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New Books in Religion

New Books Network

Interviews with Scholars of Religion about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

religion & spirituality

All Episodes

88:47

Anne C. Klein on Becoming a Buddha & Being Human too

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/24

You’re human, but are you also a Buddha? If so, which one comes first? What does it mean to be human? What is a Buddha exactly? Is our humanity lost or superseded if we become a Buddha? Such questions might interest our more philosophical listeners.Being Human and a Buddha Too (Wisdom Publications, 2023) by today’s guest Anne Klein explores the 7-point mind training of Longchenpa, a 14th century Tibetan Scholar and Yogi from the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Anne is professor of religion at

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67:41

David G. Bonagura Jr, "100 Tough Questions for...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/24

David Bonagura teaches classical languages and theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York and Catholic International University; he also teaches high school kids. He invited them to ask their questions about the faith, which led to some exciting classroom discussions and David’s new book—100 Tough Questions for Catholics—which we are talking about today. David Bonagura’s website. David Bonagura’s new book, 100 Tough Questions for Catholics. David Bonagura’s previous appearance on Almost

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46:02

Ryan Klejment-Lavin, "Evil: A North Korean Christian...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/23

The purpose of Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective (American Society of Missiology, 2024) is to describe how the North Korean refugee understanding of evil can shape missionary practice in the Korean Peninsula. The central research question guiding this study is, How do North Korean Christian refugees describe evil based on their lived experiences? Twelve North Korean Christian refugees were interviewed. The findings indicate that North Korean Christian refugees understand evil as the

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88:50

Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger, "Papyri Copticae...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/23

Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The book is a careful and thorough edition and philological study of thirty-seven distinct Coptic manuscripts, covering a wide range of magical applications—from love spells, to curses, to exorcisms, and healing invocations. The volume makes available a rich set of evidence of everyday concerns of love, justice, strife, and health in late ancient

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24:22

Z'ev Ben Shimon Halevi: "The Kabbalistic Tree of...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/23

The late Z'ev Ben Shimon HaLevi (Warren Kenton 1933-2020) wrote The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (KS Books, 2025), a metaphysical scheme based on ancient, medieval and modern views of its principles, which describes the structure and dynamic of cosmic laws that operate throughout the four Worlds of Jacob's Ladder and humanity. HaLevi also wrote The Anointed (KS Books, 2025), a fictional Kabbalistic novel about the destiny of one man and the fate of the world.Tune in as we speak with Jonathon Clark,

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41:43

Yosie Levine, "Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/22

My recent interview with Rabbi Dr. Yosie Levine about his book, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate (Littman Library, 2024), illuminated the dynamic interplay between Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions-a theme that resonates deeply with our mission at the Unity Through Diversity Institute.From the outset, Rabbi Levine’s scholarship made clear that Hakham Tsevi’s life was shaped by both geography and intellectual inheritance. The map at the beginning of his

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38:42

Abdul Wohab, "Secularism and Islam in Bangladesh: 50...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/22

Secularism and Islam in Bangladesh: 50 Years After Independence (Routledge, 2025) comprehensively analyses the syncretistic form of Bengali Islam and its relationship with secularism in Bangladesh from pre-British to contemporary times. It focuses on the importance of understanding the dynamics between religion and secularism within specific cultural contexts. Arguing that extremist interpretations of Islam, which aim to establish a theocratic state, have not been able to influence the pluralistic

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81:01

Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns,...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/21

Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. Alan Strathern set out a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between religion and political authority based on a distinction between two kinds of religion - immanentism and transcendentalism - and the different ways they made monarchy sacred. Please listen to his interview on that book on the New Books Network!This ambitious and

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64:04

Kai Shmushko, "Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/20

In the past decades, various forms of Buddhism have emerged in-between, above, and beyond conventional conceptions of religious and spiritual life in China. Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics (Leiden UP, 2024) is a qualitative study exploring manifestations of the massive revival of Buddhism among non-monastic people and communities. The book wishes to answer the central question: How do Chinese groups and individuals practice

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50:56

Marc Katz, "Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/19

Some two thousand years ago, as the story goes, a rabbi named Yochanan makes the epitome of pragmatic gambles—wagering the entire fate of the Jewish people. In dialogue with the soon-to-be Roman emperor Vespasian, Yochanan tacitly acknowledges the Romans’ planned destruction of Jerusalem in return for a plot of land in a town called Yavneh. There, after the razing of Jerusalem, Jews will join with their teacher to reenvision a new Judaism—one not based on Temple rites but on real life in

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61:06

Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/18

Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Aviva Briefel argues that Victorians turned to the dead to understand the material culture of their present. With the rise of spiritualism in Britain in the early 1850s, séances invited participants to contact ghosts using material things, from ordinary household furniture to specialized technologies invented to register the presence of spirits. In its supernatural object lessons,

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60:52

David Kraemer, "Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/17

Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2025) analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts, philosophical treatises, studies of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and a multiplicity of modern expressions for a comprehensive history of Jewish responses to and justifications of their diasporas. It shows that Diaspora Jews through the ages insisted that God joined them in their exiles, that "Zion" was found in Babylon and Eastern Europe, and that, as citizens of the world, Jews could only live

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44:53

Michael A. Meyer, "Above All, We Are Jews: A...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/16

Reform Judaism looks different today than it did a century ago. There are a lot of factors that lead to that change, but among these is Rabbi Alexander Schindler (1925-2000). Doing most of his work in the middle of the 20th century, Schindler was either part of or directly responsible for the changes in Reform (and even American) Judaism that we see today.In his biography of Rabbi Schindler, Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler (CCAR Press), Dr. Michael Meyer paints a

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45:09

Rochelle Rojas, "Bad Christians and Hanging Toads:...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/15

Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting stories of witchcraft in everyday life in early modern Navarra. Belief in witchcraft not only emerged in moments of mass panic but was woven into the fabric of village life. Some villagers believed witches sickened crops and cows with poisonous powders, others thought they engaged in diabolism and perverted sex, and still others believed they lovingly

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49:51

Marc Shapiro, "Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New:...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/14

Rav Kook’s Vision: Halakhah, Secular Knowledge, and the Renewal of Judaism.Those of us who know something about Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook’s life and philosophy know about his being stuck outside of the Land of Israel during WWI, being the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, and his encouragement of the secular Zionists who turned swamps into vegetation. But not many of us have analyzed the personal notebooks that the Rav left, commonly known as Shemonah Kevatzim

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39:53

Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/12

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering

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67:20

Catherine Hartmann, "Making the Invisible Real:...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/10

Dr. Catherine Hartmann is Assistant Professor of Asian Religions in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of Wyoming. She received her B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia in 2011, M.A. in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago in 2013, and a Ph.D. from the Committee on the Study of Religion at Harvard University in 2020.Dr. Hartmann's engagement with Religious Studies arises out of a longstanding interest in religion as a force that

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39:40

Nancy M. Rourke, "Ecological Moral Character: A...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/09

The images we use to think about moral character are powerful. They inform our understanding of the moral virtues and the ways in which moral character develops. However, this aspect of virtue ethics is rarely discussed.In Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model (Georgetown UP, 2024) , Nancy M. Rourke creates an ecological model through which we can form images of moral character. She integrates concepts of ecology with Aquinas' vision and describes the dynamics of a moral character in terms of

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57:52

Katherine Stewart, "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/08

Today, and for the past several years, many people both here and abroad have been trying to make sense of the radical right and its financial and ideological grip on the Republican party. Why is it that so many Americans have turned against democracy? What explains the authoritarian reaction of so many American citizens, even when that reaction works so directly against their basic interests? How is it that this anti-democratic trend has escaped the explanatory frameworks of pundits and scholars

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70:32

Art and Its Holy Object (with Steve Auth)

New Books in Religion ·

2025/05/08

For the transcendental and numinous things, sometimes there are no words. But art—paintings, sculpture, music, film—can knock us sideways a little and help us see something, or understand a fleeting meaning, a dream we’ve woken from, that we try to hang onto.He was a successful Wall Street investment guy for decades, but he had a deep love of art and art history; after brush with death and a re-conversion to his Catholic faith, Stev Auth applied both of those gifts in service of his lay apostolate

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1,861 results

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