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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. 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: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in Religion
Extraordinary, Mysterious, and Impossible Experiences, with Jeffrey Kriple
Today Pierce Salguero sit down with Prof. Jeff Kripal, noted scholar of religion at Rice University, to talk about extraordinary, mysterious, and “impossible”…
- New Books in Religion
Edith Szanto, "Twelver Shi'i Self-flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab" (Edinburgh UP, 2025)
Edith Szanto’s Twelver Shi'i Self-Flagellation Rites in Contemporary Syria: Mourning Sayyida Zaynab (Edinburgh UP, 2025) is a striking and deeply immersive…
- New Books in Religion
Nithin Sridhar, "Chatuh Shloki Manusmriti: An English Commentary" (Vitasta, 2025)
Manusmriti occupies a prominent place in Indian textual tradition as one of the authentic sources of dharma. However, contemporary engagement with the text has…
- New Books in Religion
Carmen Lansdowne, "Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission" (CMU Press, 2025)
In my conversation with Rev. Dr Carmen Lansdowne about her book Wearing a Broken Indigene Heart on the Sleeve of Christian Mission (CMU Press, 2025), she…
- New Books in Religion
Kim Haines-Eitzen, "The Gospel of John: A Biography" (Princeton UP, 2026)
The contentious life and times of the most widely cited book of the New Testament. Written some two thousand years ago, the Gospel of John is the only…
- New Books in Religion
William Stell, "Born Again Queer: A History of Evangelical Gay Activism and the Making of Antigay Christianity" (Princeton UP, 2026)
Evangelicals claim that their opposition to homosexuality is an inherent feature of their faith, rooted in their unchanging beliefs about the Bible. Most…
- New Books in Religion
Russell McCutcheon, "Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia, second edition" (Oxford UP, 2026)
First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion…
- New Books in Religion
The Religion Department: An Online Learning Platform with Andrew Mark Henry and Andrew Ali Aghapour
The Religion Department is an online learning platform dedicated to the academic, nonsectarian study of religion, created by the team behind Religion for…
- New Books in Religion
Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz, "Rambam Mishne Torah, Volume 1" (Koren Publishers, 2026)
The Rambam, Maimonides, was one of the intellectual giants of world history. His greatest and most ambitious work was the Mishne Torah. And now the Steinsaltz…
- New Books in Religion
Samira K. Mehta, "God Bless the Pill: The Surprising History of Contraception and Sexuality in American Religion" (UNC Press, 2026)
Most people today understand contraception as central to women’s liberation, and when the birth control pill arrived in 1960, the media thought it would usher…
- New Books in Religion
Josh Franklin, "Where Are You?: Finding Yourself in the Bible" (Wipf & Stock, 2026)
Where are you—spiritually, emotionally, and morally? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with Rabbi Josh Franklin to discuss his book Where Are You?…
- New Books in Religion
Liz Bucar, "Beyond Wellness: How Restoring the Religious Roots of Spiritual Practices Can Heal Us" (Penguin, 2026)
Liz Bucar is a religious ethicist and professor of religion at Northeastern University, as well as a certified intenSati and Kripalu yoga instructor. Her…
- New Books in Religion
The MANTRAMS Project: Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia
Carola Lorea discusses the MANTRAMS project, a major ERC Synergy Grant initiative jointly hosted by Oxford, Vienna, and Tübingen dedicated to producing a…
- New Books in Religion
James Bultema, "Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016" (Springer, 2026)
In Free Enough to Grow: The Turkish Protestant Movement, 1961-2016 (Springer Nature, 2026), James Bultema identifies and investigates four central factors that…
- New Books in Religion
Laughter and Leadership: A Conversation with Tikva Blaukopf Schein, Ph.D.
We laugh without thinking — but what if laughter is one of the most revealing human acts? In this episode of The Van Leer Institute Series On Ideas, Dr. Tikva…
- New Books in Religion
Gudrun Bühnemann, "Scholar, Serpent, Yogin, and Devotee: The Many Faces of Patañjali in Indian Traditions" (Brill, 2025)
Scholar, Serpent, Yogin, and Devotee: The Many Faces of Patañjali in Indian Traditions (Brill, 2025) illuminates the many faces of Patañjali in Indian…
- New Books in Religion
Jason Welle, "Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism: The Contribution of al-Sulami" (I.B. Tauris, 2024)
In his debut work, Companionship and Virtue in Classical Sufism: The Contribution of al-Sulami (I.B. Tauris, 2024), Jason Welle sheds a new light on al-Sulami…
- New Books in Religion
Michael L. Satlow, "An Enchanted World: The Shared Religious Landscape of Late Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2026)
In Late Antiquity (ca. 200–600 CE), the world was alive with unseen forces—divine agents who influenced every aspect of daily life. For most ordinary people…
- New Books in Religion
Nurhaizatul Jamil, "Faithful Transformations: Islamic Self-Help in Contemporary Singapore" (U Illinois Press, 2025)
Nurhaizatul Jamil’s Faithful Transformations: Islamic Self-Help in Contemporary Singapore (U Illinois Press, 2025) is a complex and meticulous ethnography of…
- New Books in Religion
Karen O'Brien-Kop and Suzanne Newcombe eds., "Religion, Spirituality and Public Health" (British Academy, 2025)
Religion, Spirituality and Public Health: Competing and Complementary Epistemes (British Academy, 2025) focuses on exploring the role of different 'ways of…
- New Books in Religion
S5E5 The Gospel According to Josephus: On the Final Days of Jesus Christ with Thomas C. Schmidt
In this fifth episode of Season 5, I interview Professor Thomas C. Schmidt, a historian who focuses on the New Testament, Patristics, and Eastern Christianity…
- New Books in Religion
Leland Brown, "The First Pastors: Early Christianity’s Vision for Ministry" (Gorgias Press, 2026)
Most accounts of Christian leadership in the first two centuries focus on the diversity of leadership structures and the various cultural influences that…
- New Books in Religion
Amir Saemi, "Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil" (Oxford UP, 2024)
Amir Saemi’s exciting book Morality and Revelation in Islamic Thought and Beyond: A New Problem of Evil (Oxford UP, 2024) is a fascinating and deeply…
- New Books in Religion
The Gospel According to Josephus: A Conversation with Thomas C. Schmidt, Part 1
In this fourth episode of Season 5, I interview Professor Thomas C. Schmidt, a historian who focuses on the New Testament, Patristics, and Eastern…
- New Books in Religion
Derek Krueger "Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and the Love of God in Medieval Constantinople" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Derek Krueger Monastic Desires: Homoeroticism, Homophobia, and Love of God in Medieval Constantinople (Cambridge UP, 2026) The Byzantine Abbot Symeon the New…
- New Books in Religion
Sarah Berman, "Haggadah Shel Erev Rav: The Mixed Multitude Haggadah" (CCAR Press, 2026)
What does it mean to tell the Passover story as a truly diverse people? In this episode, Rabbi Marc Katz sits down with editor Rabbi Sarah Berman to discuss…
- New Books in Religion
James McDougall, "Worlds of Islam: A Global History" (Basic Books, 2026)
From its birth in seventh-century Arabia, Islam has been a faith on the move. In Worlds of Islam: A Global History (Basic Books, 2026), James McDougall…
- New Books in Religion
John Kuhn, "Making Pagans: Theatrical Practice and Comparative Religion in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)
Today’s guest, John Kuhn, is the author of Making Pagans: Theatrical Practice and Comparative Religion in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)…
- New Books in Religion
Gijs Kruijtzer, "Justifying Transgression: Muslims, Christians, and the Law - 1200 to 1700" (de Gruyter, 2023)
How do people justify what others see as transgression? Taking that question to the Persian-Muslim and Latin-Christian worlds over the period 1200 to 1700…
- New Books in Religion
The Philosophy of Hope: On Immanence and Transcendence with R.J. Snell
In this third episode of Season 5, I interview Dr. R.J. Snell, a visiting instructor at Princeton University, the director of academic programs at the…
- New Books in Religion
Ken Chitwood, "Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism Among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam" (U Texas Press, 2025)
Ken Chitwood's Borícua Muslims: Everyday Cosmopolitanism among Puerto Rican Converts to Islam (University of Texas Press, 2025), uses rich ethnographic…
- New Books in Religion
Katharine Gerbner, "Archival Irruptions: Constructing Religion and Criminalizing Obeah in Eighteenth-Century Jamaica" (Duke UP, 2025)
In 1760, following the largest slave revolt in the eighteenth-century British Empire, the Afro-Caribbean word Obeah first appeared in British colonial law. In…
- New Books in Religion
The Vilna Gaon and the Making of Modern Judaism
The beginnings of contemporary Jewry are often associated with Jewish figures in Western Europe such as Moses Mendelssohn. But in his book, The Genius: Elijah…
- New Books in Religion
Philip C. Almond, "Noah and the Flood in Western Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
In a world beset by climatic emergencies, the continuing resonance of the flood story is perhaps easy to understand. Whether in the tortured alpha male…
- New Books in Religion
Gods and the State: Environmental Change in the Blang Mountains, China
What happens to the environment when the state enters previously self-governed villages in rural China? We explore this question in the Blang mountains in…
- New Books in Religion
Ewa Debicka-Borek and Ofer Peres, "Routes, Patterns, Ideologies: Navigating Sacred Sites in India" (HASP, 2025)
Hindu sacred geographies are shaped by interwoven webs of myth, ritual, and pilgrimage. Routes, Patterns, Ideologies: Navigating Sacred Sites in India (HASP…
- New Books in Religion
Daniel McClellan, "The Bible Says So: What We Get Right (and Wrong) About Scripture’s Most Controversial Issues" (St. Martin's Essentials, 2025)
The Bible is arguably the world’s most influential book, but do we really know what it says? Every day across social media and in homes, businesses, and public…
- New Books in Religion
John Oakes, "The Fast: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Promise of Doing Without" (Avid Reader, 2024)
With fasting at an all-time high in popularity, here is an enlightening exploration into the history, science, and philosophy behind the practice—essential to…
- New Books in Religion
Manuela Ceballos, "Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean" (U California Press, 2025)
Manuela Ceballos’ new book Between Dung and Blood: Purity, Sainthood, and Power in the Early Modern Western Mediterranean (University of California Press…
- New Books in Religion
Jon Stobart, "Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the English Clergy" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
An innovative approach in the field of material culture and consumption studies, Life in the Georgian Parsonage: Morals, Material Goods and the English Clergy…
- New Books in Religion
Elliot B. Hanowski, "Towards a Godless Dominion: Unbelief in Interwar Canada" (McGill-Queen’s UP, 2023)
In recent surveys, one in four Canadians say they have no religion. A century ago, Canada was widely considered to be a Christian nation, and the vast majority…
- New Books in Religion
Tibetan Medicine for Meditators, with Tawni Tidwell
Today I sit down with Dr. Tawni Tidwell, a biocultural anthropologist and Tibetan medicine doctor at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of…
- New Books in Religion
Hillary Rodrigues, "The Supreme Refuge: Durgā's Transformation Into the Hindu Great Goddess" (SUNY Press, 2025)
The Supreme Refuge: Durgā's Transformation Into the Hindu Great Goddess (SUNY Press, 2025) provides the first comprehensive examination of the Hindu Great…
- New Books in Religion
Rian Thum, "Islamic China: An Asian History" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Can someone be Chinese and Muslim? For some academics, this has been a surprisingly fraught question, with some asserting that Chinese Muslims are not really…
- New Books in Religion
Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025)
The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sages also…
- New Books in Religion
Syona Puliady, et al., "Visualizing Devotion: Jain Embroidered Shrine Hangings" (U Washington Press, 2025)
Textiles, embroidered with religious imagery, express lay piety in public and private shrines This beautifully illustrated volume highlights Jain devotional…
- New Books in Religion
Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell, "Lincoln and the Jews: A History" (NYU Press, 2025)
In this expanded edition to a groundbreaking work, now in paperback, Lincoln and the Jews: A History (NYU Press, 2025), Jonathan D. Sarna and Benjamin Shapell…
- New Books in Religion
Zev Eleff et al. eds., "The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Law" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Jewish law, known as halakhah, is a unique legal system that has developed over a period of nearly two millennia, across multiple continents, and in…
- New Books in Religion
Todd H. Weir and Lieke Wijnia, eds., "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public…
- New Books in Religion
Zalman Newfield, "Brooklyn Odyssey: My Journey Out of Hasidism" (Temple UP, 2026)
Growing up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn as a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic Orthodox Jewish community, Zalman Newfield was raised in an atmosphere of…
- New Books in Religion
David S. Powers and Eric Tagliacozzo, "Islamic Ecumene: Comparing Muslim Societies" (Cornell UP, 2023)
The essays in Islamic Ecumene: Comparing Muslim Societies (Cornell UP, 2023) address the ways in which Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia and from sub-Saharan…
- New Books in Religion
David Frankfurter ed., "Guide to the Study of Ancient Magic" (Brill, 2019)
In the midst of academic debates about the utility of the term “magic” and the cultural meaning of ancient words like mageia or khesheph, this Guide to the…
- New Books in Religion
Neilesh Bose, "Chips from a Calcutta Workshop: Comparative Religion in Nineteenth Century India" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
Chips from a Calcutta Workshop: Comparative Religion in Nineteenth Century India (Cambridge University Press, 2025) explores the development and nature of…
- New Books in Religion
Elaine M. Fisher, "The Meeting of Rivers: Translating Religion in Early Modern India" (Oxford UP, 2025)
In The Meeting of Rivers: Translating Religion in Early Modern India (Oxford UP, 2025), Elaine Fisher reconstructs Vīraśaiva origins from unstudied…
- New Books in Religion
Zaid Adhami, "Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith" (UNC Press, 2025)
In one of the most important books published in 2025—Dilemmas of Authenticity: The American Muslim Crisis of Faith, published by UNC Press—Zaid Adhami explores…
- New Books in Religion
Charles Alistair McCrary, "Sincerely Held: American Secularism and Its Believers" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
"Sincerely held religious belief" is now a common phrase in discussions of American religious freedom, from opinions handed down by the US Supreme Court to…
- New Books in Religion
Ashlyn Hand, "Prioritizing Faith: International Religious Freedom and U.S. Foreign Policy" (NYU Press, 2025)
The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 formally established the promotion of religious freedom as a U.S. foreign policy and national security…
- New Books in Religion
A. Bagliani and N, Şenocak, "A People's Church: Medieval Italy and Christianity, 1050-1300" (Cornell UP, 2023)
A People's Church brings together a distinguished international group of historians to provide a sweeping introduction to Christian religious life and…
- New Books in Religion
Black Beryl: The Modern Remaking of Kundalini, with Marleen Thaler
Today host Pierce Salguero sits down with Marleen Thaler, a researcher at the University of Vienna and University of Graz. Together, we investigate the history…
- New Books in Religion
J. L. Schellenberg, "What God Would Have Known: How Human Intellectual and Moral Development Undermines Christian Doctrine" (Oxford UP, 2024)
In this book, What God Would Have Known: How Human Intellectual and Moral Development Undermines Christian Doctrine (Oxford University Press, 2024), Professor…