
Renovatio: The Podcast
A multimedia, multi-faith publication about the ideas that shape the modern world from the first Muslim liberal arts college in the United States, Zaytuna College.
Latest episodes

Mar 18, 2025 • 25min
The Egalitarian Objection to Liberal Education
The Egalitarian Objection to Liberal EducationAnd Why the Liberal Arts Are Indispensable to EqualityBy Thomas Hibbs

Mar 11, 2025 • 23min
Transcendence and TikTok (Audio Essay)
What does it mean to “manifest” something, or for something to “become manifest”? For those familiar with Islamic mystical terminology, the concept of tajallī may come to mind. Often rendered into English as “manifestation,” tajallī denotes the appearance or disclosure of the divine names in physical forms. Similar to the notion of “theophany” in other religious traditions (with the philosopher Henry Corbin taking tajallī to be a synonym of just that),1 it means passively experiencing God “manifesting” Himself in the world. But “manifestation” has come to mean something rather different in the realm of contemporary popular spirituality—especially on its digital interfaces. Most prominently on the social media app TikTok, it refers to a popular trend consisting of supposedly supernatural means of attracting money, good grades, more followers, or even a wholesale “dream life.” Read the essay: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/transcendence-and-tiktok

Feb 18, 2025 • 26min
Other People's Truths: Reading Sacred Scripture in Secular Settings (Audio Essay)
Sacred scriptures certainly qualify as Great Books, but can they be read as literature in secular settings?Read the essay by Eva Brann- https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/other-peoples-truths

Feb 12, 2025 • 21min
Resisting the Architecture of Apathy (Audio Essay)
The way societies driven by profit and production design and build lived environments breeds an apathy that, unchecked, can only lead to the dissolution of human communities as we’ve known them. Article by Marwa Al-Sabouni https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/resisting-the-architecture-of-apathyRead by Lyba Hussain Produced by Faatimah Knight

Jan 27, 2025 • 17min
What Pico Thought—and What It Wrought (Audio Essay)
The dignity of man in his potential to be whatever he desires to be, this fifteenth-century Italian prince & philosopher gave rise to the modern secular worldview that privileges self-actualization above all else.Essay by Esme Partridge

Dec 30, 2024 • 29min
The Sin of Cosmocide (Audio Essay)

Oct 3, 2024 • 43min
Audio Essay: What Islam Gave the Blues by Sylviane Diouf

Oct 3, 2024 • 35min
Audio Essay: Where Islam and Nationalism Collide by Zaid Shakir

Oct 3, 2024 • 40min
Audio Essay: Counting the Minutes: Productivity and the Well-Lived Day between Abū Hāmid al-Ghazālī and Benjamin Franklin

Oct 3, 2024 • 33min
Audio Essay: Courteous Exchange in an Age of Empire by Sarah Barnette
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