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New Books in Religion

New Books Network

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. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox:

religion & spirituality

All Episodes

29:37

Hyun Ho Park, "Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization,...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/09/01

In Intergroup Conflict, Recategorization, and Identity Construction in Acts: Breaking the Cycle of Slander, Labeling and Violence (Bloomsbury, 2023) Hyun Ho Park employs social identity to create the first thorough analysis via such methodology of Acts 21:17-23:35, which contains one of the fiercest intergroup conflicts in Acts. Park's assessment allows his readers to rethink, reevaluate, and reimagine Jewish-Christian relations; teaches them how to respond to the vicious cycle of slander,

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62:15

Brian A. Stauffer, "Victory on Earth or in Heaven:...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/31

In Victory on Earth or in Heaven: Mexico’s Religionero Rebellion (University of New Mexico Press, 2019), Brian A. Stauffer reconstructs the history of Mexico's forgotten "Religionero" rebellion of 1873-1877, an armed Catholic challenge to the government of Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. An essentially grassroots movement--organized by indigenous, Afro-Mexican, and mestizo parishioners in Mexico's central-western Catholic heartland--the Religionero rebellion erupted in response to a series of

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45:03

Aliyah Khan, "Far From Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/31

Muslims have lived in the Caribbean for centuries. Far From Mecca: Globalizing the Muslim Caribbean (Rutgers University Press, 2020) examines the archive of autobiography, literature, music and public celebrations in Guyana and Trinidad, offering an analysis of the ways Islam became integral to the Caribbean, and the ways the Caribbean shaped Islamic practices.Aliyah Khan recovers stories that have been there all along, though they have received little scholarly attention. The interdisciplinary

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67:30

Islam, Society, and Politics in Indonesia: An...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/29

Today’s episode focuses on the intersection of Islam, society, and politics in Indonesia, the world’s single-largest majority Muslim country and the world’s third biggest democracy. Indonesian Islam is notable for its diversity, its associational strength, and its prominent role in both the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy in the late 1990s and in democratic politics in the country since that time. To discuss this huge, complicated topic, Dialogues on Southeast Asia turns to

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67:49

Russell T. McCutcheon, "Religion and the...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/28

In its first edition, this book focused on the representations of Islam that circulated in the wake of the 9/11 attacks – representations that scholars, pundits, and politicians alike used either to essentialize and demonize it or, instead, to isolate specific aspects as apolitical and thus tolerable faith. This little book’s larger thesis therefore argued for how the classifications that we routinely use to identify and thereby negotiate our social worlds – notably such categories as “religion” or

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63:54

A Ukrainian Translation of the Devi Mahatmya

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/28

In this episode, Dr. Raj Balkaran speaks with art historian and curator Alisa Lozhkina about her groundbreaking Ukrainian translation of the Devī Māhātmya—the first ever in the language. They explore the inspiration behind this bold project, the text’s unique reception in the Ukrainian cultural and spiritual landscape, and broader reflections on the relevance of goddess traditions in times of crisis. The conversation also ranges into the challenges and freedoms of independent scholarship and the

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44:50

Francesca Stavrakopoulou, "God: An Anatomy" (Knopf,...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/25

The scholarship of theology and religion teaches us that the God of the Bible was without a body, only revealing himself in the Old Testament in words mysteriously uttered through his prophets, and in the New Testament in the body of Christ. The portrayal of God as corporeal and masculine is seen as merely metaphorical, figurative, or poetic. But, in this revelatory study, Dr. Francesca Stavrakopoulou presents a vividly corporeal image of God: a human-shaped deity who walks and talks and weeps and

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42:22

Ronald D. Price, "Divrei Halev: Thoughts of Rabbi...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/24

Rabbi Professor David Weiss Halivni, of blessed memory (1927–2022), was one of the most profound Talmudic scholars and theological voices of the postwar era. A Holocaust survivor, Halivni went on to shape generations of students through his decades of teaching at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Columbia University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Bar Ilan University, and the Institute of Traditional Judaism.Now, after years of collaboration, meeting nearly every week from 2008 to 2012 with

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77:58

Omid Safi, “Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/24

It's often touted that Rumi is one of the best-selling poets in the United States. That may be the case but popular renderings of the writings of this 13th-century Muslim have largely detached him from the Islamic tradition, and specifically Sufi mysticism. In Radical Love: Teachings from the Islamic Mystical Tradition (Yale University Press, 2018), Omid Safi, Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University, places Jalal al-Din alongside luminaries within the rich archive of Islamic Sufi poetry. In

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38:48

Nick Spencer, "The Landscapes of Science and...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/24

The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. The scientific capacity to manipulate and change humans and their environment through genetic engineering, life extension, and AI is going to take a huge leap forward in the twenty-first century, provoking endless debates around humans “playing God”.But what do we mean by this? Asking this question is surprisingly hard work. Attempts to 'essentialise' science, let alone religion,

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74:55

Michelle P. Brown, "Bede and the Theory of...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/23

Bede and the Theory of Everything (Reaktion Books, 2023) investigates the life and world of Bede (c. 673–735), foremost scholar of the early Middle Ages and ‘the father of English history’. It examines his notable feats, including calculating the first tide-tables; playing a role in the creation of the Ceolfrith Bibles and the Lindisfarne Gospels; writing the earliest extant Old English poetry and the earliest translation of part of the Bible into English; and composing his famous Ecclesiastical

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92:41

Rima Vesely-Flad, "Black Buddhists and the Black...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/22

Finalist, Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion, Constructive-Reflective Studies, given by the American Academy of ReligionExplores how Black Buddhist Teachers and Practitioners interpret Western Buddhism in unique spiritual and communal waysIn Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (NYU Press, 2022), Rima Vesely-Flad examines the distinctive features of Black-identifying Buddhist practitioners, arguing that Black Buddhists

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29:08

David Commins, "Saudi Arabia: A Modern History" (Yale...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/20

A major new history of Saudi Arabia, from its eighteenth-century origins to the present daySaudi Arabia is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a major player on the international stage and the site of Islam’s two holiest cities. It is also one of the world’s only absolute monarchies. How did Saudi Arabia get to where it is today? In Saudi Arabia: A Modern History (Yale UP, 2025), David Commins narrates the full history of Saudi Arabia from oasis emirate to present-day attempts to

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65:22

Barbara Vinick and Shulamit Reinharz, "100 Jewish...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/20

100 Jewish Brides: Stories from Around the World (Indiana UP, 2024), is the result of a collaboration between two sociologists, Professor Shulamit Reinharz and Dr. Barbara Vinick. Both come from backgrounds deeply intertwined with Jewish history and feminism. Prof. Reinharz, the daughter of Holocaust survivors, became a rabbi's daughter after her father settled in the US. Her work often explores topics of Jewish tradition and women's roles. Dr. Vinick, also a sociologist, initially focused on

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80:25

Mariam F. Ayad ed., "Coptic Culture and Community:...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/19

Coptic Culture and Community: Daily Lives, Changing Times (American University in Cairo Press 2024) brings together fourteen contributions from global scholars all considering the theme of daily life and the Egyptian Coptic Christian minority community. The essays focus on ancient, late ancient, premodern, and contemporary questions about art and resistance, poverty and wealth, gender and ecclesiastical agency, dress and power, and much more. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew

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45:26

Geoffrey D. Claussen, "Jewish Ethics: The Basics"...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/18

In the Jewish world, we often hear people cite “Jewish values” as defense for their positions. The irony, however, is that in the same argument, two people will cite text and law from the same book to defend their views. They will both shout to the other that Jewish values are on their side. The multivocal nature of Jewish ethics is what makes the study of it so difficult, so maddening. Most books try to pin down Jewish ethics, to find an authentic outlook. They try to explain what Judaism has to

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43:30

Raphael Cormack, "Holy Men of the Electromagnetic...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/18

An international history of the uncanny in the 1920s and 1930s. The interwar period was a golden age for the occult. Spiritualists, clairvoyants, fakirs, Theosophists, mind readers, and Jinn summoners all set out to assure the masses that just as newly discovered invisible forces of electricity and magnetism determined the world of science, unseen powers commanded an unknown realm of human potential Drawing on untapped sources in Arabic in addition to European ones, Raphael Cormack follows two of

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56:55

Marla Segol, "Kabbalah and Sex Magic: A...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/17

In Kabbalah and Sex Magic: A Mythical-Ritual Genealogy (Penn State University Press, 2021) a provocative book, Marla Segol explores the development of the kabbalistic cosmology underlying Western sex magic. Drawing extensively on Jewish myth and ritual, Segol tells the powerful story of the relationship between the divine and the human body in late antique Jewish esotericism, in medieval kabbalah, and in New Age ritual practice. Kabbalah and Sex Magic traces the evolution of a Hebrew microcosm that

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34:47

David de Boer, "The Early Modern Dutch Press in an...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/15

David de Boer returns to the podcast to talk to Jana Byars about his first book, The Early Modern Dutch Press in the Age of Religious Persecution (Oxford UP, 2023). This book is available open source here. For victims of persecution around the world, attracting international media attention for their plight is often a matter of life and death. This study takes us back to the news revolution of seventeenth-century Europe, when people first discovered in the press a powerful new weapon to combat

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80:58

Nabil Yasien Mohamed, "Ghazālī’s Epistemology: A...

New Books in Religion ·

2025/08/15

Focusing on Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) – one of the foremost scholars and authorities in the Muslim world who is central to the Islamic intellectual tradition – this book embarks on a study of doubt (shakk) and certainty (yaqīn) in his epistemology.Ghazālī’s Epistemology: A Critical Study of Doubt and Certainty (Routledge, 2024) looks at Ghazālī’s attitude to philosophical demonstration and Sufism as a means to certainty. In early scholarship surrounding Ghazālī, he has often been blamed as

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2,070 results

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