas" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Emily Colbert Cairns’ book, Esther in Early Modern Iberia and the Sephardic Diaspora: Queen of the Conversas (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), traces the biblical figure of Esther, the secret Jewish Quee...

Janelle Wong, “Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change” (Russell Sage Foundation, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Surprising to many, white Evangelicals voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election at a higher rate than any candidate in the previous four presidential elections. At the same time, the Evangelical...

Charles Keith, “Catholic Vietnam: A Church from Empire to Nation” (U of California Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The relationship between religion, imperialism, and national identity can be quite complex. At the same time, nationalist readings of history, particularly when they are combined with other ideolog...

Teena Purohit, “The Aga Khan Case: Religion and Identity in Colonial India” (Harvard UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How does colonial power, both discursive and institutional, transform the normative boundaries and horizons of religious identities? Teena Purohit, Assistant Professor of Religion at Boston Univers...

James D. Bratt, "A Christian and a Democrat: A Religious Biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt" (Eerdmans, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when asked at a press conference about the roots of his political philosophy, responded simply, “I am a Christian and a Democrat.” This new book is the story of how the f...

Ruth Gamble, “Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism: The Third Karmapa and the Invention of a Tradition” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ruth Gamble’s Reincarnation in Tibetan Buddhism: The Third Karmapa and the Invention of a Tradition (Oxford University Press, 2018) is a thorough and accessible study on reincarnation, the tulku tr...

Jason Bivins, “Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jazz is often dubbed the greatest American original art form. This claim might be difficult to contend. But a close exploration of the folks who created, listened, and participated in jazz environm...

Jeremy Dauber, “The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem” (Schocken, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The first comprehensive biography of famed Yiddish novelist, story writer and playwright Sholem Aleichem, Jeremy Dauber‘s welcome new book The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Remarkable Life and Aft...

Tad DeLay, ?"Against: What Does the White Evangelical Want?"? (Cascade Book, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does the white evangelical want? In our moment of crisis and rage, this question is everywhere. Scholars ask from where its desires emerged, pundits divine its political future, and the public...

Luis Cortest, “Philo’s Heirs: Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas” (Academic Studies Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The tensions found between Reason and Revelation, between the traditions of the Bible and Greek thought, were central to pre-modern philosophy and in a sense remain so today. We live in an age beho...

Dianne Ashton, “Hanukkah in America: A History” (New York UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Hanukkah in America: A History (New York University Press, 2013), Dianne Ashton, professor of Religion Studies at Rowan University, delves into the history of Hanukkah in the United States to il...

Elaine R. Glickman, “The Messiah and the Jews” (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“The conviction that the Messiah is coming is a promise of meaning. It is a source of consolation. It is a wellspring of creativity. It is reconciliation between what is and what should be. And it ...

Filippo Marsili, "Heaven Is Empty: A Cross-Cultural Approach to 'Religion' and Empire in Ancient China" (SUNY Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Heaven Is Empty: A Cross-Cultural Approach to 'Religion' and Empire in Ancient China (SUNY Press, 2018) offers a new comparative perspective on the role of the sacred in the formation of China’s ea...

Merin Shobhana Xavier, “Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism: Bawa Muhaiyaddeen and Contemporary Shrine Cultures” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1971, a Sri Lankan Sufi arrived in Philadelphia to address a group of spiritual seekers. This trip initiated the career of one of the most influential teachers in the history of North American S...

Adam Ferziger, “Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism” (Wayne State UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Beyond Sectarianism: The Realignment of American Orthodox Judaism (Wayne State University Press, 2015), Adam Ferziger, S.R. Hirsch Chair for Research of the Torah with Derekh Erez Movement at Ba...

Mohammed Rustom, “The Triumph of Mercy: Philosophy and Scripture in Mulla Sadra” (SUNY Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is the relationship between philosophy, mysticism, and scripture in the Islamic tradition? Mohammed Rustom, Associate Professor of Islamic Studies at Carleton University, has been thinking abo...

Kenneth R. Valpey, "Cow Care in Hindu Animal Ethics" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does cow care in India have to offer modern Western discourse animal ethics? Why are cows treated with such reverence in the Indian context? Join us as we speak to Kenneth R. Valpey about his ...

M. Cooper Harriss, “Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Theology” (NYU Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ralph Ellison’s 1952 novel Invisible Man is a milestone of American literature and the idea of invisibility has become a key way for understanding social marginalization. In Ralph Ellison’s Invisib...

Jonathon S. Kahn and Vincent W. Lloyd, editors, “Race And Secularism in America” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jonathon S. Kahn is an associate professor of religion at Vassar College. He is co-editor with Vincent W. Lloyd of a collection of essays entitled Race and Secularism in America (Columbia Universit...

Aaron Adair, “The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View” (Onus Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“And having heard the king, they went their way; and lo, the star, which they had seen in the east, went on before them, until it came and stood over where the Child was. And when they saw the star...

Dr. Alice Collett, "Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History" (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Alice Collett’s monograph Lives of Early Buddhist Nuns: Biographies as History (Oxford University Press, 2016) delves into the lives of six of the best-known nuns from the period of early Buddh...

Jessica Johnson, “Biblical Porn: Affect, Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Evangelical Empire” (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her book Biblical Porn: Affect, Labor, and Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Evangelical Empire (Duke University Press, 2018), Dr. Jessica Johnson chronicles the rise and fall of Mars Hill Church, an evang...

Todd Endelman, “Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Leaving the Jewish Fold: Conversion and Radical Assimilation in Modern Jewish History (Princeton University Press, 2015), Todd Endelman looks across three centuries and on both sides of the Atla...

Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, “The Devil That Never Dies” (Little, Brown and Co., 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are 13 million Jews in the world today. There are also 13 million Senegalese, 13 million Zambians, 13 million Zimbabweans, and 13 million Chadians. These are tiny–a realist might say “insigni...

Christopher Cameron, "Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism" (Northwestern UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Black Freethinkers: A History of African American Secularism (Northwestern University Press, 2019) by Christopher Cameron, an Associate Professor of history at the University of North Carolina, Cha...

Leigh Eric Schmidt, “Village Atheists: How America’s Unbelievers Made Their Way in A Godly Nation” (Princeton UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A much-maligned minority throughout American history, atheists have been cast as a threat to the nation’s moral fabric, barred from holding public office, and branded as irreligious misfits in a na...

Stephen L. Field, “The Duke of Zhou Changes: A Study and Annotated Translation of the Zhouyi” (Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Stephen L. Field‘s new translation and study of the Zhouyi offers an inspiring and fresh take that importantly differs from previous translators approaches to the text. The Duke of Zhou Changes: A ...

Sarra Tlilli, “Animals in the Qur’an” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her book Animals in the Qur’an (Cambridge University Press, 2012), Sarra Tlili carefully addresses a complex issue. What does the Qur’an say about non-human animals? And their relationship to hu...

Narges Bajoghli, "Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic" (Stanford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Narges Bajoghli’s gripping new book Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic (Stanford UP, 2019) presents a riveting ethnography of pro-regime media networks in Iran, and sketches ...

Christopher Grasso, “Skepticism and American Faith: From the Revolution to the Civil War” (Oxford University Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christopher Grasso is a professor of history at the College of William and Mary. His book Skepticism and American Faith: From the Revolution to the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2018) explore...

Mel Scult, “The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan” (Indiana UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (Indiana University Press, 2013), Mel Scult, professor emeritus at Brooklyn College, explores the ways in which Mordecai Kaplan, the only rabbi...

Heidi Campbell, “When Religion Meets New Media” Routledge, 2010 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does religion have to do with technology? Many people think that religious practitioners are inherently opposed to new technological developments. The reality of the situation is that religiou...

Nijay Gupta, "Paul and the Language of Faith" (Eerdmans, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Faith language permeates the letters of Paul. Yet, its exact meaning is not always clear. Many today, reflecting centuries of interpretation, consider belief in Jesus to be a passive act. In his ne...

Jonathan Smyth, “Robespierre and the Festival of the Supreme Being: The Search for a Republican Morality” (Manchester UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his speech delivered to the National Convention on 18 Floréal (May 7, 1794), Maximilien Robespierre shocked his listeners as he attacked the proponents of atheism and dechristianization in the g...

Lynn Davidman, “Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews” (Oxford University Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews (Oxford University Press, 2015), Lynn Davidman, Robert M. Beren Distinguished Professor of Modern Jewish Studies at the University of Kansas, uti...

Dan Stone, “Histories of the Holocaust” (Oxford UP, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

I don’t think it’s possible anymore for someone, even an academic with a specialty in the field, let alone an interested amateur, to read even a fraction of the literature written about the Holocau...

Jerome Gellman, "The History of Evil from the Mid-Twentieth Century to Today: 1950-2018" (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” – Genesis 8:21 “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” - William Shakespeare We share with other ...

D. G. Hart, “Calvinism: A History” (Yale UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today I talked with D. G. Hart, an historian at Hillsdale College, MI, and the author of many books, including Calvinism: A History (Yale University Press, 2013). Listed on the front cover of Time ...

Asma Afsaruddin, “Contemporary Issues in Islam” (Edinburgh UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As the title of the monograph suggests, Contemporary Issues in Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2015) by Asma Afsaruddin, guides the reader through an organized and compelling narrative of reflec...

Joanne Benham Rennick, “Religion in the Ranks: Belief and Religious Experience in the Canadian Forces” (University of Toronto Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is the role of religion in the military? What are the roles of religious chaplains in the military? How are important issues such as post-traumatic stress, religious and ethnic diversity, and ...

Gediminas Lankauskas, "The Land of Weddings and Rain: Nation and Modernity in Post-Socialist Lithuania" (U Toronto Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Gediminas Lankauskas’ new book The Land of Weddings and Rain: Nation and Modernity in Post-Socialist Lithuania (University of Toronto Press, 2015) is “an ethnography concerned with the ambiguities,...

Harold Morales, “Latino and Muslim in America: Race, Religion, and the Making of a New Minority” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Harold Morales, an associate professor of Religion at Morgan State University, is the author of the momentous new book, Latino and Muslim in America: Race, Religion, and the Making of a New Minorit...

Gary A. Anderson, “Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition” (Yale University Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition (Yale University Press, 2013), Gary A. Anderson, Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Notre Dame, explores the th...

Paul O’Connor, “Islam in Hong Kong: Muslims and Everyday Life in China’s World City” (Hong Kong UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does the everyday experience of Muslim minorities look like? We have often heard about what Muslims deal with in the West. But what about Muslim minorities in the East? This was one of the que...

Robert Rozehnal, "Cyber Sufis: Virtual Expressions of the American Muslim Experience" (OneWorld, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What happens when the digital world meets Sufism? This is the question raised in the exciting new book Cyber Sufis: Virtual Expressions of the American Muslim Experience (OneWorld Academic, 2019) b...

Meredith Lake, “The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History” (NewSouth Publishing, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her new book, The Bible in Australia: A Cultural History (NewSouth Publishing, 2018), historian Meredith Lake explores the various, often surprising ways Australians throughout history have read...

Birgit Meyer, “Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana” (U of California Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anthropologist Birgit Meyer‘s most recent book, Sensational Movies: Video, Vision, and Christianity in Ghana (University of California Press, 2015), explores the dynamic process of popular video fi...

Mary Eberstadt, “How the West Really Lost God” (Templeton Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are a lot of theories that attempt to explain how Westerns came to leave their churches in great numbers. Some focus on ideas, particularly the idea that believing in God made no sense becaus...

Yaacob Dweck, "Dissident Rabbi: The Life of Jacob Sasportas" (Princeton UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1665, Sabbetai Zevi, a self-proclaimed Messiah with a mass following throughout the Ottoman Empire and Europe, announced that the redemption of the world was at hand. As Jews everywhere rejected...

Louis Warren, “God’s Red Son: The Ghost Dance Religion and the Making of Modern America” (Basic Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Historians and other writers often portray the Ghost Dance religious movement and massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890 as endings, the final gasps of armed Native resistance and their older ways of lif...

Eric Dietrich, “Excellent Beauty: The Naturalness of Religion and the Unnaturalness of the World” (Columbia UP, ) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Although there are many deep criticisms of a scientific view of humanity and the world, a persistent theme is that the scientific worldview eliminates mystery, and in particular, the wonders and my...

Nancy Khalek, “Damascus after the Muslim Conquest” (Oxford University Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A top five finalist for the Best First Book in the History of Religion Award, Damascus after the Muslim Conquest (Oxford University Press, 2011) by Nancy Khalek, professor of Religious Studies at B...

Leor Halevi, "Modern Things on Trial: Islam’s Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida, 1865-1935" (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How did Muslims respond to foreign goods in an age characterized by global exchange and European imperial expansion? What sort of legal reasoning did scholars apply in order to appropriate – or rej...

Samira Mehta, “Beyond Chrismukkah: The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States” (UNC Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With rates of interfaith marriage steadily increasing since the middle of the twentieth century, interfaith families have become a permanent and significant feature of the religious landscape in th...

Bland and Strawn, “Christianity and Psychoanalysis: A New Conversation” (IntraVarsity Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Despite remaining neutral on his personal religious beliefs, Freud’s commitment to empiricism and his determination in relegating psychoanalysis to a scientifically valid position has had a lasting...

Reza Aslan, “Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth” (Random House, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christians in the United States and around the world have varying images of Jesus, from one who turns the other cheek to one who brings the sword. Reza Aslan, in his highly popular and beautifully ...

Frederick Beiser, "Hermann Cohen: An Intellectual Biography" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The eminent scholar of Neo-Kantianism, Frederick Beiser, has struck again, this time bringing his considerable analytical powers and erudition to the task of intellectual biography. For those of yo...

Sean Molloy, “Kant’s International Relations: The Political Theology of Perpetual Peace” (U Michigan Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does Kant have to tell us about International Relations? In Kant’s International Relations: The Political Theology of Perpetual Peace (University of Michigan Press, 2017), Sean Molloy, a Reade...

Daniel M. Horwitz, “A Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism Reader” (The Jewish Publication Society, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ever wonder what Kabbalah is really about? Or how you might have a close relationship with God? Is cleaving to God an expectation that might have been medieval but no longer is sought? Rabbi Dr. Da...

A. Glenn Crothers, “Quakers Living in the Lion’s Mouth” (University Press of Florida, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Deservedly or not, the members of the Society of Friends (Quakers) are often portrayed as one of history’s Good Guys. The Society was the first organized religious group to condemn slavery on moral...

Tim Perry, "The Theology of Benedict XVI: A Protestant Appreciation" (Lexham Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Tim Perry is adjunct professor of theology at Saint Paul University in Ottawa and at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, PA. As the author of a number of studies of the relationship between Ca...

Michele Margolis, “From Politics to the Pews: How Partisanship and the Political Environment Shape Religious Identity” (U Chicago Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On this American Political Science Association special podcast, we welcome a special guest host – and former guest of the podcast – Andy Lewis. In addition to his recent book, The Rights Turn in Co...

Seth Kimmel, “Parables of Coercion: Conversion and Knowledge at the End of Islamic Spain” (U of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his path clearing new book, Parables of Coercion: Conversion and Knowledge at the End of Islamic Spain (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Seth Kimmel, Assistant Professor of Latin American and...

John W. Loftus, “The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True” (Prometheus Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With so many religions in the world, how can you tell which one is correct? John W. Loftus tackles this question in his new book, The Outsider Test for Faith: How to Know Which Religion Is True (P...

Joyce Dalsheim, "Israel Has a Jewish Problem: Self Determination as Self Elimination" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Israel Has a Jewish Problem: Self Determination as Self Elimination (Oxford University Press, 2019), Joyce Dalsheim considers some of the surprising outcomes of the great Israeli experiment of r...

Olga Borovaya, “The Beginnings of Ladino Literature: Moses Almosnino and His Readers” (Indiana UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When did Ladino literature emerge? According to Dr. Olga Borovaya, author of The Beginnings of Ladino Literature: Moses Almosnino and his Readers (Indiana University Press, 2017), the history of La...

Marc B. Shapiro, “Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History” (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Changing the Immutable: How Orthodox Judaism Rewrites Its History (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2015), Marc B. Shapiro, the Weinberg Chair of Judaic Studies at the University of S...

Jane Iwamura, “Virtual Orientalism: Religion and Popular Culture in the U.S.” Oxford University Press, 2011 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In popular perception, a certain image arises when we imagine eastern religions. Perhaps, we envision a wise old Asian man in traditional clothing sitting in a meditative state (maybe not). But why...

David N. Gottlieb, "Second Slayings: The Binding of Isaac and the Formation of Jewish Cultural Memory" (Gorgias Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Second Slayings: The Binding of Isaac and the Formation of Jewish Cultural Memory (Gorgias Press, 2019), David N. Gottlieb explores the decisive - and, until now, under-appreciated - influence e...

Melani McAlister, “The Kingdom of God Has No Borders: A Global History of American Evangelicals” (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Melani McAlister’s The Kingdom of God Has No Borders (Oxford University Press, 2018) is a global history of evangelicals since 1945 and focuses on the complexities and contradictions that encompass...

Heather Kopelson, “Faithful Bodies: Performing Religion and Race in the Puritan Atlantic” (NYU Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Heather Miyano Kopelson explores how religion, primarily expressed through bodily action, contributed to colonial notions of difference in her recent book Faithful Bodies: Performing Religion and R...

Sikivu Hutchinson, “Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels” (Infidel Books, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why does it seem like everyone in the atheist movement is white and male? Are African-American women less interested in secularism? In her book, Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels (Infide...

Simon Brodbeck, "Krishna's Lineage: The Harivamsha of Vyasa's Mahabharata" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

While typically circulating as a separate text, The Harivamsha forms the final part of the Mahabharata storyline. Beyond this, it is rich storehouse of cosmological, genealogical, theological mater...

Cyrus Ali Zargar, “The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism” (Oneworld, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Cyrus Ali Zargar, Associate Professor at the University of Central Florida, is the author of The Polished Mirror: Storytelling and the Pursuit of Virtue in Islamic Philosophy and Sufism (Oneworld, ...

Brennan W. Breed, “Nomadic Text: A Theory of Biblical Reception History” (Indiana UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Modern Biblical Studies usually begins from an assumption that there is an established original text and clear exegetical genres that extend from the original. Reception History is structured aroun...

Michael D. Bailey, “Fearful Spirits, Reasoned Follies: The Boundaries of Superstition in Late Medieval Europe” (Cornell University Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Superstitions flourish in our world–think of the elaborate rituals of baseball players, or knocking wood to avoid tempting fate, or that bit of happiness (or relief) we might experience from findin...

M. Sheehy and K-D Mathes, "The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet" (SUNY Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus-Dieter Mathes's edited collection The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet (SUNY Press, 2019) brings together perspectives of leading int...

Shyam Ranganathan, “Hinduism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation” (Routledge, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Hinduism: A Contemporary Philosophical Investigation (Routledge, 2018), Shyam Ranganathan argues that a careful philosophical study reveals telling philosophical disagreements across topics such...

Daniel K. Williams, “Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade” (Oxford UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Daniel K. Williams is an associate professor of history at the University of West Georgia. His book, Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016...

Edward J. Blum and Paul Harvey, “The Color of Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race in America” (UNC Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jesus has inspired millions of people to both strive for social justice and commit horrific acts of violence. In the United States, Jesus has remained central in the construction of American identi...

David D. Hall, "The Puritans: A Transatlantic History" (Princeton UP, 2019)  from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

This book is a sweeping transatlantic history of Puritanism from its emergence out of the religious tumult of Elizabethan England to its founding role in the story of America. Shedding critical new...

Mary E. Stuckey, “Political Vocabularies: FDR, The Clergy Letters, and the Elements of Political Argument” (Michigan State UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mary E. Stuckey’s new book, Political Vocabularies: FDR, The Clergy Letters, and the Elements of Political Argument (Michigan State University Press, 2018), is a fascinating and engaging investigat...

Erik Hammerstrom, “The Science of Chinese Buddhism: Early Twentieth-Century Engagements” (Columbia UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Erik J. Hammerstrom‘s new book looks carefully at “what Chinese Buddhists thought about science in the first part of the twentieth century” by exploring what they wrote in articles and monographs d...

Michael Laffan, “The Makings of Indonesian Islam: Orientalism and the Narration of a Sufi Past” (Princeton UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Indonesia is often highlighted as having the right kind of Islam, ‘moderate’ and ‘peaceful.’ Whether that remains true (if it ever was a reality) will be tested in the future but what about the pas...

Martin Nguyen, "Modern Muslim Theology: Engaging God and the World with Faith and Imagination" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What precisely is “Muslim theology?” What would a “Muslim theology” in the present day look like? And what then is a “Muslim theology of engagement?” In Modern Muslim Theology: Engaging God and the...

Judith Weisenfeld, “New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration” (NYU Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A wave of religious leaders in black communities in the early twentieth-century insisted that so-called Negroes were, in reality, Ethiopian Hebrews, Asiatic Muslims, or a raceless children of God. ...

Heather Vacek, “Madness: American Protestant Responses to Mental Illness” (Baylor UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Should the member of a Christian congregation be injured in a car accident, that person will likely be the subject of public prayers and hospitality. But if that same person suffers a mental breakd...

Frans De Waal, “The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among Primates” (Norton, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Humans are quite a bit like chimpanzees, genetically speaking. Of course humans are quite a bit like fruit flies, genetically speaking. But when it comes to behavior, humans are much more like chim...

Giuliana Chamedes, "A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe" (Harvard UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Giuliana Chamedes' new book A Twentieth-Century Crusade: The Vatican’s Battle to Remake Christian Europe (Harvard University Press, 2019) explores how World War I galvanized the central government ...

Keya Maitra, “Philosophy of the Bhagavad Gita: A Contemporary Introduction” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the foundational texts of Hinduism and probably the one most familiar and popular in the West. The moral problem that motivates the text – is it right to kill members of...

Pamela D. Winfield, “Icons and Iconoclasm in Japanese Buddhism: Kukai and Dogen on the Art of Enlightenment” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What role do images play in the enlightenment experience? Can Buddha images, calligraphy, mandalas, and portraits function as nodes of access for a practitioner’s experience of enlightenment? Or ar...

R. Kevin Jaques, “Ibn Hajar: Makers of Islamic Civilization” (I. B. Tauris, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Robert Kevin Jaques‘ work, Ibn Hajar: Makers of Islamic Civilization (I. B. Tauris, 2013), focuses on the life of one of the most eminent Muslim scholars, Ibn Ḥajar al-‘AsqalÄ?nÄ« (d. 852/1449). ...

Ian J. Vaillancourt, "The Multifaceted Saviour of Psalms 110 and 118" (Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How should we understand the appearances of the king in Book V of the Hebrew Psalter? Ever since Gerald H. Wilson’s landmark work, The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (1985), some have interpreted th...

Eve Krakowski, “Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Women’s Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

History is only recently opening up to previously marginalized groups: it is only just now that women’s history is being explored across different historical fields. Eve Krakowski in Coming of Age ...

Caroline E. Light, “That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South” (NYU Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In That Pride of Race and Character: The Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South (NYU Press, 2014), Caroline E. Light, Lecturer on Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality at Harvard Unive...

Christopher Browning, “Remembering Survival: Inside a Nazi Slave Labor Camp” (W. W. Norton, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Christopher Browning is one of the giants in the field of Holocaust Studies. He has contributed vitally to at least two of the basic debates in the field: the intentionalist/functionalist discussio...

Asma T. Uddin, "When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside America’s Fight for Religious Freedom" (Pegasus Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What happens when a religion is demonized to such an extent that it is no longer deemed a religion – but an ideology? What effect does such a political refashioning of a religion have on the rights...

Sucharita Adluri, “Textual Authority in Classical Indian Thought: Ramanuja and the Vishnu Purana” (Routledge, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What role, if any, do mythological texts play in philosophical discourse?  While modern Hindu Studies scholars are becoming increasingly attuned to the extent to which Indian narratives encode ideo...

Kenneth Garden, “The First Islamic Reviver: Abu Hamid al-Ghazali and his Revival of the Religious Sciences” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111) is one of the most famous Muslim thinkers in history. His autobiographical account, The Deliverer from Error, tells us of his spiritual crisis and transformative expe...

Mohammad Khalil, “Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life (Basic Books, 2013), Peter Gray proposes the following...

Zahra Ali, "Women and Gender in Iraq: Between Nation-Building and Fragmentation" (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her powerful new book Women and Gender in Iraq: Between Nation-Building and Fragmentation (Cambridge UP, 2018), Zahra Ali presents a detailed and fascinating account of Muslim feminist discourse...

Eren Tasar, “Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam in Central Asia” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How was the Soviet Union able to avoid issues of religious and national conflict with its large and diverse Islamic population? In his new book, Soviet and Muslim: The Institutionalization of Islam...

Daniella Doron, “Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation” (Indiana UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation (Indiana UP, 2015), Daniella Doron, Lecturer in Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Monash University, looks at the post-W...

Paula Huston, “A Season of Mystery: 10 Spiritual Practices for Embracing a Happier Second Half of Life” (Loyola Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“Paula Huston wrote literary fiction for more than twenty years before shifting her focus to spirituality. She is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Daughters of Song (Random House, 1995)...

Peter Adamson, "Philosophy in the Islamic World: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps, Volume 3" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is no easy task to survey and present a comprehensive history of philosophy of an entire intellectual tradition to a broad public audience without compromising on the scholarly rigor demanded by...

Katherine A. Bowie, “Of Beggars and Buddhas: The Politics of Humor in the Vessantara Jataka in Thailand” (U Wisconsin Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

From the sidelines of the Asian Studies Association of Australia’s biennial conference, where she presented the inaugural keynote address of the Association of Mainland Southeast Asia Scholars, Kat...

John D. Wilsey, “American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History of an Idea” (IVP Academic, 2015). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

John D. Wilsey, assistant professor of history and Christian apologetics at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His book American Exceptionalism and Civil Religion: Reassessing the History o...

Monica R. Miller, “Religion and Hip Hop” (Routledge, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The relationship between music and religion is a site of increasing interest to scholars within Religious Studies. Monica Miller, Assistant Professor of Religion and Africana Studies at Lehigh Univ...

Fran Altvater, "Sacramental Theology and the Decoration of Baptismal Fonts" (Cambridge Scholars, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Fran Altvater talks about the Medieval Pilgrimage, a practice that became central to Christian Europe in the early Middle Ages and evolved into the military pilgrimages of the Crusades in the 11th,...

Heather Curtis, “Holy Humanitarians: American Evangelicals and Global Aid” (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The study of Christianity, international relations, and the United States is going through something of a boom period at the moment. Scholars are working to understand how Christians looked at the ...

Dan J. Puckett, “In the Shadow of Hitler: Alabama’s Jews, the Second World War, and the Holocaust” (U of Alabama Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his book, In the Shadow of Hitler: Alabama’s Jews, the Second World War, and the Holocaust (University of Alabama Press, 2014), Dan J. Puckett, Associate Professor of History at Troy University,...

Ray Haberski, “God and War: American Civil Religion Since 1945” (Rutgers UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Americans are simultaneously one of the most religious people on earth and prone to conflict and war. Ray Haberski is interested in how this paradox has shaped the nation’s civil religion. His book...

Lyn Julius, "Uprooted: How 3000 Years of Jewish Civilization in the Arab World Vanished Overnight" (Vallentine Mitchell, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Who are the Jews from Arab countries? What were relations with Muslims like? What made Jews leave countries where they had been settled for thousands of years? And what lessons can we learn from th...

John O’Brien, “Keeping it Halal: The Everyday Lives of Muslim American Teenage Boys” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What do the social worlds of teenage Muslim American boys look like? What issues do they grapple with and how do they think about issues that arise in their everyday lives? In his new book Keeping ...

Benjamin D. Sommer, “Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition” (Yale UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Revelation and Authority: Sinai in Jewish Scripture and Tradition (Yale University Press, 2015), Benjamin D. Sommer, Professor of Bible at The Jewish Theological Seminary, describes a “participa...

David Niose, “Nonbeliever Nation: The Rise of Secular Americans” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The perception of the United States as a Christian nation is one that is prevalent and persistent. It is difficult to conceive of a time when the term Christian America was not bandied about in the...

Claire Chambers, “Making Sense of Contemporary British Muslim Novels” (Palgrave, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

After the Rushdie affair in 1989 there was an important shift in the public life of British Muslims. Their image came under closer scrutiny which led to new social policies and self-perceptions. Th...

Jay Geller, “Bestiarium Judaicum: Unnatural Histories of the Jews” (Fordham UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Bestiarium Judaicum: Unnatural Histories of the Jews (Fordham University Press, 2017), Jay Geller, Associate Professor of Modern Jewish Culture at Vanderbilt Divinity School and the Vanderbilt U...

Eileen M. Kane, “Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca” (Cornell University Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her gripping new book Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca (Cornell University Press, 2015), Eileen M. Kane, Associate Professor of History at Connecticut College, presents a compell...

Justin Jones, “Shi’a Islam in Colonial India: Religion, Community and Sectarianism” (Cambridge UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Justin Jones‘ book, Shi’a Islam in Colonial India: Religion, Community and Sectarianism (Cambridge University Press, 2012) is all about Lucknow, and colonial India, and Shia Islam – and the links a...

Deborah Eden Tull, "Relational Mindfulness" (Wisdom Publications, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Deborah Eden Tull's new book Relational Mindfulness: A Handbook for Deepening Our Connection with Ourselves, Each Other, and the Planet (Wisdom Publications, 2018) is a guidebook on how to embody c...

John Bushnell, “Russian Peasant Women Who Refused to Marry: Spasovite Old Believers in the 18th-19th Centuries” (Indiana UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the course of investigating marriage patterns among Russian peasants in the 18th and 19th century, Northwestern University history professor John Bushnell discovered an unusually high rate of un...

Deirdre de la Cruz, “Mother Figured: Marian Apparitions and the Making of a Filipino Universal” (U of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There is no female religious figure so widely known and revered as the Virgin Mary. Filipino Catholics are especially drawn to Mama Mary and have a strong belief in her power, including her ability...

Martin Nguyen, “Sufi Master and Qur’an Scholar: Abu’l-Qasim al-Qushayri and the Lata’if al-isharat” (Oxford University Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The famous Abu’l-Qasim al-Qushayri (d. 465/1072) is well known as one of the most influential figures in the formative period of Sufism. He was part of a network of prominent Sufis in Nishapur that...

Lior Sternfeld, "Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran" (Stanford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Between Iran and Zion: Jewish Histories of Twentieth-Century Iran (Stanford University Press, 2019) by Lior Sternfeld presents the first systematic study of the rich and variegated history of Jews ...

Ata Anzali, “‘Mysticism’ in Iran: The Safavid Roots of a Modern Concept” (U South Carolina Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his sparkling new book, “Mysticism” in Iran: The Safavid Roots of a Modern Concept (University of South Carolina Press, 2017), Ata Anzali, Assistant Professor of Religion at Middlebury College, ...

Theodore Sasson, “The New American Zionism” (NYU Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The New American Zionism (New York University Press, 2014; paperback 2015), Theodore Sasson, Professor of Jewish Studies at Middlebury College and Visiting Research Professor of Sociology at Bra...

Craig Martin, “A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion” (Acumen, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

There are lots of introductory books to the study of religion. Craig Martin, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College, has added his own contribution to this ever-grow...

Alberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information" (Norton, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, infographics, and diagrams ubiquitous?and easier to sh...

Eliyahu Stern, “Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s” (Yale UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jewish Materialism: The Intellectual Revolution of the 1870s (Yale University Press, 2018) is a radical new book that uncovers a hitherto ignored intellectual movement in Jewish Eastern Europe, and...

Mark R. Stoll, “Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mark R. Stoll is associate professor of history and Director of Environmental Studies at Texas Tech University. His book Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalis...

Victor Stenger, “God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion” (Prometheus, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Are science and religion compatible, or are they fundamentally different ways of viewing the world? In the book,God and the Folly of Faith: The Incompatibility of Science and Religion(Prometheus, 2...

Christine D. Baker, "Medieval Islamic Sectarianism" (Amsterdam UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How do contemporary events shape the ways in which we read, understand, and interpret historical processes of identity formation? How can we resist framing conflicts of the past through frameworks ...

Elizabeth M. Sanders, “Genres of Doubt: Science Fiction, Fantasy and the Crisis of Victorian Faith” (McFarland, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Victorians left an indelible stamp on culture that continues to be in evidence today, not least of which is their refinement of the realist fiction medium known as the novel and their innovatio...

Shai Held, “Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence” (Indiana UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Abraham Joshua Heschel: The Call of Transcendence (Indiana University Press, 2013), Shai Held, Co-Founder, Dean and Chair in Jewish Thought at Mechon Hadar, offers a sympathetic, yet critical, e...

Richard Rashke, “Useful Enemies: John Demjanjuk and America’s Open-Door Policy for Nazi War Criminals” (Delphinium, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

You may have heard of a fellow named Ivan or John Demjanuik. He made the news–repeatedly over a 30 year period– because he was, as many people probably remember, a Nazi war criminal nick-named “Iva...

Sebastian Prange, "Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Monsoon Islam: Trade and Faith on the Medieval Malabar Coast (Cambridge University Press, 2019) by Sebastian Prange provides a fascinating window into the Muslim world of the medieval (12-16th cent...

Zoltan Pall, “Salafism in Lebanon: Local and Transnational Movements” (Cambridge UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Zoltan Pall‘s Salafism in Lebanon: Local and Transnational Movements (Cambridge University Press, 2018), a just published ethnographic investigation of the rise of Salafism among Lebanese Sunni Mus...

Aviya Kushner, “The Grammar of God: A Journey into the Words and Worlds of the Bible” (Spiegel and Grau, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Aviya Kushner grew up in a Hebrew-speaking family, reading the Bible in the original Hebrew and debating its meaning over the dinner table. She knew much of it by heart–and was later surprised when...

Stephen T. Asma, “Against Fairness” (University of Chicago, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Modern liberalism is built on the principle of equality and its corollary, the principle of fairness (treating equals equally). But have we taken the one and the other too far? Are we deceiving our...

Nosheen Ali, "Delusional States: Feeling Rule and Development in Pakistan’s Northern Frontier" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her pioneering and politically urgent new book Delusional States: Feeling Rule and Development in Pakistan’s Northern Frontier (Cambridge UP, 2019), Nosheen Ali presents a lyrical and at many ti...

Michelle C. Wang, “Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang” (Brill, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michelle C. Wang’s new book Mandalas in the Making: The Visual Culture of Esoteric Buddhism at Dunhuang (Brill, 2018) joins a growing body of scholarship on esoteric Buddhism in China. Her work is ...

Kishwar Rizvi, “The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical Memory in the Contemporary Middle East” (UNC Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her excellent new book The Transnational Mosque: Architecture and Historical Memory in the Contemporary Middle East (UNC Press, 2015), Kishwar Rizvi, Associate Professor of the History of Art at...

Melissa R. Klapper, “Ballots, Babies, and Banners of Peace: American Jewish Women’s Activism, 1890-1940” (NYU Press, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many people have probably heard of Betty Friedan, Bela Abzug, Gloria Steinem, and Andrea Dworkin, all stars of Second Wave Feminism. They were also all Jewish (by heritage if not faith). As Meliss...

Roland Elliot Brown, "Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda" (FUEL, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the arc of Soviet history, few government programs were as tenacious as the anti-religious campaign, which systematically set out to debunk organized religion as "the opium of the people." This ...

Christopher G. White, “Other Worlds: Spirituality and the Search for Invisible Dimensions” (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the modern world, we often tend to view the scientific and the spiritual as diametrically opposed adversaries; we see them as fundamentally irreconcilable ways of understanding the world, whose ...

Keren R. McGinity, “Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood” (Indiana UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Marrying Out: Jewish Men, Intermarriage, and Fatherhood (Indiana University Press, 2014), Keren R. McGinity, founding director of the Love and Tradition Institute and a Research Associate at Bra...

James K. Wellman, Jr., “Rob Bell and A New American Christianity” (Abingdon Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As one of Time Magazine‘s “100 Most Influential People in the World” Rob Bell is a name that is now known well beyond the confines of his megachurch in Grandville, Michigan or within evangelical ci...

Simon Wolfgang Fuchs, "In a Pure Muslim Land: Shi’ism between Pakistan and the Middle East" (UNC Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Scholarly and public discourse on Islamic intellectual thought in the modern period tend to frame it narrowly through the concept of “influence” as it emanates from the Middle Eastern “center” to t...

Lavanya Vemsani, “Modern Hinduism in Text and Context” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Lavanya Vemsani is Distinguished Professor of India History and Religions at Shawnee University and the editor of the new volume entitled Modern Hinduism in Text and Context (Bloomsbury Academi...

Tam Ngo and Justine B. Quijada, eds., “Atheist Secularism and its Discontents: A Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia” (Palgrave, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Secularism has emerged as a central category of twenty-first century political thought and critical theory. Following the lead of anthropologist Talal Asad, there is a growing literature that trace...

Lawrence M. Krauss, “A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing” (Atria, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing (Atria, 2012), Lawrence M. Krauss presents this big idea: something can–and perhaps must–come from nothing. That something i...

Lian Xi, "Blood Letters: The Untold Story of Lin Zhao, a Martyr in Mao's China" (Basic Books, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1960, a poet and journalist named Lin Zhao was arrested by the Communist Party of China and sent to prison for re-education. Years before, she had –at approximately the same time– converted to b...

Darcie Fontaine, “Decolonizing Christianity: Religion and the End of Empire in France and Algeria” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What role did Christianity play in Algeria before, during, and after the war of independence? In Decolonizing Christianity: Religion and the End of Empire in France and Algeria (Cambridge Universit...

Anita Weiss, “Interpreting Islam, Modernity, and Women’s Rights in Pakistan” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Pakistan is often caricatured and stereotyped as a volatile nuclear country on the precipice of disaster. Such depictions are often especially acerbic when comes to the issue of Women’s rights in t...

Donald Bloxham, “The Final Solution: A Genocide” (Oxford UP, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The end of the Cold War dramatically changed research into the Holocaust. The gradual opening up of archives across Eastern Europe allowed a flood of local and regional studies that transformed our...

Angela Rudert, "Shakti's New Voice: Guru Devotion in a Women-Led Spiritual Movement" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Angela Rudert's Shakti's New Voice: Guru Devotion in a Women-Led Spiritual Movement (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) is the first academic study of the popular contemporary North Indian female guru A...

Ramon Harvey, “The Qur’an and the Just Society” (Edinburgh UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ramon Harvey‘s new book The Qur’an and the Just Society (Edinburgh University Press, 2017) tackles a topic as big and meaningful as the title of the book suggests. What is justice? What words does ...

Adam J. Powell, “Irenaeus, Joseph Smith and God-Making Heresy” (Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

At first glance, second-century bishop Irenaeus of Lyon and Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints don’t seem to have much in common. After all, Irenaeus saw h...

Kevin Gray Carr, “Plotting the Prince: Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism” (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Kevin Gray Carr‘s beautiful new book explores the figure of Prince Shotoku (573? – 622?) the focus of one of the most widespread visual cults in Japanese history. Introducing us to a range of stori...

Daniel Schwartz, "Ghetto: The History of a Word" (Harvard UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The word “ghetto” has taken on different meanings since its coinage in the 16th century. The uses of this term have varied considerably, from its original understanding as a compulsory Jewish quart...

Eric Miller, “The Rhetoric of Religious Freedom in the United States” (Lexington Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The recent Supreme Court Masterpiece Cakeshop ruling showed the on-going debate between religious conservatives and advocates of LGBTQ rights. Much of this debate has been about the definition of r...

Heather Blair, “Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan” (Harvard U Asia Center, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her recent monograph, Real and Imagined: The Peak of Gold in Heian Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2015), Heather Blair explores the religious and institutional history of Kinpusen, a mou...

Barbara R. Ambros, “Bones of Contention: Animals and Religion in Contemporary Japan” (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It opens with a parakeet named Homer, and it closes with a dog named Hachiko. In the intervening pages, Barbara Ambros explores the deaths, afterlives, and necrogeographies of pets in contemporary...

Charles B. Jones, "Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice" (U Hawaii Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Today’s guest is Charles B. Jones, Associate Professor and Director of the Religion and Culture graduate program in the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the Catholic University of Americ...

Douglas L. Winiarski, “Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Experiencing Religious Awakenings in Eighteenth Century New England” (UNC Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Douglas L. Winiarski is a Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Richmond and winner of the 2018 Bancroft Prize in American history for his book Darkness Falls on the Land of Light: Ex...

Patrick Bowen, “A History of Conversion to Islam in the United States, Vol 1: White American Muslims before 1975” (Brill, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the current political moment there is widespread anti-Muslim rhetoric and it would be easy to conclude that a large portion of white Americans see Islam at odds with American values. But a longe...

Christian J. Churchill and Gerald E. Levy, “The Enigmatic Academy Class, Bureaucracy, and Religion in American Education” (Temple UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

According to the Marriam-Webster dictionary, an “enigma” can be defined as “something hard to understand or explain.” What is it that is so enigmatic about education? Aren’t schools there to teach ...

Daniel Reynolds, "Postcards from Auschwitz: Holocaust Tourism and the Meaning of Remembrance" (NYU Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Millions of tourists visit Holocaust museums and memorials every year. Holocaust tourism is a thriving industry and plays a crucial role in Holocaust memorialization and remembrance. However, Holoc...

Joseph O. Baker and Buster G. Smith, “American Secularism: Cultural Contours of Nonreligious Belief” (NYU Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

A rapidly growing number of Americans are embracing life outside the bounds of organized religion. Although the United States has long been viewed as a fervently religious Christian nation, survey ...

Sean McCloud, “American Possessions: Fighting Demons in the Contemporary United States” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Exorcisms and demons. In his new book American Possessions: Fighting Demons in the Contemporary United States (Oxford University Press, 2015), Sean McCloud argues that not only have such phenomena ...

Gil Troy, “Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight Against Zionism as Racism” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The 1970s and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict are quite possibly the two most depressing subjects an academic could study. With shag carpeting, disco, Watergate, malaise defining the former and an ...

Michael J. Gorman, "Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul's Theology and Spirituality" (Baker Academic, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Participating in Christ: Explorations in Paul's Theology and Spirituality (Baker Academic, 2019), renowned scholar Michael Gorman examines the important Pauline theme of participat...

Elaine Fisher, “Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South Asia” (U California Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Elaine Fisher’s Hindu Pluralism: Religion and the Public Sphere in Early Modern South Asia (University of California Press, 2017) sheds light on the variegated, pluralistic texture of Hinduism in p...

James A. Benn, “Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History” (U of Hawaii Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

James A. Benn‘s new book is a history of tea as a religious and cultural commodity in China before it became a global commodity in the nineteenth century. Focusing on the Tang and Song dynasties (w...

Linford Fisher, “The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America” (Oxford University Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Just east of the Norwich-New London Turnpike in Uncasville, Connecticut, stands the Mohegan Congregational Church. By most accounts, it’s little different than the thousands of white-steepled struc...

Karine Gagné, "Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas" (U Washington Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her new book, Caring for Glaciers: Land, Animals, and Humanity in the Himalayas (University of Washington Press, 2019), Karine Gagné explores how relations of reciprocity between land, humans, a...

Katharine Gerbner, “Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the Protestant Atlantic World” (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Could slaves become Christian? If so, did their conversion lead to freedom? If not, how could perpetual enslavement be justified? In her recent book, Christian Slavery: Conversion and Race in the P...

Heath W. Carter, “Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago” (Oxford University Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Heath W. Carter‘s new book Union Made: Working People and the Rise of Social Christianity in Chicago (Oxford University Press, 2015) offers a bold interpretation of the origins of the American Soci...

Brian Leiter, “Why Tolerate Religion?” (Princeton UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Religious conviction enjoys a privileged status in our society.This is perhaps most apparent in legal contexts, where religious conviction is often given special consideration. To be more precise, ...

Alicia Izharuddin, “Gender and Islam in Indonesian Cinema” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Since the fall of the Indonesian New Order regime in 1998 there has been a steady rise of Islamic popular culture in the nation. Muslim consumers and producers have cultivated a mediated domain whe...

Sophia Rose Arjana, “Veiled Superheroes: Islam, Feminism, and Popular Culture” (Lexington Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Veiled Superheroes: Islam, Feminism, and Popular Culture (Lexington Books, 2017) by Sophia Rose Arjana (with Kim Fox), takes us on a riveting journey through the world of superheroes and villains f...

Marcia C. Inhorn, “The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East” (Princeton UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Winner of the 2015 American Anthropological Associations Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology and the 2014 JMEWS Book Award of the Association for Middle Ea...

Adam Lee, “Daylight Atheism” (Think Big, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Atheist blogger extraordinaire Adam Lee has published his first book, Daylight Atheism (Big Think, 2012), where he makes the case that religion is harmful and that secular humanism is a much better...

Paul Mendes-Flohr, "Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent" (Yale UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Martin Buber: A Life of Faith and Dissent (Yale University Press, 2019), Paul Mendes-Flohr, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem...

Stephen E. Strang, “God and Donald Trump” (Frontline, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Those looking for deeper understanding of why the socially conservative, evangelical Christian community has been so loyal of Donald Trump will find answers in the book God and Donald Trump (Frontl...

Janet Gyatso, Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet (Columbia University Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Janet Gyatso‘s new book is a masterfully researched, compellingly written, and gorgeously illustrated history of medicine in early modern Tibet that looks carefully at the relationships between med...

Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin, “El Iluminado: A Graphic Novel” (Basic Books, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Are you looking for a good Hanukkah gift? A good Christmas gift? Heck, any gift? Or maybe you just want to read a terrific book? Well I’ve got just the ticket: Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin‘s, El...

Jim Clarke, "Science Fiction and Catholicism: The Rise and Fall of the Robot Papacy" (Gylphi, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ah, science fiction: Aliens? Absolutely. Robots? Of course. But why are there so many priests in space? As Jim Clarke writes in Science Fiction and Catholicism: The Rise and Fall of the Robot Papac...

Holly Gayley, “Love Letters from Golok: A Tantric Couple in Modern Tibet” (Columbia UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Often when people think of Tibetan Buddhism they have a limited vision of that social reality, perhaps one that imagines monks sitting in meditation or focused on the Dalai Lama. Rarely is the hist...

Zeki Saritoprak, “Islam’s Jesus” (University of Florida Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Islam’s Jesus (University of Florida Press, 2015), Zeki Saritoprak explores an old topic from a fresh perspective. The status of Jesus in Islam has been of interest for centuries, and relates to...

Thomas David DuBois, “Religion and the Making of Modern East Asia” (Cambridge University Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Do historians of East Asia sufficiently account for the role of religious communities in the construction of history? Of course, there are histories of the Taiping Rebellion, and groups like Soka G...

Paula McQuade, "Catechisms and Women’s Writing in Seventeenth-Century England" (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Paula McQuade, professor of English literature at DePaul University, is the author of a brilliant new account of Catechisms and Women’s Writing in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge University ...

Jennifer Graber, “The Gods of Indian Country: Religion and the Struggle for the American West” (Oxford University Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The American West has always been home to many deities, argues Jennifer Graber in The Gods of Indian Country: Religion and the Struggle for the American West (Oxford University Press, 2018). Graber...

Alice J. Kang, “Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy” (U of Minnesota Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Alice J. Kang has written Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy (University of Minnesota Press, 2015). Kang is assistant professor of political science and ethnic ...

Sikivu Hutchinson, “Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars” (Infidel Books, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sikivu Hutchinson‘s book Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (Infidel Books, 2011) is a brave examination of African American religious perspectives vis a vis progres...

Eugene Schlesinger, "Sacrificing the Church: Mass, Mission, and Ecumenism" (Fortress, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Eugene Schlesinger is the author of Sacrificing the Church: Mass, Mission, and Ecumenism (Fortress Press, 2019). Gene teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at Santa Clara University. A...

Mira Beth Wasserman, “Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud After the Humanities” (U Penn Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Jews, Gentiles, and Other Animals: The Talmud After the Humanities (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), Mira Beth Wasserman undertakes a close reading of Avoda Zara, arguably the Talmud’s m...

Ted Merwin, “Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli” (NYU Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Pastrami on Rye: An Overstuffed History of the Jewish Deli (New York University Press, 2015), Ted Merwin, Associate Professor of Religion and Judaic Studies at Dickinson College, serves up the f...

Aaron Hughes, “Theorizing Islam: Disciplinary Deconstruction and Reconstruction” (Equinox, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Many academics, especially in the aftermath of September 11th, have had to become a public authority on Islam. This is largely due to the ongoing negative portrayal of Muslims in the media and the ...

Kathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trade books in that most of them are what you might...

Guillaume Rozenberg, “The Immortals: Faces of the Incredible in Buddhist Burma” (U Hawaii Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“It is difficult to characterize this fascinating book,” George Tanabe writes in his short preface to The Immortals: Faces of the Incredible in Buddhist Burma (University of Hawai’i Press, 2015), “...

Christine Hong, “Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her new book, Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Dr. Christine Hong explores the lives of female Korean American Mainline Christian adolescents...

Juliane Hammer, “American Muslim Women, Religious Authority, and Activism: More Than a Prayer” (University of Texas Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 2005, Amina Wadud led a mixed-gender congregation of Muslims in prayer. This event became the focal point of substantial media attention and highlighted some of the tensions within the Muslim co...

Kathleen M. McIntyre, "Protestantism and State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca" (U New Mexico Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Kathleen M. McIntyre’s Protestantism and State Formation in Postrevolutionary Oaxaca (University of New Mexico Press, 2019) explores the impact of Protestantism on Catholic indigenous communiti...

Michal Kravel-Tovi, “When the State Winks: The Performance of Jewish Conversion in Israel” (Columbia UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In When the State Winks: The Performance of Jewish Conversion in Israel (Columbia University Press, 2017), Michal Kravel Tovi, associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at...

Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, “Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights” (UNC Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, a writer and former journalis...

Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, “The Massacre in Jedwabne, July 10, 1941: Before, During, After” (Columbia UP, 2005) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

On July 10, 1941, Poles in the town of Jedwabne together with some number of German functionaries herded nearly 500 Jews into a barn and burnt them alive. In 2000, the sociologist Jan Gross publish...

Dan Jones, "Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars for the Holy Lands" (Viking, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Much has been written about the Crusades, the religiously-inspired wars that pockmarked the later centuries of the Middle Ages. Yet for all of the many books on the subject there has been surprisin...

Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, “Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion: Religion, Rebels and Jihad” (I. B. Tauris, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her fascinating and path paving new book, Indian Muslim Minorities and the 1857 Rebellion: Religion, Rebels and Jihad (I. B. Tauris, 2017), Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, Assistant Professor of Relig...

Peter van der Veer, “The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India” Princeton University Press, 2013 from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What are the differences between religion, magic, and spirituality? Over time, these categories have been articulated in a variety of ways across differing cultures. However, many assume that the m...

S. Brent Plate, “Religion and Film: Cinema and the Re-Creation of the World” (Wallflower Press, 2008) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

As each frame of a film goes by we witness a new world that is situated in space and time. This process of worldmaking happens through the cinematic lens but also through the myths and rituals of r...

Samuel Goldman, "God’s Country: Christian Zionism in America" (U Penn Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Samuel Goldman, who teaches political science at George Washington University, Washington DC, has written a powerfully impressive new book on the long history of the political theology that he desc...

David A. Hollinger, “Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World and Changed America” (Princeton UP, 2017). from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

David A. Hollinger‘s Protestants Abroad: How Missionaries Tried to Change the World and Changed America (Princeton University Press, 2017) offers a history of how American missionaries, their child...

Saba Mahmood, “Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is commonly thought that violence, injustice, and discrimination against religious minorities, especially in the Middle East, are a product of religious fundamentalism and myopia. Concomitantly,...

Mary Johnson, “An Unquenchable Thirst: Following Mother Teresa in Search of Love, Service and an Authentic Life” (Spiegel & Grau, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In December of 1975, Agnes Bojaxhiu, also known as Mother Teresa, appeared on the cover of TIME magazine with a caption that read: “Living Saints.” Mary Johnson, a teenage girl at the time, saw thi...

Marc Dollinger, "Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s" (Brandeis UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s (Brandeis University Press, 2018), Professor Marc Dollinger who holds the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Chair in Jewish Studies an...

Mira Balberg, “Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature” (U California Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mira Balberg‘s Blood for Thought: The Reinvention of Sacrifice in Early Rabbinic Literature (University of California Press, 2017) delves into a relatively unexplored area of rabbinic literature: t...

Mark A. Smith, “Secular Faith: How Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics” (University of Chicago Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mark A. Smith is the author of Secular Faith: Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Smith is professor of political science at the University of Was...

Carl S. Yamamoto, “Vision and Violence: Lama Zhang and the Politics of Charisma in Twelfth-Century Tibet” (Brill, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Lama Zhang, the controversial central figure in Carl S. Yamamoto‘s new book may or may not have participated in animal sacrifice, sneezed out a snake-like creature, and engaged in other acts of put...

Ira Helderman, "Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion" (UNC Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In today's podcast, I speak with American professor Ira Helderman about his newly published book, Prescribing the Dharma: Psychotherapists, Buddhist Traditions, and Defining Religion (University of...

Jared Compton, “Psalm 110 and the Logic of Hebrews” (T and T Clark, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The use and function of the Old Testament in the book of Hebrews has been a neglected area of study. Jared Compton’s new book Psalm 110 and the Logic of Hebrews (T and T Clark, 2018) addresses this...

Leah Garrett, “Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel” (Northwestern UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Finalist, 2015 National Jewish Book Award In her new book Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel (Northwestern University Press, 2015), Leah Garrett, the Loti Smorgon (P...

Jenny Trinitapoli and Alexander Weinreb, “Religion and AIDS in Africa” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The liberal media in the Western World takes a firm line on how two of the big issues facing Africa intersect – bluntly speaking Africa’s high levels of religiosity have contributed substantially t...

J. Neuhaus, "Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers" (West Virginia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude that developing expertise requires -- do not nec...

Motti Inbari, “Jewish Radical Ultra-Orthodoxy Confronts Modernity, Zionism, and Women’s Equality” (Cambridge UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy, in its numerous manifestations, continues to exert profound influence on the Jewish world, even as it undergoes pressure to change from both within and without. In Jewish Ra...

Glenn Dynner, “Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford UP, 2014), Glenn Dynner, Professor of Religion at Sarah Lawrence College, explores the world of Jewish-run taverns in nin...

Jason Josephson, “The Invention of Religion in Japan” (University of Chicago Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1853, the Japanese were required to consider what the word religion meant when western powers compelled the Tokugawa government to ensure freedom of religion to Christian missionaries. The chall...

Vishwa Adluri and Joydeep Bagchee, "Philology and Criticism: A Guide to Mah?bh?rata Textual Criticism" (Anthem Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Hindu great epic, Mah?bh?rata, exists today in hundreds of variant manuscripts across India. These manuscripts were painstakingly examined, sorted and reconstituted into the official Critical E...

Sadek Hamid, “Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Grounds of British Islamic Activism” (I.B. Tauris, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Sufis, Salafis and Islamists: The Contested Grounds of British Islamic Activism (I.B. Tauris, 2016), Sadek Hamid explores the contours of “Islamic activism”—and indeed the meaning of this key te...

Ilan Zvi Baron, “Obligation in Exile: The Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique” (Edinburgh UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Obligation in Exile: The Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), Ilan Baron, Lecturer in International Political Theory in the School of Government and Internati...

Karen Ruffle, “Gender, Sainthood, and Everyday Practice in South Asian Shi’ism” (University of North Carolina Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does a wedding in Karbala in the year 680 have to do with South Asian Muslims today? As it turns out, this event informs contemporary ideas of personal piety and social understanding of gender...

Jolyon Baraka Thomas, "Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan" (U Chicago Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Jolyon Baraka Thomas’s Faking Liberties: Religious Freedom in American-Occupied Japan (University of Chicago Press, 2019) challenges the commonsensical notion that the Japanese empire granted its s...

James Chappel, “Catholic Modern: The Challenge of Totalitarianism and the Remaking of the Church” (Harvard UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1900 the Catholic Church stood staunchly against religious freedom and the secular state. By the 1960s, that position was reversed and Catholics began advocating for particularly Catholic forms ...

Naser Ghobadzadeh, “Religious Secularity: A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

While “fundamentalism” and “authoritarian secularism” are commonly perceived as the two mutually exclusive paradigms available to Muslim majority countries Naser Ghobadzadeh‘s new book Religious Se...

Hugh Urban, “The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion” (Princeton University Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is religion? Who gets to define it? Why is defining something a religion such an important endeavor? What exactly is at stake in determining the status of religion? Like many people think, you...

Matthew A. Sutton, "Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War" (Basic Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What makes a good missionary makes a good spy. Or so thought "Wild" Bill Donovan when he secretly recruited a team of religious activists for the Office of Strategic Services. They entered into a w...

Cynthia Baker, “Jew” (Rutgers UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is the significance of Jew? How has this word come to have such varied and charged meanings? Who has (and has not) used it, and why? Cynthia Baker explores these questions and more in her new ...

Paul L. Heck, “Skepticism in Classical Islam: Moments of Confusion” (Routledge, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Skepticism is a familiar term to many of us conjuring up notions of doubt, uncertainty, and perhaps even unbelief. Yet, Skepticism did not always have such a narrow meaning. In fact Skepticism has ...

Samuel Morris Brown, “In Heaven as it is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death” (Oxford UP, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Every person must confront death; the only question is how that person will do it. In our culture (I speak as an American here), we don’t really do a very good job of it. We face death by fighting ...

Yael Almog, "Secularism and Hermeneutics" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the late Enlightenment, a new imperative began to inform theories of interpretation: all literary texts should be read in the same way that we read the Bible. However, this assumption concealed ...

Brandi Denison, “Ute Land Religion in the American West, 1879-2009” (U Nebraska Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Land is central in the construction of identity for many communities. For Ute Native Americans the meaning of a twelve million acre homeland in western Colorado is intricately linked to the various...

Karen Bauer, “Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’an: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Gender Hierarchy in the Qur’an: Medieval Interpretations, Modern Responses (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Dr. Karen Bauer tackles one of the foremost hot-button questions of the day: What i...

Whitney Bodman, “The Poetics of Iblis: Narrative Theology in the Qur’an” (Harvard UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Qur’an is filled with stories. It chronicles the lives of prophets, the stories of believers and non-believers, and lays out the creation of the cosmos. However, the Qur’an’s narrative qualitie...

Farhat Haq, "Shari?a and the State in Pakistan: Blasphemy Politics" (Routledge, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Few doctrinal and political issues are more controversial in Pakistan today than that of blasphemy. In her excellent and engaging new book Shari?a and the State in Pakistan: Blasphemy Politics (Rou...

Amy Langenberg, “Birth in Buddhism: The Suffering Fetus and Female Freedom” (Routledge, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Birth and suffering are deeply linked concepts in Buddhism, and their connection has shaped how the bodies and status of women were understood. Join us for a conversation with Amy Paris Langenberg ...

Anderson Blanton, “Hittin’ the Prayer Bones: Materiality of Spirit in the Pentecostal South” (UNC Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Anderson Blanton‘s Hittin’ the Prayer Bones: Materiality of Spirit in the Pentecostal South (University of North Carolina Press, 2015), illuminates how prayer, faith, and healing are intertwined wi...

Anne M. Blackburn, “Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka,” (The University of Chicago Press, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this important contribution to both the study of South Asian Buddhism as well the burgeoning field of Buddhist modernity, Anne Blackburn‘s Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri...

Oren Harman, "Evolutions: Fifteen Myths That Explain Our World" (FSG, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“There are only two ways to live your life,” said Albert Einstein, “One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is a miracle.” Oren Harman clearly agrees with Einstein’...

David Biale, “Hasidism: A New History” (Princeton UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Who, or what, are Hasidim? A movement that was once mysterious and inaccessible has recently risen to the forefront of popular consciousness. Whether it be in last years acclaimed film Menashe, the...

Kenneth L. Marcus, “The Definition of Anti-Semitism” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press, 2015), Kenneth L. Marcus, the President and General Counsel of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, explains what it...

Paul Gutjahr, “Charles Hodge: Guardian of American Orthodoxy” (Oxford UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When I was in Seminary I was assigned many theological tomes to read and one was especially difficult to get through. It was Systematic Theology by Charles Hodge. This work was dense, long, and I m...

Andrew Steinmann, "Genesis: An Introduction and Commentary" (IVP Academic, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Genesis is a book of origins: of the world, of sin, of God's promise of redemption, and of the people of Israel. It traces God's pledge of a Savior through Abraham's line down to his great-grandson...

Mark Edward Ruff, “The Battle for the Catholic Past in Germany, 1945-1980” (Cambridge UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Historical debates about the actions of the Roman Catholic Church in relationship to the Third Reich have never been restricted to academic presses and journals like so many other topics. Rather se...

Maria Heim, “The Forerunner of All Things: Buddhaghosa on Mind, Intention and Agency” (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Buddhaghosa, a fifth-century Pali Buddhist scholar or group of scholars, is the most influential commentator in Theravada Buddhist tradition, who has in many respects created the set of ideas we no...

Michael Haykin, “The Reformers and Puritans as Spiritual Mentors” (Joshua Press, 2012 ) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael Haykin‘s book The Reformers and Puritans as Spiritual Mentors (Joshua Press, 2012) attempts to create a “useable past” by highlighting the lives of several Reformers and Puritans. Dr. Hayki...

Mark McClish, "The History of the Artha??stra: Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Was ancient India ruled by politics or religion? In The History of the Artha??stra: Sovereignty and Sacred Law in Ancient India (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Mark McClish explores the Artha??...

Michael Shermer, “Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia” (Henry Holt, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For millennia, religions have concocted numerous manifestations of heaven and the afterlife, and though no one has ever returned from such a place to report what it is really like—or that it even e...

Aaron W. Hughes, “Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism” (Oxford UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Rethinking Jewish Philosophy: Beyond Particularism and Universalism (Oxford University Press, 2014), Aaron W. Hughes, the Philip S. Bernstein Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Rochest...

Alison Miers, “Charlinder’s Walk” (CreateSpace, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In our very first fiction-book interview on New Books in Secularism, we chat with Alyson Miers, author of Charlinder’s Walk (CreateSpace, 2011). In this adventure secularism-themed novel, Miers int...

Michel Boivin, "The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India" (Palgrave MacMillan, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India: The Case of Sindh (1851-1929) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) by Michel Boivin maps the construction of a vernacular knowle...

Esau McCaulley, "Sharing in the Son's Inheritance: Davidic Messianism and Paul's Worldwide Interpretation of the Abrahamic Land Promise in Galatians" (T and T Clark, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Esau McCaulley is the author of Sharing in the Son's Inheritance: Davidic Messianism and Paul's Worldwide Interpretation of the Abrahamic Land Promise in Galatians, published in 2017 by T&T Cla...

Marie Griffith, “Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics” (Basic Books, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Marie Griffith‘s new book Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics (Basic Books, 2017) offers a portrait of how religious views regarding sexuality became e...

Mark S. M. Scott, “Pathways in Theodicy: An Introduction to the Problem of Evil ” (Fortress Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Pathways in Theodicy: An Introduction to the Problem of Evil (Fortress Press, 2015), Dr. Mark S. M. Scott explores how people, largely within the Christian tradition, deal with the...

Jeff Wilson, “Dixie Dharma: Inside a Buddhist Temple in the American South” (UNC Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Americanists have long employed a trope of regionalism to better understand American religions, beliefs, and practices. As many of us know, either by academic study or, more often, personal experie...

Michael M. Knight, "Muhammad's Body: Baraka Networks and the Prophetic Assemblage" (UNC Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Muhammad's Body: Baraka Networks and the Prophetic Assemblage by Michael Muhammad Knight (UNC Press, 2020) joins the emerging subfield of literature in Islamic Studies exploring embodiment and mate...

Bryan R. Dyer, “Suffering in the Face of Death: The Epistle to the Hebrews and Its Context of Situation” (Bloomsbury, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Suffering and death are two topics that are frequently referred to in the Epistle to the Hebrews, but have rarely been examined within scholarship on this New Testament book. Join us as we talk wit...

Cecile E. Kuznitz, “YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation” (Cambridge UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation (Cambridge University Press, 2014), Cecile E. Kuznitz, Associate Professor of Jewish History and Director of Jewi...

Steve Kemper, “Labyrinth of Kingdoms: 10,000 Miles Through Islamic Africa” (Norton, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Three years ago I travelled overland with my wife from Victoria Falls through Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania. It felt like we were on a real adventure. Having just read Steve Kemper‘s exce...

Richard Muller, "Grace and Freedom: William Perkins and the Early Modern Reformed Understanding of Free Choice and Divine Grace" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

No-one has done more than Richard A. Muller to shape our approach to early modern historical theology. His earlier work, and most especially the four volumes of his Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmat...

Hans Boersma, "Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition" (Eerdmans, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Dr. Hans Boersma is the author of Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition, published in 2018 by Eerdmans. He holds the Saint Benedict Servants of Christ Chair in Ascetical Theology a...

Alfred Ivry, “Maimonides’ ‘Guide of the Perplexed’: A Philosophical Guide” (University of Chicago, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Alfred Ivry‘s book, Maimonides’ ‘Guide of the Perplexed’: A Philosophical Guide (University of Chicago, 2016) is the only modern commentary in English to explicate Maimonides’ summa The Guide of th...

Claire McLisky, et al., “Emotions and Christian Missions: Historical Perspectives” (Palgrave McMillan, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Published by Palgrave in 2015, Emotions and Christian Missions: Historical Perspectives brings together scholars from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, England, the US, Germany, and Denmark. Through ...

Katherine Stewart, “The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children” (PublicAffairs, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her shocking new book, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children (Public Affairs, 2012), Katherine Stewart describes how factions of the Christian Right, th...

Jon Hoover, "Ibn Taymiyya" (Oneworld, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Ibn Taymiyya is one of the most prolific and influential Islamic thinkers to date, and was even the only pre-modern Muslim author cited in the 9/11 Report. His supporters and detractors alike have ...

Rachel Werczberger, "Jews In The Age Of Authenticity: Jewish Spiritual Renewal In Israel" (Peter Lang, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Perhaps there’s something in the air in the Middle East, something that elevates spirituality. The Middle East, particularly Israel, is the legendary home of spiritual searching, of prophecy and re...

Michael Ruse, “On Purpose” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Can we live without the idea of purpose? Should we even try to? Immanuel Kant thought we were stuck with purpose, and while Darwin’s theory of natural selection profoundly shook the idea, it was un...

Azizah al-Hibri, “The Islamic Worldview: Islamic Jurisprudence” (ABA Books, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How can a perspective on Islamic law and jurisprudence be constructed responding to the lives and practices of diasporic Muslims while remaining deeply grounded in the foundational texts of the rel...

Ann Elizabeth Mayer, “Islam and Human Rights: Traditions and Politics” (Westview Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the new edition to Islam and Human Rights: Traditions and Politics (Westview Press, 2012), Ann Elizabeth Mayer analyzes the complex issue of international human rights standards in Muslim countr...

Annapurna Garimella, “The Contemporary Hindu Temple: Fragments for a History” (Marg Foundation, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Contemporary Hindu temples raise aesthetic, economic, political and philosophical questions about the role of architecture in making a place for the sacred in society. This book presents the Hindu ...

Geoffrey Barstow, "Food of Sinful Demons: Meat, Vegetarianism, and the Limits of Buddhism in Tibet" (Columbia UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Tibetan Buddhism teaches compassion toward all beings, a category that explicitly includes animals. Slaughtering animals is morally problematic at best and, at worst, completely incompatible with a...

Leon Wiener Dow, “The Going: A Meditation on Jewish Law” (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Leon Wiener Dow’s most recent work The Going: A Meditation on Jewish Law (Palgrave MacMillan, 2017) offers readers intimate, informative, and at times provocative reflections on halakha, or Jewish ...

Jeffery S. Gurock, “The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-1967” (Rutgers UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In The Holocaust Averted: An Alternate History of American Jewry, 1938-1967 (Rutgers University Press, 2015), Jeffrey S. Gurock, the Libby M. Klaperman Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva Univer...

Kelly Baker, “Gospel According to the Klan: The KKK’s Appeal to Protestant America, 1915-1930” (University Press of Kansas, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

If images of white robes, pointed hoods, and a burning cross represent racism and violence for you then you are not alone. But do they also evoke ideas of nationalism, Protestantism, and masculinit...

Danielle Haque, “Interrogating Secularism: Race and Religion in Arab Transnational Art and Literature” (Syracuse UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In many popular accounts of contemporary “Western” society there is an inherent contradiction between the principles underlying liberal secularism and Islam. This type of binary discourse about “re...

Jonathan Sarna, "American Judaism: A History" (Yale UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

American Judaism: A History (Yale University Press; second edition, 2019) chronicles the 350-year history of the Jewish religion in America. Tracing American Judaism from its origins in the colonia...

Anna Andreeva, “Assembling Shinto: Buddhist Approaches to Kami Worship in Medieval Japan” (Harvard Asia Center, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her recent monograph, Assembling Shinto: Buddhist Approaches to Kami Worship in Medieval Japan (Harvard University Asia Center, 2017), Anna Andreeva focuses on a complex network of religious sit...

Jon Birger, “Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game” (Workman Publishing Company, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Date-onomics: How Dating Became a Lopsided Numbers Game (Workman Publishing Company, 2015), Jon Birger, an award-winning journalist and contributor to Fortune magazine, explores the social impli...

Sherine Hamdy, “Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transplants, Islam, and the Struggle for Human Dignity in Egypt” (University of California Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the best things about co-hosting New Books in STS is the opportunity to discover books like this one. Sherine Hamdy has given us something special in Our Bodies Belong to God: Organ Transpla...

Suma Ikeuchi, "Jesus Loves Japan: Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora" (Stanford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In 1990, the Japanese government introduced the Nikkei-jin (Japanese descendant) visa and since then it has attracted more than 190,000 Nikkei Brazilian nationals to Japan. In Jesus Loves Japan: Re...

Alexander Rocklin, "The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad" (UNC Press, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Beginning in the mid 19th century, thousands of indentured laborers traveled from India to the Caribbean, and many settled in Trinidad. In The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in C...

Kathryn Troy, “The Specter of the Indian: Race, Gender and Ghosts in American Seances, 1848-1890” (SUNY Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In a meticulously researched study The Specter of the Indian: Race, Gender and Ghosts in American Seances, 1848-1890 (SUNY Press, 2017), Kathryn Troy investigates the many examples of Indian ghosts...

Annie Blazer, “Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry” (NYU Press, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her new book, Playing for God: Evangelical Women and the Unintended Consequences of Sports Ministry (NYU Press, 2015), Annie Blazer shows through archival research and participant-observation ho...

Peter Beinart, “The Crisis of Zionism” (Times Books, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book The Crisis of Zionism, (Times Books, 2012), Peter Beinart, Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation and Associate Professor of Journalism and Political Science at The Ci...

Philip Jenkins, "Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions" (Baylor UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions (Baylor University Press, 2020), Philip Jenkins maps the demographic revolution that has ta...

Zahra Ayubi, "Gendered Morality: Classical Islamic Ethics of the Self, Family, and Society" (Columbia UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How are notions of justice and equality constructed in Islamic virtue ethics (akhlaq)? How are Islamic virtue ethics gendered, despite their venture into perennial concerns of how best to live a go...

Alexander Knysh, “Sufism: A New History” (Princeton UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sufism, like many terms in the study of Islam, can be difficult to define and even more difficult to handle, but Alexander Knysh, in Sufism: A New History (Princeton University Press, 2017), has pr...

Lila Corwin Berman, “Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit” (U of Chicago, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Metropolitan Jews: Politics, Race, and Religion in Postwar Detroit (University of Chicago Press, 2015), Lila Corwin Berman, Associate Professor of History, Murray Friedman Chair of American Jewi...

Greta Christina, “Why Are you Atheists so Angry?: 99 Things that Piss off the Godless” (Dirty Heathen, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Popular atheist blogger Greta Christina has now written a book Why Are you Atheists so Angry? 99 Things that Piss off the Godless (Dirty Heathen, 2012) counters the widespread view (at least in Ame...

Peter J. Thuesen, "Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather (Oxford UP, 2020), Peter J. Thuesen links the “numinous” religious experiences of Americans as they experienced the uniquely destructive weathe...

Ronald E. Purser, "McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality" (Repeater Books, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his recent exposé, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality (Repeater Books, 2019), Ronald Purser Ph.D. takes a hard look at the mindfulness movement that has taken ...

Mark Sedgwick, “Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his work, Western Sufism: From the Abbasids to the New Age (Oxford University Press, 2017), Mark Sedgwick maps the ideational processes that have led to the development of contemporary western S...

Derek J. Penslar, “Jews and the Military: A History” (Princeton UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Jews and the Military: A History (Princeton University Press, 2015), Derek J. Penslar, the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford and the Samuel Zacks Professor of...

Phil Zuckerman, “Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us About Contentment” (New York University Press, 2010) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is not uncommon for many Americans to believe that morality and order comes from God and religion. A society without these elements would consequently be immoral and chaotic. When Phil Zuckerman...

Anway Mukhopadhyay, “The Authority of Female Speech in Indian Goddess Traditions” (Palgrave, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Contemporary debates on “mansplaining” foreground the authority enjoyed by male speech, and highlight the way it projects listening as the responsibility of the dominated, and speech as the privile...

Milton Gaither, "Homeschool: An American History" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

With around two million children currently enrolled in home schools in the USA, no-one can doubt that the subject of Milton Gaither’s new book is timely. Gaither, a professor of education at Messia...

Joel Blecher, “Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary Across a Millennium” (U. Cal Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his marvelous new book Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary Across a Millennium (University of California Press, 2017), Joel Blecher, Assistant Professor of History at George Washington Un...

Debra Majeed, “Polygyny: What it Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands” (UP of Florida, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her wonderful new book Polygyny: What it Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands (University Press of Florida, 2015), Debra Majeed, Professor of Religious Studies at Beloit...

Kathryn Lofton, “Oprah: The Gospel of an Icon” (University of California Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In December of 2011, Oprah Winfrey appeared on The Dr. Oz Show to talk about her new big plans and her inspirations for the future. Oprah replied, “For me at this particular time in my life I recog...

James Simpson, "Permanent Revolution: The Reformation and the Illiberal Roots of Liberalism" (Harvard UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Protestant Reformation looms large in our cultural imagination. In the standard telling, it’s the moment the world went modern. Casting off the shackles and superstitions of medieval Catholicis...

Sara Georgini, "Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sara Georgini is a historian and series editor for The Papers of John Adams at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Household Gods: The Religious Lives of the Adams Family (Oxford University Press...

Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp, “Muslim Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in France” (Liverpool UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Connections between France and North Africa have long been shaped by colonialism, nationalism, and economics. This intercultural relationship has also been mediated through the arts. In Muslim Wome...

Sarah H. Jacoby, “Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro” (Columbia UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Sarah H. Jacoby‘s recent monograph, Love and Liberation: Autobiographical Writings of the Tibetan Buddhist Visionary Sera Khandro (Columbia University Press, 2014), focuses on the extraordinary lif...

Hank Glassman, “The Face of JizÅ?: Image and Cult in Medieval Japanese Buddhism” (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this episode, we talk with Prof. Hank Glassman who’s written a new book titled The Face of Jizo : Image and Cult in Medieval Japanese Buddhism (University of Hawaii Press, 2012). Jizo is a Buddh...

Tamura Lomax, “Jezebel Unhinged: Loosing the Black Female Body in Religion and Culture” (Duke UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the central threads in the public discourse on Black womanhood is the idea of the “Jezebel.” This trope deems Black women and girls as dishonorable and sexually deviant and the stereotype is...

Gregg L. Frazer, "God against the Revolution: The Loyalist Clergy’s Case Against the American Revolution" (UP of Kansas, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Not everyone was convinced by the arguments of patriots during the American revolution. Among those who retained some degree of loyalty to the British crown were the majority of the clergy of the E...

Ella Shohat, “On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements” (Pluto Press, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Spanning several decades, the work of Ella Shohat, a Professor of Cultural Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at New York University, has introduced conceptual frameworks that fundamentally challen...

Amanda Lucia, “Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace” (University of California Press, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Waiting several hours in line for a hug is well worth it for thousands of people, the devotees of the Guru, Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi. In Reflections of Amma: Devotees in a Global Embrace (Univers...

Robert F. Shedinger, “Was Jesus a Muslim?: Questioning Categories in the Study of Religion” (Fortress Press, 2009) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“Islam isn’t a religion – it is a way of life.” I have heard both Muslims and non-Muslims express this sentiment. For believers this statement is meant to demonstrate how comprehensive God’s messag...

Janet Jakobsen, "The Sex Obsession: Perversity and Possibility in American Politics" (NYU Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Why are Americans, and American politicians more specifically, obsessed with sex? Why, in the words of Janet Jakobsen, are gender and sexuality such riveting public policy concerns the United State...

Larry E. Morris, "A Documentary History of the Book of Mormon" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The story of the creation of the Book of Mormon has been told many times, and often ridiculed. A Documentary History of the Book of Mormon (Oxford University Press, 2019), by Larry E. Morris, prese...

Tam T. T. Ngo, “The New Way: Protestantism and the Hmong in Vietnam” (U. Washington Press, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Think of Christianity in Southeast Asia today and what might come to mind is the predominantly Catholic Philippines, or the work of the Baptist church among linguistic and cultural minorities in My...

Kimberly Arkin, “Rhinestones, Religion, and the Republic: Fashioning Jewishness in France” (Stanford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Fictions of Conversion: Jews, Christians, and Cultures of Change in Early Modern England (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), Jeffrey S. Shoulson, the Doris and Simon Konover Chair in Judai...

Elizabeth West, “African Spirituality in Black Women’s Fiction: Threaded Visions of Memory, Community, Nature, and Being” (Lexington Books, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Elizabeth West has written an insightful study about the presence of African spirituality in the autobiographies, poetry, speeches and novels of African American women, ranging from Phylis Wheatley...

Bihani Sarkar, "Heroic Sh?ktism: The Cult of Durg? in Ancient Indian Kingship" (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Heroic Saktism is the belief that a good king and a true warrior must worship the goddess Durga, the form and substance of kingship. This belief formed the bedrock of ancient Indian practices of cu...

Evdoxios Doxiadis, "State, Nationalism, and the Jewish Communities of Modern Greece" (Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

How did minorities fit into the new Greek state during the country’s transition from imperial rule to national sovereignty? How did the relationship between Greece and its Jewish minorities, in par...

Mark Rozell and Clyde Wilcox, “God at the Grassroots 2016: The Christian Right in American Politics (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the wake of the Alabama Senate election in December, 2017, attention has been drawn to the intersection of religion and politics. This is the subject of God at the Grassroots 2016: The Christian...

Guy Burak, “The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Hanafi School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire” (Cambridge UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

The Second Formation of Islamic Law: The Hanafi School in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge UP, 2015) is a new contribution to the study of Islam and more specifically to the history of Is...

Robert F. Barsky and Noam Chomsky, “Zellig Harris: From American Linguistics to Socialist Zionism” (MIT Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Zellig Harris’s name is famous in linguistics primarily for his early work on transformational grammar and his influence on his most famous student, Noam Chomsky. However, much of his linguistic wo...

Sree Padma, "Vicissitudes of the Goddess: Reconstructions of the Gramadevata in India's Religious Traditions" (Oxford UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Vicissitudes of the Goddess: Reconstructions of the Gramadevata in India's Religious Traditions (Oxford UP, 2013), Padma (Bowdoin College) focuses on two types of Gramadevatas or goddesses: deif...

Matthew E. Ferris, "If One Uses It Lawfully: The Law of Moses and the Christian Life (Wipf and Stock, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

One of the most enduring debates within protestant theology has been the discussion about how the law of Moses relates to the Christian life. In this important new book, Matthew E. Ferris, a self-d...

Crawford Gribben, “John Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat” (Oxford UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Though the preeminent English theologian of the 17th century, there is much about John Owen’s life which remains obscured to us today. One of the achievements of Crawford Gribben‘s new book John O...

Gerard Russell, “Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East” (Basic Books, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In this interview Gerard Russell talks about his vivid and timely new book Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms: Journeys Into the Disappearing Religions of the Middle East (Basic Books, 2014). Russell’s ex...

Eric Weiner, “Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine” (Twelve, 2012) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine (Twelve, 2011), Eric Weiner, former correspondent for both NPR and the New York Times, confronts his spiritual side after a medical em...

Michael Slouber, "A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses: Tales of the Feminine Divine from India and Beyond" (U California Press, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Michael Slouber's new book A Garland of Forgotten Goddesses: Tales of the Feminine Divine from India and Beyond (University of California Press, 2020) surveys the diversity of India's feminine divi...

E. H. Ecklund and D. R. Johnson, "Secularity and Science: What Scientists Around the World Really Think of Religion" (Oxford UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

It is common to see science and religion portrayed as mutually exclusive and warring ways of viewing the world, but is that how actual scientists see it? For that matter, which cultural factors sha...

Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen, “Recharging Judaism” (CCAR, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In their new book Recharging Judaism: How Civic Engagement is Good For Synagogues, Jews and America (Central Conference of American Rabbis, 2017), Rabbi Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen argue...

Michael L. Satlow, “How the Bible Became Holy” (Yale UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In How the Bible Became Holy (Yale University Press, 2014), Michael L. Satlow, a professor of religious studies and Judaic studies at Brown University, explores how an ancient collection of obscure...

Parna Sengupta, “Pedagogy for Religion: Missionary Education and the Fashioning of Hindus and Muslims in Bengal” (University of California Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What is the relationship between religion, secularization, and education? Parna Sengupta, Associate Director of Introductory Studies at Stanford University, explores their connections as she reexam...

Karen Taliaferro, "The Possibility of Religious Freedom: Early Natural Law and the Abrahamic Faiths" (Cambridge UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Religious freedom debates set blood boiling. Just consider notable Supreme Court cases of recent years such as Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission or Little Sisters of the Poor...

Holly Rogers, "The Mindful Twenty-Something" (New Harbinger, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In her book, The Mindful Twenty-Something (New Harbinger, 2016), Holly Rogers presents a unique, evidence based approach to help you make important life decisions with clarity and confidence.  As c...

Dan Barker, “God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction” (Sterling, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

For those of us who pay close attention in Sunday school, a troubling dissimilarity may begin to appear between what we are told of God’s personality and what we learn of it from His actions. For e...

Christopher R. Duncan, “Violence and Vengeance: Religious Conflict and Its Aftermath in Eastern Indonesia” (Cornell UP, 2013) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Researching the communal killings that occurred in North Maluku, Indonesia during 1999 and 2000, Christopher Duncan was struck by how participants “experienced the violence as a religious conflict ...

Mark Rowe, “Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation of Contemporary Japanese Buddhism” (University of Chicago Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

Mark Rowe‘s new book Bonds of the Dead: Temples, Burial, and the Transformation of Contemporary Japanese Buddhism (University of Chicago Press, 2011) is a fascinating study of the life of Buddhism ...

Earle H. Waugh, “Al Rashid Mosque: Building Canadian Muslim Communities” (U Alberta Press, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In the early 20th-century Muslims, primarily with roots in Lebanon, began to settle in Canada’s interior plains. In 1938, the small community in Edmonton opened the first mosque in the country, whi...

Arik Moran, "Kingship and Polity on the Himalayan Borderland" (Amsterdam UP, 2019) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What role did women play in securing power in colonial Himalayan kingdoms? Kingship and Polity on the Himalayan Borderland (Amsterdam UP, 2019) specifically documents the key roles played by women ...

Elizabeth Bucar, “Pious Fashion: How Muslim Women Dress” (Harvard UP, 2017) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

We’ve featured a few books on fashion and the Muslim world recently, all part of an effort to re-orient the study of women in the Muslim and Arabic-speaking worlds. Elizabeth Bucar’s Pious Fashion:...

Lois Lee, “Recognizing the Non-religious: Reimagining the Secular” (Oxford UP, 2015) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What does non-religion mean? In a new book Recognizing the Non-Religious: Reimagining the Secular (Oxford University Press, 2015), Lois Lee, one of the editors of Secularism and Non-Religion, inter...

Jarrod Tanny, “City of Rogues and Schnorrers: Russia’s Jews and the Myth of Old Odessa” (Indiana UP, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

“Ah, nostalgia is such an illness, and what a beautiful illness. There is no medicine for it! And thank God there isn’t.” This was how one of the Soviet Union’s most famous jazz singers and actors,...

Rita D. Sherma, "Contemplative Studies in Hinduism: Meditation, Devotion, Prayer, and Worship" (Routledge, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

What counts as contemplative practices in Hinduism? What can Hindu Studies offer Contemplative Studies as a discipline? Contemplative Studies in Hinduism: Meditation, Devotion, Prayer, and Worship ...

William M. Gorvine, "Envisioning A Tibetan Luminary: The Life of a Modern Bonpo Saint" (Oxford UP, 2018) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In his new book, Envisioning A Tibetan Luminary: The Life of a Modern Bonpo Saint (Oxford University Press, 2018), William M. Gorvine provides a multifaceted analysis of Shardza Tashi Gyaltsen (185...

Jessica Marglin, “Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco” (Yale UP, 2016) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Across Legal Lines: Jews and Muslims in Modern Morocco (Yale University Press, 2016), Jessica Marglin skillfully narrates how Jews and Muslims navigated the complex and dynamic legal system of p...

Liora R. Halperin, “Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948” (Yale UP, 2014) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

In Babel in Zion: Jews, Nationalism, and Language Diversity in Palestine, 1920-1948 (Yale University Press, 2015), Liora R. Halperin, an Assistant Professor in the Department of History and the Pro...

Justin Thomas McDaniel, “The Lovelorn Ghost and the Magical Monk: Practicing Buddhism in Modern Thailand” (Columbia University Press, 2011) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393

When most people think of Buddhism they begin to imagine a lone monk in the forest or a serene rock garden. The world of ghosts, amulets, and magic are usually from their mind. They may even feel s...

Harrison Perkins, "Catholicity and the Covenant of Works: James Ussher and the Reformed Tradition" (Oxford UP, 2020) from 2021-01-31T22:10:42.023393