New Books Network
Religion
Hindu Studies November 30, 2020

Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies

Suzanne Newcombe and Karen O'Brien-Kop

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
The Routledge Handbook of Yoga and Meditation Studies (Routledge, 2020) is a comprehensive and interdisciplinary resource, which frames and contextualises the rapidly expanding fields that explore yoga and meditative techniques. The book …

Subscribe to

Religion

on the NBN

RSS Spotify Stitcher Apple
Jewish Studies November 30, 2020

Yeshiva Days

Learning on the Lower East Side

Jonathan Boyarin

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
New York City's Lower East Side has witnessed a severe decline in its Jewish population in recent decades, yet every morning in the big room of the city's oldest yeshiva …
Hindu Studies November 27, 2020

The Bhagavad-Gītā

A Critical Introduction

Ithamar Theodor

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Ithamar Theodor's The Bhagavad-Gītā: A Critical Introduction (Routledge, 2020) is a systematic and comprehensive introduction to one of the most read texts in South Asia. The Bhagavad-gītā is at its …
Secularism November 25, 2020

Hope in a Secular Age

Deconstruction, Negative Theology and the Future of Faith

David Newheiser

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In his new book, Hope in a Secular Age: Deconstruction, Negative Theology, and the Future of Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2020), David Newheiser argues that hope is the indispensable precondition …
Religion November 25, 2020

Peace Love Yoga

The Politics of Global Spirituality

Andrea Jain

Hosted by Lindsey Jackson
In Peace Love Yoga: The Politics of Global Spirituality (Oxford University Press, 2020), Andrea Jain examines the interconnectedness between global spirituality and neoliberal capitalism through an examination of the global …
History November 25, 2020

Neoliberalism's Demons

On the Political Theology of Late Capital

Adam Kotsko

Hosted by Jonathan Megerian
It’s hard to avoid conversations about ‘neoliberalism’ these days. The meaning of the term—indeed its very existence—is hotly contested. Adam Kotsko argues in Neoliberalism’s Demons: On the Political Theology of …
Islamic Studies November 20, 2020

Minding their Place

Space and Religious Hierarchy in Ibn al-Qayyim’s Aḥkām ahl al-dhimma

Antonia Bosanquet

Hosted by SherAli Tareen
How was the relationship between Muslim and non-Muslim communities theologically and spatially imagined in the premodern world? How did religious hierarchies map onto notions of place and spatial distinction and …
Hindu Studies November 18, 2020

Bollywood Horrors

Religion, Violence and Cinematic Fears in India

Ellen Goldberg, Aditi Sen and Brian Collins

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Bollywood Horrors: Religion, Violence and Cinematic Fears in India (Bloomsbury, 2020) is a multi-faceted and wide-ranging collection that examines cinematic representations of real-life horror, the religious aspects of horror imagery …
Islamic Studies November 13, 2020

The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India

The Case of Sindh (1851–1929)

Michel Boivin

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
The Sufi Paradigm and the Makings of a Vernacular Knowledge in Colonial India: The Case of Sindh (1851-1929) (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) by Michel Boivin maps the construction of a vernacular …
Middle Eastern Studies November 12, 2020

Muhammad's Body

Baraka Networks and the Prophetic Assemblage

Michael Muhammad Knight

Hosted by Asad Dandia
Muhammad's Body: Baraka Networks and the Prophetic Assemblage by Michael Muhammad Knight (UNC Press, 2020) joins the emerging subfield of literature in Islamic Studies exploring embodiment and materiality as concepts …
Christian Studies November 11, 2020

Grace and Freedom

William Perkins and the Early Modern Reformed Understanding of Free Choice and Divine Grace

Richard Muller

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
No-one has done more than Richard A. Muller to shape our approach to early modern historical theology. His earlier work, and most especially the four volumes of his Post-Reformation Reformed …
Middle Eastern Studies November 9, 2020

Ibn Taymiyya

Jon Hoover

Hosted by Elliot Bazzano
Ibn Taymiyya is one of the most prolific and influential Islamic thinkers to date, and was even the only pre-modern Muslim author cited in the 9/11 Report. His supporters and …
Biography November 4, 2020

Christobiography

Memory, History, and the Reliability of the Gospels

Craig Keener

Hosted by Jonathan Wright
Are the canonical Gospels historically reliable? The four canonical Gospels are ancient biographies, narratives of Jesus’s life. The authors of these Gospels were intentional in how they handled historical information …
Architecture November 3, 2020

The Contemporary Hindu Temple

Fragments for a History

Annapurna Garimella

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Contemporary Hindu temples raise aesthetic, economic, political and philosophical questions about the role of architecture in making a place for the sacred in society. This book presents the Hindu temple …
Islamic Studies October 30, 2020

Interrogating Secularism

Race and Religion in Arab Transnational Art and Literature

Danielle Haque

Hosted by Kristian Petersen
In many popular accounts of contemporary “Western” society there is an inherent contradiction between the principles underlying liberal secularism and Islam. This type of binary discourse about “religion” and “secular” …
East Asian Studies October 28, 2020

Jesus Loves Japan

Return Migration and Global Pentecostalism in a Brazilian Diaspora

Suma Ikeuchi

Hosted by Daigengna Duoer
In 1990, the Japanese government introduced the Nikkei-jin (Japanese descendant) visa and since then it has attracted more than 190,000 Nikkei Brazilian nationals to Japan. In Jesus Loves Japan: Return …
World Affairs October 27, 2020

Fertility and Faith

The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions

Philip Jenkins

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In his new book Fertility and Faith: The Demographic Revolution and the Transformation of World Religions (Baylor University Press, 2020), Philip Jenkins maps the demographic revolution that has taken hold …
American Studies October 27, 2020

Tornado God

American Religion and Violent Weather

Peter J. Thuesen

Hosted by Lane Davis
In Tornado God: American Religion and Violent Weather (Oxford UP, 2020), Peter J. Thuesen links the “numinous” religious experiences of Americans as they experienced the uniquely destructive weather phenomenon of …
South Asian Studies October 26, 2020

The Authority of Female Speech in Indian Goddess Traditions

Anway Mukhopadhyay

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Contemporary debates on “mansplaining” foreground the authority enjoyed by male speech, and highlight the way it projects listening as the responsibility of the dominated, and speech as the privilege of …
Eastern European Studies October 21, 2020

The Rebellion of the Daughters

Jewish Women Runaways in Habsburg Galicia

Rachel Manekin

Hosted by Zalman Newfield
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, over three hundred young Jewish women from Orthodox, mostly Hasidic, homes in Western Galicia (now Poland) fled their communities and sought refuge …