New Books Network
Secularism
Secularism July 26, 2021

Dangerous Games

What the Moral Panic over Role-Playing Games Says about Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds

Joseph P. Laycock

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons. A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right …

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Secularism June 28, 2021

Godless Fictions in the Eighteenth Century

A Literary History of Atheism

James Reeves

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
Although there were no self-avowed British atheists before the 1780s, authors including Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, Sarah Fielding, Phebe Gibbes, and William Cowper worried extensively about atheism's dystopian possibilities and …
Christian Studies June 10, 2021

Defending the Faith

Global Histories of Apologetics and Politics in the Twentieth Century

Hugh McLeod and Todd Weir

Hosted by Crawford Gribben
Todd H. Weir and Hugh McLeod, two leading historians of religion, have teamed up to edit a volume in the Proceedings of the British Academy that explores how conflicts between secular worldviews …
General History June 3, 2021

Socialism As a Secular Creed

A Modern Global History

Andrei Znamenski

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The predominantly secular focus of socialism can often obscure the parts of its ideology that reflect the elements it inherited from Western religious thinking. In Socialism as a Secular Creed …
Critical Theory May 26, 2021

Pragmatic Humanism Revisited

An Essay on Making the World a Home

Ana Honnacker

Hosted by Kai Wortmann
How can we feel at home in this world? Pragmatic Humanism Revisited: An Essay on Making the World a Home (Palgrave, 2019) offers a humanist re-reading of philosophical pragmatism and explores …
Christian Studies May 21, 2021

Calvin and the Resignification of the World

Creation, Incarnation, and the Problem of Political Theology in the 1559 'Institutes'

Michelle Chaplin Sanchez

Hosted by Ryan Shelton
John Calvin's 1559 Institutes takes the reader on a journey that ends not in the celestial city but rather an ordinary, terrestrial city with all the attendant political and social secular …
Communications May 4, 2021

How Non-Being Haunts Being

On Possibilities, Morality, and Death Acceptance

Corey Anton

Hosted by Lee Pierce
How Non-being Haunts Being reveals how the human world is not reducible to “what is.” Human life is an open expanse of “what was” and “what will be,” “what might …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel April 26, 2021

Believers

Faith in Human Nature

Melvin Konner

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
Believers: Faith in Human Nature (Norton, 2019) is a scientist's answer to attacks on faith by some well-meaning scientists and philosophers. It is a firm rebuke of the "Four Horsemen"--Richard …
Secularism April 20, 2021

Speak of the Devil

How the Satanic Temple Is Changing the Way We Talk about Religion

Joseph P. Laycock

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In 2013, when the state of Oklahoma erected a statue of the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the state capitol, a group calling themselves The Satanic Temple applied to …
Secularism March 25, 2021

Society without God, Second Edition

What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment

Phil Zuckerman

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
Phil Zuckerman's book, Society Without God: What the Least Religious Nations Can Tell Us about Contentment (2nd ed.) (New York University Press, 2020), points out that religious conservatives around the …
Critical Theory January 26, 2021

Migrants in the Profane

Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization

Peter E. Gordon

Hosted by Ryan Tripp
A beautifully written exploration of religion's role in a secular, modern politics, by an accomplished scholar of critical theory, Migrants in the Profane: Critical Theory and the Question of Secularization (Yale University …
Intellectual History December 29, 2020

On Being and Becoming

An Existentialist Approach to Life

Jennifer Anna Gosetti-Ferencei

Hosted by Elizabeth Cronin
While existentialism has long been associated with Parisian Left Bank philosophers sipping cocktails in smoke-filled cafés, or with a brooding, angst-filled outlook on life, Gosetti-Ferencei shows how vital and heterogeneous …
Intellectual History December 28, 2020

Ars Vitae

The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Arts of Living

Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn

Hosted by Lilian Calles Barger
Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn is a professor of history at Syracuse University. Her new book Ars Vitae: The Fate of Inwardness and the Return of the Ancient Art of Living (University of Notre …
Science, Technology, and Society December 2, 2020

Points of Contact

Science, Religion, and the Search for Truth

Glenn Sauer

Hosted by John Traphagan
As a scientist and practicing Catholic, Dr. Sauer brings a unique perspective to several of the important issues related to finding a space for dialogue between the at times opposing …
Islamic Studies November 27, 2020

Muslim Women's Rights

Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada

Tabassum Fahim Ruby

Hosted by Shobhana Xavier
Muslim Women’s Rights: Contesting Liberal-Secular Sensibilities in Canada (Routledge 2019) By Tabassum Fahim Ruby follows the legal debates and public discussions that surrounded the proposed shari‘ah tribunals in Canada from …
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 …
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” …
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 …
Intellectual History September 10, 2020

From Darwin to Derrida

Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life

David Haig

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In his book, From Darwin to Derrida: Selfish Genes, Social Selves, and the Meanings of Life (MIT Press), evolutionary biologist David Haig explains how a physical world of matter in …
General History August 20, 2020

The Secular Enlightenment

Margaret Jacob

Hosted by Mark Molloy
The Secular Enlightenment (Princeton University Press, 2019) is a panoramic account of the radical ways that life began to change for ordinary people in the age of Locke, Voltaire, and …