New Books Network

About Yakir Englander

NBN Episodes hosted by Yakir:

Genocide Studies November 11, 2020

The Struggle for Understanding

Elie Wiesel's Literary Works

Victoria Nesfield and Philip Smith

Hosted by Yakir Englander
An in-depth look at Elie Wiesel’s writings, from his earliest works to his final novels. Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) was one of the most important literary voices to emerge from the Holocaust. The Nazis took the lives of most of his family, destroyed the community in which he was raised, and subjected him to ghettoization, imprisonment in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, and a death march. It is remarkable not only that Wiesel …
Literature November 10, 2020

You Exist Too Much

Zaina Arafat

Hosted by Yakir Englander
On a hot day in Bethlehem, a 12-year-old Palestinian-American girl is yelled at by a group of men outside the Church of the Nativity. She has exposed her legs in …
Psychology November 10, 2020

To Heal a Wounded Heart

The Transformative Power of Buddhism and Psychotherapy in Action

Pilar Jennings

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Early on in her clinical practice, psychoanalyst Pilar Jennings was presented with a particularly difficult case: a six-year-old girl who, traumatized by loss, had stopped speaking. Challenged by the limitations …
German Studies November 2, 2020

Testimonies of Resistance

Representations of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Sonderkommando

Nicholas Chare and Dominic Williams

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The Sonderkommando--the "special squad" of enslaved Jewish laborers who were forced to work in the gas chambers and crematoria of Auschwitz-Birkenau--comprise one of the most fascinating and troubling topics within …
Literature October 7, 2020

The Bear

Andrew Krivak

Hosted by Yakir Englander
A cautionary tale of human fragility, of love and loss, The Bear (Bellevue Literary Press) is a stunning tribute to the beauty of nature’s dominion. In an Edenic future, a …
Intellectual History October 6, 2020

Human Dignity in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition

Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Protestant Perspectives

John Loughlin

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Dignity is a fundamental aspect of our lives, yet one we rarely pause to consider; our understandings of dignity, on individual, collective and philosophical perspectives, shape how we think, act …
Anthropology September 18, 2020

On Inhumanity

Dehumanization and How to Resist It

David Livingstone Smith

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust, the lynching of African Americans, the colonial slave trade: these are horrific episodes of mass violence spawned from racism and hatred. We like to think …
Poetry September 14, 2020

The First Free Women

Poems of the Early Buddhist Nuns

Matty Weingast

Hosted by Yakir Englander
A radical and vivid rendering of poetry from the first Buddhist nuns that brings a new immediacy to their voices. The Therigatha ("Verses of the Elder Nuns") is the oldest …
East Asian Studies September 9, 2020

Readings of Dōgen's Treasury of the True Dharma Eye

Steven Heine

Hosted by Yakir Englander
The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye (Shōbōgenzō) is the masterwork of Dōgen (1200–1253), founder of the Sōtō Zen Buddhist sect in Kamakura-era Japan. It is one of the most …
Literature September 7, 2020

The Hilltop

Assaf Gavron

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Mordantly funny and deeply moving, The Hilltop about life in a West Bank settlement has been hailed as “brilliant” (The New York Times Book Review) and “The Great Israeli Novel …
Literature September 4, 2020

Two Worlds Exist

Yehoshua November

Hosted by Yakir Englander
Yehoshua November's second poetry collection, Two Worlds Exist (Orison Books), movingly examines the harmonies and dissonances involved in practicing an ancient religious tradition in contemporary America. November's beautiful and profound …
Religion August 12, 2020

The Flip

Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of Knowledge

Jeffrey J. Kripal

Hosted by Yakir Englander
A “flip,” writes Jeffrey J. Kripal, is “a reversal of perspective,” “a new real,” often born of an extreme, life-changing experience. The Flip: Epiphanies of Mind and the Future of …