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
Michael Ruse, “On Purpose” (Princeton UP, 2017)
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 unable to kill it. In fact,
55 min
2077
Leon Wiener Dow, “The Going: A Meditation on Je...
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 law. The author makes nuanced philosophical and theolog...
49 min
2078
Anna Andreeva, “Assembling Shinto: Buddhist App...
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 sites, figures,
39 min
2079
Kathryn Troy, “The Specter of the Indian: Race,...
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 appearing to Spiritualists in the latter half of the n...
48 min
2080
Alexander Knysh, “Sufism: A New History” (Princ...
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 produced a primer that will both challenge and reinforce ...
54 min
2081
Mark Sedgwick, “Western Sufism: From the Abbasi...
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 Sufism. Sedgwick showcases how Neoplatonism influenced A...
38 min
2082
Joel Blecher, “Said the Prophet of God: Hadith ...
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 University,
40 min
2083
Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp, “Muslim Women in French ...
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 Women in French Cinema: Voices of Maghrebi Migrants in Fran...
51 min
2084
Ella Shohat, “On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and O...
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 challenged conventional understandings of Israel, Palestine,
48 min
2085
Tam T. T. Ngo, “The New Way: Protestantism and ...
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 Myanmar, or any one of the thousands of Christian communi...
44 min
2086
Mark Rozell and Clyde Wilcox, “God at the Grass...
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 Right in American Politics (Rowman and Littlefield,
18 min
2087
Crawford Gribben, “John Owen and English Purita...
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 Owen and English Puritanism: Experiences of Defeat (Oxfor...
4 min
2088
Judith Schindler and Judy Seldin-Cohen, “Rechar...
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 that social action and Jewish action go hand-in-hand.
52 min
2089
Dan Barker, “God: The Most Unpleasant Character...
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 example, we are told that God is merciful, just,
66 min
2090
Elizabeth Bucar, “Pious Fashion: How Muslim Wom...
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: How Muslim Women Dress (Harvard University Press,
59 min
2091
Jessica Marglin, “Across Legal Lines: Jews and ...
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 pre-colonial Morocco. The book,
51 min
2092
Jason Josephson-Storm, “The Myth of Disenchantm...
We tend to think of ourselves—our modern selves–as disenchanted. We have traded magic, myth, and spirits for science, reason, and logic. But this is false. Jason Josephson-Storm, in his exciting new book titled The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic,
63 min
2093
Wendy Hasenkamp and Janna R. White, eds. “The M...
Wendy Hasenkamp and Janna R. White spent four years editing a series of conversations between prominent scientists, philosophers, scholars of Tibetan Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama, resulting in The Monastery and the Microscope: Conversations with the Da...
56 min
2094
Megan Adamson Sijapati and Jessica Vantine Birk...
The Himalayas have long been at the crossroads of the exchange between cultures, yet the social lives of those who inhabit the region are often framed as marginal to historical narratives. And while scholars have studied religious diversity in the cont...
60 min
2095
Rafia Zakaria, “Veil” (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)
Muslim women are often the focus of debate when it comes to public conversations about Islam. Much of this centers on feelings and assumptions surrounding an object, the veil. Rafia Zakaria, journalist and author,
61 min
2096
Margot Esther Borden, “Psychology in the Light ...
Psychology and spirituality have a complicated relationship. Dating back to ancient times, we see them treated as sister disciplines which inform and enhance one another. But at some point in the last century,
44 min
2097
Luisa Del Giudice, ed. “On Second Thought: Lear...
On Second Thought: Learned Women Reflect on Profession, Community, and Purpose (University of Utah Press, 2017) is a collection of thirteen essays by women, all in the second half of their lives, in which they contemplate the ways in which the differen...
55 min
2098
Terry Kleeman, “Celestial Masters: History and ...
Despite the general perception that Daoism is simply an informal and carefree philosophical perspective, the Daoist tradition is a highly formalized spectrum of ritual practices and communal beliefs. Religious Daoism emerged within the rich second-cent...
51 min
2099
Bryan D. Lowe, “Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Pr...
In his recent monograph, Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2017), Bryan D. Lowe examines eighth-century Japanese practices that ritualized writing, or, in other words,
68 min
2100
David Jacobson, “The Charm of Wise Hesitancy: T...
In The Charm of Wise Hesitancy: Talmudic Stories in Contemporary Israeli Culture (Academic Studies Press, 2017), David Jacobson, Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University, offers an overview and detailed analysis of one of a most intriguing cultu...
36 min