New Books in Religion

Seeing Through Religion is a cutting-edge textbook that gives students the tools to learn this valuable subject theoretically, McGovern argues that religion isn't a thing out there in the world; it's the glasses on your face through which you see the world, shaped by Western history and, in particular, Christianity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Prayer in the Ancient World is the resource on prayer in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean. With over 350 entries it showcases a robust selection of the range of different types of prayers attested from Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia, the Levant, early Judaism and Christianity, Greece, Rome, Arabia, and Iran, enhanced by critical commentary.The Prayer in the Ancient World will also be available online.Preview of the 'Prayer in the Ancient World’ Daniel K. Falk is Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies and Chaiken Family Chair in Jewish Studies at Penn State University. Caleb Zakarin is editor of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Politics of Tranquility: The Material and Mundane Lives of Buddhist Nuns in Post-Mao Tibet (Cornell University Press, 2025) concerns the Tibetan Buddhist revival in China, illustrating the lives of Tibetan Buddhist nuns and exploring the political effects that arise from their nonpolitical daily engagements in the remote, mega-sized Tibetan Buddhist encampment of Yachen Gar. Yasmin Cho's book challenges two assumptions about Tibetan Buddhist communities in China. First, against the assumption that a Buddhist monastic community is best understood in terms of its esoteric qualities, Cho focuses on the material and mundane daily practices that are indispensable to the existence and persistence of such a community and shows how deeply gendered these practices are. Second, against the assumption that Tibetan politics toward the Chinese state is best understood as rebellious, incendiary, and centered upon Tibetan victimhood, the nuns demonstrate how it can be otherwise. Tibetan politics can be unassuming, calm, and self-contained and yet still have substantial political effects. As Politics of Tranquility shows, the nuns in Yachen Gar have called forth an alternative way of living and expressing themselves as Tibetans and as female monastics despite a repressive context. ------------------ Jing Li teaches Chinese language, literature, and cinema. Her research focuses on rural China, independent filmmaking, and digital media cultures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the tradition. Today’s Muslim world has been experiencing upheaval: legalists and mystics engage in intense debates, radical groups invoke Sharia, Muslim immigrants in the West face prejudice and discrimination, and Muslim feminists advocate new interpretations of the Koran. At the same time, Islam is mischaracterized as unitary and unchanging by people ranging from right-wing Western politicians claiming that Islam is incompatible with democracy to conservative Muslims dreaming of returning to the golden age of the prophet.  Against this contentious backdrop, this book provides a timely new history of the religion in all its astonishing richness and diversity as it has been practiced by Muslims around the world, from seventh-century Mecca to today. Most popular histories of Islam continue to repeat conventional pietistic accounts. In contrast, John Tolan draws on decades of new historical research that has transformed knowledge of the origins and development of the Muslim faith. He shows how the youngest of the three great monotheisms arose in close contact with Jewish, Christian, and other religious traditions in a mixture of cultures, including Arab, Greek, Persian, and Turkish; how Islam spread across an enormous territory encompassing hundreds of languages and cultures; how Muslims have forged widely different beliefs and practices over fourteen centuries; and how Islamic history provides crucial context for understanding contemporary debates in the Muslim world. At a time when much talk about Islam is filled with misunderstanding, stereotypes, and bias, this book provides a fresh and lucid portrait of the continuous and ongoing transformations of a religion of tremendous variety and complexity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Adventures of Rabbah & Friends offers a new reader-centered approach to some of the Talmud’s most challenging stories. The Talmud contains about two pages of some of the strangest tales in the rabbinic corpus. For centuries people have scratched their head over what they mean and why they are there. In his new book, James Adam Redfield illustrates how these tales have interacted with diverse interpretive frameworks from ancient myth to modern mysticism. By reevaluating conventional assumptions about coherence, authority, and tradition, the book redefines how stories can function in the Talmud, reorients the study of rabbinic literature around practices of reading and reception, and opens pathways for connecting the Talmud with broader conversations in the study of literature. Redfield’s analysis of the vibrant dialogue between many voices in this literary tradition—storytellers, editors, performers, transmitters, commentators, anthologizers, and more—reveals their diverse and original contributions to the art of interpretation in Jewish culture. Rich appendixes revealing the stories’ reception in late ancient exegesis, medieval responsa, and early modern ethical and mystical commentaries make this volume a valuable specialist resource, while its lively prose is accessible for a wider audience of students and humanities scholars. In this episode we discuss these themes and more. James Adam Redfield is Associate Professor of Jewish Anthropology and Hermeneutics in the Department of Theological Studies at Saint Louis University and Visiting Associate Professor in Jewish Civilization and the History of European Civilization at the University of Chicago. He is the coeditor with Sergey Dolgopolski of Talmud /and/ Philosophy (2024) and the translator and editor of Mikhah Yosef Berdichevsky’s Yiddish stories published in From a Distant Relation (2021). Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi of Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield NJ. He is the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life (JPS) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion