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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2576
Karen Pechilis, “South Asian Religions: Traditi...
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 different sources. However,
66 min
2577
Steven Engler and Michael Stausberg, eds., “The...
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 will find lots of Freud, Marx,
55 min
2578
Ahmad Atif Ahmad, “The Fatigue of the SharÄ«’a”...
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 Muslims. Could God’s guidance simply cease to be accessible a...
60 min
2579
Barbara Bonner, “Inspiring Generosity” (Wisdom ...
“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 small volume with words of wisdom and compassion.
43 min
2580
Afsar Mohammad, “The Festival of Pirs: Popular ...
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 Festival of Pirs: Popular Islam and Shared Devotion in ...
20 min
2581
Sarah Pessin, “Ibn Gabirol’s Theology of Desire...
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the 11th century Jewish philosopher-poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol, are often saddled with a cosmology considered either as outdated science or a kind of “invisible floating Kansas” in which spatiotemporal talk isn’t really about spa...
74 min
2582
John L. Modern, “Secularism in Antebellum Ameri...
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 this term has shifted throughout time.
67 min
2583
Rebecca Williams, “Muhammad and the Supernatura...
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 proclamation that the only “miracle” which served as proof...
71 min
2584
Judith Orloff, “The Ecstasy Of Surrender: 12 Su...
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 control has become the number one tool to help us take...
46 min
2585
Brent Nongbri, “Before Religion: A History of a...
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 Doctoral Fellow at Macquarie University,
72 min
2586
Ahmed El Shamsy, “The Canonization of Islamic L...
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 Chicago, explores the question of how the discursive tradit...
64 min
2587
Leora Batnitzky, “How Judaism Became a Religion...
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 professor of Jewish studies and chair of the Department of...
32 min
2588
James A. Lindsay, “Dot, Dot, Dot: Infinity Plus...
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 attributes is not usually explained).
65 min
2589
Lawrence J. Friedman, “The Lives of Erich Fromm...
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 sold more than six million copies worldwide,
50 min
2590
Darrin M. McMahon, “Divine Fury: A History of G...
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 was such a genius that he destroyed the entire concept...
69 min
2591
Carla Bellamy, “The Powerful Ephemeral: Everyda...
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 particular venue known as Husain Tekri, or “Husain Hill.
59 min
2592
Rumee Ahmed, “Narratives of Islamic Legal Theor...
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 could enumerate the meaning and purpose of Islamic law.
58 min
2593
Molly Worthen, “Apostles of Reason: The Crisis ...
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 variety of evangelicals in America over the last seventy...
59 min
2594
Vincent Geoghegan, “Socialism and Religion: Roa...
“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 the early twentieth century appears to confirm his verdi...
73 min
2595
Robert K. C. Forman, “Enlightenment Ain’t What ...
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. What does Enlightenment look like?
63 min
2596
Raphael Lataster, “There was no Jesus, There is...
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 intention to destroy the fait of the faithful; nor do I de...
36 min
2597
Agostino Cilardo, “The Early History of Islamil...
Al-QÄá¸Ä« al-Nu῾mÄn (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) provides an English translation and edited Arabic editio...
41 min
2598
Robert Yelle, “The Language of Disenchantment: ...
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 Disenchantment: Protestant Literalism and Colonial Discourse in B...
66 min
2599
Teena Purohit, “The Aga Khan Case: Religion and...
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 University, examines this question in The Aga Khan Case: Relig...
59 min
2600
Jeremy Dauber, “The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem” ...
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 Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye (Schocken,
8 min