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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Religion & Spirituality
1976
Fred S. Naiden, "Soldier, Priest, and God: A Li...
Alexander’s religious practices were a vital part of his legitimacy as a ruler of his people, and were interwoven into his daily activities...
46 min
1977
Kevin Ingram, "Converso Non-Conformism in Early...
Ingram sets out to account for the experience of those Spanish Jews, perhaps one-third of the total Spanish Jewish population, who converted to Catholicism after the Reconquista...
32 min
1978
Richard Gombrich, "Buddhism and Pali" (Mud Pie ...
Far more than just an introductory book, Richard argues not only that the Pali Canon records the words of the Buddha, but that the Buddha himself is responsible for the Pali language...
68 min
1979
Adrienne Mayor, "Gods and Robots: Myths, Machin...
The first robot to walk the earth was a bronze giant called Talos...
39 min
1980
B.R. Ambedkar, "Annihilation of Caste: The Anno...
This landmark speech by Dr. B.R. Ambedakar is the pinnacle of his scholarly work and cements his legacy alongside Mahatma Gandhi in Indian politics...
67 min
1981
Andrew R. Holmes, "The Irish Presbyterian Mind:...
Andrew surveys the period in which Irish Presbyterians came together as a community, to debate different ways of being conservative...
34 min
1982
Mani Rao, "Living Mantra: Mantra, Deity, and Vi...
What role does mantra play in the lives of Hindu practitioners?
61 min
1983
Zeb Tortorici, "Sins Against Nature: Sex and Ar...
Men and women often engaged in ‘unnatural’ sexual acts revealed the relations of power in colonial society,...
59 min
1984
John Torpey, "The Three Axial Ages: Moral, Mate...
29 min
1985
Brannon D. Ingram, "Revival from Below: The Deo...
Through careful analysis of historical textual discourses, Ingram carefully guides his readers through important polemics that manifested amongst the Deoband ‘ulama...
52 min
1986
Elliott Sober, "The Design Argument" (Cambridge...
Sober’s book analyzes the various forms that design arguments for the existence of God can take and focuses primarily on two of these...
40 min
1987
Daromir Rudnyckyj, "Beyond Debt: Islamic Experi...
Anthropologist Daromir Rudnyckyj illustrates how the Malaysian state, led by the central bank, is seeking to make the country’s capital Kuala Lumpur the central node of global financial activity conducted in accordance with Islam.
63 min
1988
Jamal Elias, "Alef is for Allah: Childhood, Emo...
Jamal Elias takes his readers on a riveting intellectual tour thematically centered on the interaction of childhood, visual culture, and affect in contemporary Muslim majority societies, and in Muslim intellectual thought more broadly...
38 min
1989
Ben Gatling, "Expressions of Sufi Culture in Ta...
Ben Gatling’s debut book is a beautifully written ethnography exploring the lives, religious practice, and narratives of Sufi believers near Dushanbe, Tajikistan
52 min
1990
Omid Safi, “Radical Love: Teachings from the Is...
Its often touted that Rumi is one of the best-selling poets in the United States...
74 min
1991
Nicholas J. Moore, "Repetition in Hebrews: Plur...
s repetition always bad? The Letter to the Hebrews lies at the heart of a tradition that views repetition always negative...
23 min
1992
Jesse A. Zink, "Christianity and Catastrophe in...
Zink’s book is an outstanding account of the growth and evolution of Anglican Christianity among the Dinka people of what is now South Sudan...
38 min
1993
Alan Jacobs, "The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christ...
Drawing on interventions made at the height of global war by T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, Simone Weil and Jacques Maritain, Jacobs shows how leading intellectuals worried about a world in crisis and how they imagined it might be set right...
47 min
1994
Pamela E. Klassen, "The Story of Radio Mind: A ...
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 distance...
49 min
1995
Harry O. Maier, "New Testament Christianity in ...
Maier’s study steps away from debates about the formation of early Christian belief to reconstruct the social world in which the new religious movement emerged and began to take shape...
37 min
1996
Victoria Smolkin, "A Sacred Space Is Never Empt...
The specter of the “Godless” Soviet Union haunted the United States and continental Western Europe throughout the Cold War...
57 min
1997
Thomas Borchert, “Educating Monks: Minority Bud...
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 from Southwest China...
63 min
1998
McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One ...
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention...
61 min
1999
Alireza Doostdar, "The Iranian Metaphysicals: E...
Thoroughly disrupting the common association of the Occult with popular religion and mystical enchantment, this book explores the complex and conflicting rationalities that inform varied metaphysical experimentations occupying a range of Iranian actors.
59 min
2000
Arlene M. Sánchez Walsh, “Pentecostals in Ameri...
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 narrative gloss offered by its adherents and church his...
60 min