Shows / New Books in Religion
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
Patrick McCartney, "Authenticity, Legitimacy and the Transglobal Yoga Industry: A Sociological Analysis of Shanti Mandir" (Routledge, 2025)
This book is a sociological study of knowledge and knowers and explores the production and perceived value of 'yogic knowledge', how distinction is curated…
- New Books in Religion
Kathleen Miller, ed., "Doctrine and Disease in the British and Spanish Colonial World" (Penn State UP, 2025)
Kathleen Miller talks about her new edited volume, Doctrine and Disease in British and Spanish Colonial World (Penn State University Press, 2025). In the…
- New Books in Religion
Simon Stjernholm, "Sensing Islam: Engaging and Contesting the Senses in Muslim Religiosity" (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025)
Simon Stjernholm's new book Sensing Islam: Engaging and Contesting the Senses in Muslim Religiosity (Bloomsbury Press, 2025) considers specific case studies of…
- New Books in Religion
Robert Garland, "What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife" (Princeton UP, 2025)
A lively story of death, What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Dr. Robert Garland…
- New Books in Religion
Yonatan Y. Brafman, "Critique of Halakhic Reason: Divine Commandments and Social Normativity" (Oxford UP, 2024)
For centuries, Jewish thinkers have asked two parallel questions. First, what is the reasoning behind an individual commandment and second, why bother heeding…
- New Books in Religion
Sven Trakulhun, "Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)
Siam had been dealing with Christian missionaries for centuries, but from the 1830s a new wave of Protestant missionaries began to work in Siam, just as the…
- New Books in Religion
Adi Nester, "Unsettling Difference: Music Drama, the Bible, and the Critique of German Jewish Identity" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Adi Nester is an Assistant Professor of German and Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first monograph, Unsettling…
- New Books in Religion
Maya Mayblin "Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desire, and the Turbulent Lives of Priest Politicians" (Fordham UP, 2024)
A richly cinematic and compelling look at priest-politicians in Brazil and their religious and secular entanglements, Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desire, and the…
- New Books in Religion
Jessica X. Zu, "Just Awakening: Yogācāra Social Philosophy in Modern China" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Just Awakening: Yogācāra Social Philosophy in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2025) uncovers a forgotten philosophy of social democracy inspired by…
- New Books in Religion
Krista N. Dalton, "How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2025)
At the turn of the common era, the Jewish communities of Roman Palestine saw the organization of a small group of literate Jewish men who devoted their lives…
- New Books in Religion
Stephen Okey, "A Theology of Conversation: An Introduction to David Tracy" (Liturgical Press, 2018)
Sometimes described as "a theologian's theologian," David Tracy's scholarship has impacted countless thinkers around the globe. The complexity of his thought…
- New Books in Religion
Anne C. Klein on Becoming a Buddha & Being Human too
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…
- New Books in Religion
David G. Bonagura Jr, "100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today" (Sophia Institute, 2025)
David Bonagura teaches classical languages and theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York and Catholic International University; he also teaches high school…
- New Books in Religion
Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger, "Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies" (de Gruyter, 2023)
Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The…
- New Books in Religion
Ryan Klejment-Lavin, "Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective" (American Society of Missiology, 2024)
The purpose of Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective (American Society of Missiology, 2024) is to describe how the North Korean refugee…
- New Books in Religion
Z'ev Ben Shimon Halevi: "The Kabbalistic Tree of Life" and "The Anointed"
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…
- New Books in Religion
Yosie Levine, "Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate" (Littman Library, 2024)
My recent interview with Rabbi Dr. Yosie Levine about his book, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate (Littman Library…
- New Books in Religion
Abdul Wohab, "Secularism and Islam in Bangladesh: 50 Years After Independence" (Routledge, 2025)
Secularism and Islam in Bangladesh: 50 Years After Independence (Routledge, 2025) comprehensively analyses the syncretistic form of Bengali Islam and its…
- New Books in Religion
Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Kai Shmushko, "Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics" (Leiden UP, 2024)
In the past decades, various forms of Buddhism have emerged in-between, above, and beyond conventional conceptions of religious and spiritual life in China…
- New Books in Religion
Marc Katz, "Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life" (U Nebraska Press, 2024)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Aviva Briefel argues that Victorians turned…
- New Books in Religion
David Kraemer, "Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2025) analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts, philosophical treatises, studies of…
- New Books in Religion
Michael A. Meyer, "Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler" (CCAR Press, 2025)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Rochelle Rojas, "Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting stories of…
- New Books in Religion
Marc Shapiro, "Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook" (Littman Library, 2025)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Catherine Hartmann, "Making the Invisible Real: Practice of Seeing in Tibetan Pilgrimage" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Dr. Catherine Hartmann is Assistant Professor of Asian Religions in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of Wyoming. She received…
- New Books in Religion
Nancy M. Rourke, "Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model" (Georgetown UP, 2024)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Art and Its Holy Object (with Steve Auth)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Katherine Stewart, "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
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…
- New Books in Religion
Stephanie Schmidt, "Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain: Missionary Narratives, Nahua Perspectives" (U Texas Press, 2025)
A cornerstone of the evangelization of early New Spain was the conversion of Nahua boys, especially the children of elites. They were to be emissaries between…
- New Books in Religion
Astrid von Schlachta, "Anabaptists: From the Reformation to the 21st Century" (Pandora Press, 2024)
The Anabaptists, alongside the Lutheran and Reformed churches, were the third major current in the sixteenth century Reformation movements. From their…
- New Books in Religion
Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate. From the…
- New Books in Religion
Miles Pattenden, "Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700" (Oxford UP, 2017)
Jana Byars talks to Miles Pattenden about his book, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford UP, 2017), just about to be released in…
- New Books in Religion
Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette, "Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas" (Springer, 2025)
Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas (Springer, 2025) examines the significance of metaphysical list-making as a determining…
- New Books in Religion
Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, "Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts" (Eerdmans, 2025)
The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other early…
- New Books in Religion
Mehrdad Alipour, "Negotiating Homosexuality in Islam: A Legal-hermeneutical Examination of Modern Shīʿī Discourse" (Brill, 2024)
What does Islam, particularly Shīʿī Islam, really say about same-sex sexual relations? Can Islamic legal frameworks, rooted in centuries of jurisprudence, ever…
- New Books in Religion
Las G. Newman, "To Die in Africa’s Dust: West Indian Missionaries in Western Africa in the Nineteenth Century" (Langham, 2024)
Christian mission in the modern era has generally been conceptualized as a Western endeavor: “from the West to the rest.” The rise and explosive growth of…
- New Books in Religion
Udi Greenberg, "The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s" (Harvard UP, 2025)
Reconciliation between Europe's Protestants and Catholics led to a new era of Christian collaboration. Why did these erstwhile foes end their schism and begin…
- New Books in Religion
Jerome Gellman, "The Problem of God in Jewish Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025)
The Hebrew Bible contains two quite different divine personae. One is quick to anger and to exact punishment while the other is a compassionate God slow to…
- New Books in Religion
Farouk Yahya, "Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts" (Brill, 2015)
Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts (Brill, 2015) offers an integrated study of the texts and images of illustrated Malay manuscripts on…
- New Books in Religion
Samuel Ross, "Qur’an Commentary and the Biblical Turn: A History of Muslim Exegetical Engagement with the Biblical Text" (de Gruyter, 2024)
Quran Commentary and the Biblical Turn (de Gruyter, 2024) examines the exegetical relationship between the Quran and the Bible in Islamic intellectual history…
- New Books in Religion
Faith Tibble, "Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings" (T&T Clark, 2025)
Jesus' Crown of Thorns has become one of the most ubiquitous features of Christian religious art, but was the original crown anything like the crown of popular…
- New Books in Religion
Laura Miller, "Occult Hunting and Supernatural Play in Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2024)
In Occult Hunting and Supernatural Play in Japan (Hawaii 2024), Laura Miller examines the intersections of ludic capitalism with formal and informal religious…
- New Books in Religion
Ðermana Kuric on Muslimness in Bosnia
In this episode, Hizer Mir and Chella Ward talked to Ðermana Kuric about Bosnia and Muslimness, focussing on the ways the history of Muslimness in Bosnia…
- New Books in Religion
Haggadah Roundup
In this episode, we dive into the world of innovative Haggadot with four fascinating guests. Jordan B. Gorfinkel discusses The Passover Haggadah Graphic Novel…
- New Books in Religion
Christopher Key Chapple, "The SāṃKhya System: Accounting for the Real" (SUNY Press, 2024)
The SāṃKhya System: Accounting for the Real (SUNY Press, 2024) brings new life to an ancient Hindu system of thought. Sāṃkhya spans the fields of philosophy…
- New Books in Religion
Meditation Side-Effects and Other Altered States, with Miguel Farias
In today’s episode, Dr. Pierce Salguero sits down with Miguel Farias, an experimental psychologist and researcher of religion, spirituality, and cognition…
- New Books in Religion
Richard Alfred Muller, "Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology" (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024)
In Predestination in Early Modern Reformed Theology (Reformation Heritage Books, 2024), Dr. Richard A. Muller delves into one of the most controversial…
- New Books in Religion
Eli Rubin, "Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism" (Stanford UP, 2025)
In Kabbalah and the Rupture of Modernity: An Existential History of Chabad Hasidism (Stanford University Press, 2025), Eli Rubin provides a comprehensive…
- New Books in Religion
Lived Experience and the Search for Truth: Revisiting Catholic Sexual Morality
“What is truth?” Pontius Pilate scoffed at Jesus (Jn 18:38), and that’s how we think about matters today in our culture—subjectively: my truth, your truth…
- New Books in Religion
Jonathan Rauch, "Cross Purposes: Christianity's Broken Bargain with Democracy" (Yale UP, 2025)
Today I’m speaking with Jonathan Rauch, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a contributing editor of The Atlantic. We are…
- New Books in Religion
Wafik W. Wahba, "Global Christianity and Islam: Exploring History, Politics, and Beliefs" (InterVarsity Press, 2025)
Together, the adherents of Christianity and Islam make up over half of the world's population, and their numbers are expected to keep growing. The influence of…
- New Books in Religion
Bruce L. Vernarde, "The Miracles of Mary in Twelfth-Century France" (Cornell UP, 2024)
Murder in a cathedral, horrific illnesses and deformities, narrow escapes from injury and death, a vengeful dragon, a wandering eyeball, a bawdy monk and other…
- New Books in Religion
Rune Nyord, "Yearning for Immortality: The European Invention of the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Many of us are familiar with the ancient Egyptians’ obsession with immortality and the great efforts they made to secure the quality of their afterlife. But…
- New Books in Religion
Syaifudin Zuhri, "Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition" (Leiden UP, 2022)
Syaifudin Zuhri’s book Wali Pitu and Muslim Pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia: Inventing a Sacred Tradition (Leiden, 2022) is a detailed examination of the recent…
- New Books in Religion
Kiyokazu Okita, "The Building of Vṛndāvana: Architecture, Theology, and Practice in an Early Modern Pilgrimage Town" (Brill, 2023)
The small town of Vṛndāvana is today one of the most vibrant places of pilgrimage in northern India. Throngs of pilgrims travel there each year to honour the…
- New Books in Religion
James M. O’Toole, "For I Have Sinned: The Rise and Fall of Catholic Confession in America" (Harvard UP, 2025)
For generations, American Catholics went faithfully to confession, admitting their sins to a priest and accepting through him God’s forgiveness. The sacrament…
- New Books in Religion
Jon Chapple, "Sri Krishna Prem: A Wing and a Prayer" (Blazing Sapphire Press, 2024)
Sri Krishna Prem: A Wing and a Prayer is an in-depth, spiritual biography of a British fighter pilot (WW I), Ronald Nixon (1898-1965). Raised in an…