New Books Network
Secularism
Secularism December 8, 2021

The Church of Saint Thomas Paine

A Religious History of American Secularism

Leigh Eric Schmidt

Hosted by Carrie Lynn Evans
In his new book, The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: A Religious History of American Secularism (Princeton University Press, 2021), Dr. Leigh Eric Schmidt tells the surprising story of how …

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Interviews with scholars of secularism about their new books.

The Imperfect Buddha Podcast December 2, 2021

Stephen Batchelor on Secularizing Buddhism

Stephen Batchelor

Hosted by Matthew O'Connell
Today I speak to Stephen Batchelor, figurehead for Secular Buddhism, well known author, and Scot. I present the lovely man some of the critique aimed at his work in the …
Jewish Studies December 1, 2021

Abraham the Hebrew Believer

Secularism and Religion in the Work of Avraham Shlonsky

Rani Jaeger

Hosted by Yakir Englander
How can it be that deeply religious poetry is being written by a committed socialist, literary revolutionary and modernist? How sacredness appears in working in the field? How one can …
Religion October 22, 2021

Jesus and Addiction to Origins

Toward an Anthropocentric Study of Religion

Willi Braun

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
Willi Braun's Jesus and Addiction to Origins: Towards an Anthropocentric Study of Religion (Equinox, 2020)  constitutes an extended argument for an anthropocentric, human-focused study of religious practices. Part I presents the basic …
Public Policy August 18, 2021

Secular Surge

A New Fault Line in American Politics

David E Campbell, Geoffrey C Layman and John C. Green

Hosted by Ursula Hackett
American society is rapidly secularizing – a radical departure from its historically high level of religiosity–and politics is a big part of the reason. Just as, forty years ago, the …
Middle Eastern Studies August 11, 2021

Lebanon

The Rise and Fall of a Secular State under Siege

Mark Farha

Hosted by Christopher Rose
Why has secularism faced such challenges in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular? In light of dominating headlines about the spread of sectarianism and the so-called death of …
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 …
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 …
Media 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 …