New Books in Religion
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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2076
Anthony Kaldellis, “Streams of Gold, Rivers of ...
In the 10th century, a succession of Byzantine rulers reversed centuries of strategic policy by embarking on a series of campaigns that dramatically reshaped their empire. This effort and its consequences for the history of the region is the focus of A...
55 min
2077
Marcia Walker-McWilliams, “Reverend Addie: Fait...
Addie Wyatt stands at the intersection of unionism, feminism, and civil rights activism in post-World War II America. In Reverend Addie Wyatt: Faith and the Fight for Labor, Gender, and Racial Equality (University of Illinois Press, 2016),
47 min
2078
Daniel Bennett, “Defending Faith: The Politics ...
This week on the podcast, Daniel Bennet joins us to talk about his new book, Defending Faith: The Politics of the Christian Conservative Legal Movement (University Press of Kansas, 2017). Bennett is assistant professor of political science at John Brow...
19 min
2079
Karmen MacKendrick, “The Matter of Voice: Sensu...
Philosophers have long tried to silence the physical musicality of voice in favor of the purity of ideas without matter, souls without bodies. But voices resonate among bodies and texts; they are singular, as unique as fingerprints,
47 min
2080
Maurice Samuels, “The Right to Difference: Fren...
In The Right To Difference: French Universalism and the Jews (University of Chicago Press, 2016), Maurice Samuels, Betty Jane Anylan Professor of French and director of the Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism at Yale University,
23 min
2081
Sarah Bond, “Trade and Taboo: Disreputable Prof...
Dominant social norms and expectations shape how individuals and their public activities are understood. In Roman antiquity, various shifts influenced the production and dissolution of prejudices towards certain types of occupations.
46 min
2082
Daniel Dreisbach, “Reading the Bible with the F...
No book was more accessible or familiar to the American founders than the Bible, and no book was more frequently alluded to or quoted from in the political discourse of the age. How and for what purposes did the founding generation use the Bible?
38 min
2083
Manan Ahmed Asif, “A Book of Conquest: The Chac...
In contemporary South Asia, the question of Muslim origins emerges in school textbooks, political dialogues, or at tourist or pilgrimage cites. The repeated narrative revolves around the foreign Muslim leader, Muhammad bin Qasim,
58 min
2084
Joyce Salisbury, “Rome’s Christian Empress: Gal...
The daughter of the emperor Theodosius I, Galla Placidia successfully navigated the tumultuous politics of the late Roman Empire to rule as regent for her son Valentinian III. In Rome’s Christian Empress: Galla Placidia Rules at the Twilight of the Emp...
42 min
2085
Benjamin J. Ribbens, “Levitical Sacrifice and H...
Were the sacrifices of the Old Testament effectual? The book of Hebrews offers a critique of the Levitical cult and the sacrifices of the old covenant, even while explaining Christ’s new covenant sacrifice by comparison to them. Yet,
32 min
2086
Elias Sacks, “Moses Mendelssohn’s Living Script...
The work of Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), one of Judaism’s great philosophers and defenders, has nonetheless defied easy categorization or definitive depiction. While advocating for the granting of full rights to the Jews of Germany,
36 min
2087
Matthew Gillis, “Heresy and Dissent in the Caro...
In the popular imagination, heresy belongs to the Christian Middle Ages in much the way that the Crusades or courtly culture do. Non-specialists in the medieval field may assume that the problem of heresy always existed, uniformly,
47 min
2088
Andreas Gorke and Johanna Pink, “Tafsir and Isl...
What does it mean to interpret the Qur’an? What kinds of literary genres have produced and continue to produce such inquiry? Is tafsir only a line-by-line commentary or could it be something broader, blended with genres of law, storytelling,
59 min
2089
Pekka Pitkanen, “A Commentary on Numbers: Narra...
Mainstream readings of Numbers have tended to see the book as a haphazard junkyard of material that connects Genesis—Leviticus with Deuteronomy and Joshua, composed at a late stage in the history of ancient Israel. By contrast,
60 min
2090
Did the Protestant Reformation Have to Happen?
In the second podcast of Arguing History, historians Peter Marshall and Alec Ryrie address the question of whether the Protestant Reformation, an event which transformed Christianity in the Western world, was an inevitable event.
54 min
2091
Albert Wu, “From Christ to Confucius: German Mi...
Where Europeans have gone, so, too, have their ideas about religion. We know that this was no one-way street, that Christian missionaries have both changed and been changed by their interaction with nonwhite, non-Christian peoples,
56 min
2092
Geoffrey D. Claussen, “Sharing the Burden: Rabb...
In Sharing the Burden: Rabbi Simḥah Zissel Ziv and the Path of Musar (SUNY Press, 2015), Geoffrey D. Claussen provides a thorough study of the life and work of one of the most influential figures in the history of Musar,
33 min
2093
Sarah Eltantawi, “Shari’ah on Trial: Northern N...
Few images attached to Islam and to the Islamic legal tradition (the Sharia) in particular are more often and more disturbingly sensationalized than that of the stoning punishment. In her riveting new book Shari’ah on Trial: Northern Nigeria’s Islamic ...
39 min
2094
Eric Kurlander, “Hitler’s Monsters: A Supernat...
The idea that there is some unholy connection between Nazism and occultism has a lengthy history. It long predates 1933, when the National Socialist party took power in Germany. But what’s behind that idea?
51 min
2095
Anita Hannig, “Beyond Surgery: Injury, Healing,...
Anita Hannig‘s first book, Beyond Surgery: Injury, Healing, and Religion at an Ethiopian Hospital (University of Chicago Press, 2017) is an in-depth, ethnography of two fistula repair and rehabilitation centers in northern Ethiopia.
51 min
2096
Pooyan Tamimi Arab, “Amplifying Islam in the Eu...
In mid-March, Europeans observed the Dutch national elections with intense interest. Onlookers believed that a victory of the Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders will influence the results of coming elections in France, the UK, and Germany.
38 min
2097
David I. Shyovitz, “A Remembrance of His Wonder...
In A Remembrance of His Wonders: Nature and the Supernatural in Medieval Ashkenaz (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), David I. Shyovitz, Associate Professor of History, and of Jewish and Israel Studies, at Northwestern University,
34 min
2098
Erik Love, “Islamophobia and Racism in America”...
In his new book, Islamophobia and Racism in America (New York University Press, 2017), Sociologist Erik Love provides a historical and current snapshot of civil rights issues surrounding people from the “middle east” in America.
30 min
2099
Ellen Wayland-Smith, “Oneida: From Free Love Ut...
Ellen Wayland-Smith, a descendent of the Oneida community, teaches writing at the University of Southern California. Her book Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-set Table (Picador Press, 2016) is an insightful and beautifully written history of ...
55 min
2100
Ronald A. Lindsay, “The Necessity of Secularism...
For the first time in human history, a significant percentage of the world’s population no longer believes in God. While its true that some societies are even seeing nonbelievers outnumber believers, it is extremely unlikely that we will see a total co...
63 min