New Books in Religion

In this revised edition of her classic and groundbreaking work, Believing Women in Islam: Unreading Patriarchal Interpretations of the Qur’an (University of Texas Press, 2019), Asma Barlas demonstrates how a Muslim believer can fully adopt an antipatriarchal reading of the Qur’anic text while maintaining belief in its Divine Providence. The intervention she makes is thus as useful to those studying the Quran (and scriptural interpretation more broadly) in the western academy as it is to Muslims searching for renewed ways to interpret their Divine Scripture in a more egalitarian spirit.Barlas cogently argues that just as patriarchy is read into the text, it can also be unread, and provides a methodology by which this can be done. In the process, she critiques both those within her tradition who hold to fixed patriarchal or authoritarian readings of scripture and those outside of her tradition who believe that her efforts are futile. Barlas’s hermeneutic privileges the text without being strictly textualist. That is to say, she is conscious of—and likewise calls her readers to be attuned to—the role played by power in the construction of interpretive knowledge. For example, she argues that even if the Qur’an is emphatic and explicit in affirming that God is genderless, this has not prevented a masculinization and an anthropomorphization of God through certain (male-dominated) theological and spiritual discourses and language.In our interview, we take a journey through the three parts of her book: (1) Texts, Contexts, and Religious Meaning (2) God, the Prophets, and Fathers and (3) Unreading and Rereading Patriarchy. With deep moral clarity, Asma Barlas aims to recover what Leila Ahmad (1992) has called the ‘stubbornly egalitarian’ voice of Islam by illuminating the polysemic voice of the Qur’an. We additionally discuss the two new chapters in this revised edition of the book: “Abraham’s Sacrifice in the Qur’an: Beyond the Body” which elaborates on the Qur’anic rejection of representations of fathers as surrogates of a divine patriarch; and “Secular/Feminism and the Qur’an” where she engages with—and responds to—her secular and feminist interlocutors/critics on the subject of Qur’anic interpretation. This book is a passionate clarion call to dig deeper into how we receive, understand, and interpret scripture regardless of our faith commitments.Asad Dandia is a graduate student of Islamic Studies at Columbia University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

How did a group of charismatic, apocalyptic Jewish missionaries, working to prepare their world for the impending realization of God's promises to Israel, end up inaugurating a movement that would grow into the gentile church? Committed to Jesus’s prophecy—“The Kingdom of God is at hand!”—they were, in their own eyes, history's last generation. But in history's eyes, they became the first Christians.In When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation (Yale University Press, 2018), Paula Fredriksen answers this question by reconstructing the life of the earliest Jerusalem community. As her account arcs from this group’s hopeful celebration of Passover with Jesus, through their bitter controversies that fragmented the movement’s midcentury missions, to the city’s fiery end in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, she brings this vibrant apostolic community to life. Fredriksen offers a vivid portrait both of this temple-centered messianic movement and of the bedrock convictions that animated and sustained it.Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a Jerusalem-based psychologist, Middle East television commentator, and host of the Van Leer Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In his book Black Transhuman Liberation Theology: Technology and Spirituality (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019), Philip Butler explores what might happen if Black people in the United States merged technology and spirituality in their fight towards materializing liberating realities.The discussions shaping what it means for humans to exist with technology and as part of technology are already underway: transhumanism suggests that any use of technology to augment intellectual, psychological, or physical capability makes one transhuman. In an attempt to encourage Black people in the United States to become technological progenitors as a spiritual act, Butler asks whether anyone has ever been 'just' human? Butler then explores the implications of this question and its link to viewing the body as technology.Re-imagining incarnation as a relationship between vitality, biochemistry, and genetics, the book also takes a critical scientific approach to understanding the biological embodiment of Black spiritual practices. It shows how current and emerging technologies might align with the generative biological states of Black spiritualities in order to concretely disrupt and dismantle oppressive societal structures.Dr. Philip Butler is the Term Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Posthuman and Artificial Intelligence Systems at the Iliff School of Theology. He is also the founder of the Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational artificial intelligence with mental health capacities. His work primarily focuses on the intersection of neuroscience, technology, spirituality, and race. Currently, he is working to construct a Black posthumanism that is both critical and speculative in nature. He is also building a distinctly Black AI interface combining machine learning and psychotherapeutic systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

From the Mountains to the Cities A History of Buddhist Propagation in Korea (University of Hawaii Press, 2018), written by Mark A. Nathan, is a history of P’ogyo (Buddhist Propagation) on the Korean peninsula from the late 19th century to the beginning of the 21st that switches its focus to South Korea beginning with the Post-Korean War period.Nathan’s history is woven with the themes of geography, law, and media, which serve to elucidate how Buddhism in Korea transformed from a religion that was geographically-isolated by law during the Chosŏn Dynasty (1392-1910), as well as perceived by Korean Buddhist reformers, such as Han Yong’un (1879-1944) as disconnected from the common people into a religion heavily organized in accordance with spreading it’s doctrines and practices to the masses in order to compete with various Christian and Buddhist traditions across the decades. Law is the most emphasized theme in this history. Nathan explains that the introduction of religion as a legal category during the late Chosŏn Dynasty, with propagation as one of its defining components was perpetuated by other laws across time, such as the Temple Ordinance (1911) of the Japanese Colonial period (1910-1945). He posits that these laws indicate why and how Korean Buddhist communities and institutions became what they are today. Spanning just over a century, his work includes a variety of other fascinating details, like the development and history of several media formats used to propagate Buddhism, the influence of presidents on Buddhist propagation, the development of international Seon centers, historical in-fighting among monastics over the issue of celibacy, and descriptions of the efforts made by outstanding Buddhist propagators, such as the well-known monk, Pomnyun (1953-present) and members of the Minjung Buddhist Movement (1980’s).Mark A. Nathan is an Associate Professor in the Department of History and director of the Asian Studies Program in the College of Arts and Sciences at The State University of New York at Buffalo. In addition toFrom the Mountains to the Cities, he also co-edited the volume, Buddhism and Law: An Introduction from University of Cambridge Press (2014).Trevor McManis is a recent graduate of the Geography Program at California State University, Stanislaus, and an aspiring Buddhist Studies Scholar. His research interests include Buddhist material and intellectual culture in Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Christian theology has a long and at times contradictory history, riddled with tensions that make it difficult (if not impossible) to develop a single systematic account of what Christianity is. However, rather than see this as a shortcoming, one can instead try and see this as a productive philosophical and spiritual starting point.This is the animating idea of ​A Theology of Failure: Žižek Against Christian Innocence (Fordham University Press, 2019), which argues that failure should be welcomed as a core element of Christian identity. To make sense of this, her book works its way through the Neo-Platonic philosophy of the mystical theologian Dionysius the Areopagite, the Radical Orthodoxy movement, postmodern theology, and finally finds its way to the philosophy of Slavoj Žižek, who has put failure at the center of his own theoretical work. The result is a book that takes a number of twists and turns, wrestling with the shortcomings of various thinkers while still maintaining fidelity in spite of, and perhaps at times because of, failure.Marika Rose completed her PhD at Durham University, and is now a senior lecturer in philosophical theology at the University of Winchester and has authored numerous book chapters and articles covering the intersections of philosophy and theology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Join us as we continue discussion with Dr. Christopher Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology at Layola Marymount University as we dive into his new book Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Five Elements in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain Yogas (SUNY Press, 2020). The ancient Indian philosophers conceptualized the universe as comprising 5 elements (Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space), corresponding to the five human senses. This philosophy is encoded in Indian religion at every turn. This book draws from Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions to explore the extent to which elemental meditations in the Indian context transcend these "religious" boundaries as we understand them. It is also a fascinating look into the lived practice of ideating upon the elements.Christopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and director of Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University.For information on your host Raj Balkaran’s background, see rajbalkaran.com/scholarship. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

What if the moral guardians of West African societies are postmenopausal women? This is the argument that Laura S. Grillo makes in her 2018 book, An Intimate Rebuke: Female Genital Power in Ritual and Politics in West Africa (Duke University Press, 2018).Drawing on anthropological fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire that spans three decades, Grillo elaborates a revolutionary argument that has significant implications not only for Côte d’Ivoire, but for the broader West African region. Postmenopausal women—the “Mothers”, as Grillo calls them—are the ultimate moral arbiters in society.They publicly perform their spiritual rebuke by stripping naked, wielding branches or pestles, and slapping their genitals and bare breasts to curse and expel the forces of evil. It is a ritual that has been observed from Sierra Leone to Cameroon, but An Intimate Rebuke is the first work to analyze these powerful displays as part of a connected moral framework. Grillo’s findings suggest both concrete ways to address the trauma of civil conflict and a framework to re-think the fundaments of African studies.Laura S. Grillo is Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Theology at Georgetown University.Dr. Elisa Prosperetti teaches African and global history at SciencesPo Paris. Her research focuses on the connected histories of education and development in postcolonial West Africa. Contact her at: www.elisaprosperetti.net. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In Re-enchanting Modernity: Re-enchanting Modernity: Ritual Economy and Society in Wenzhou, China (Duke University Press, 2020), Mayfair Yang examines the resurgence of religious and ritual life after decades of enforced secularization in the coastal area of Wenzhou, China. Drawing on twenty-five years of ethnographic fieldwork, Yang shows how the local practices of popular religion, Daoism, and Buddhism are based in community-oriented grassroots organizations that create spaces for relative local autonomy and self-governance. Central to Wenzhou's religious civil society is what Yang calls a "ritual economy," in which an ethos of generosity is expressed through donations to temples, clerics, ritual events, and charities in exchange for spiritual gain. With these investments in transcendent realms, Yang adopts Georges Bataille's notion of "ritual expenditures" to challenge the idea that rural Wenzhou's economic development can be described in terms of Max Weber's notion of a "Protestant Ethic". Instead, Yang suggests that Wenzhou's ritual economy forges an alternate path to capitalist modernity.Victoria Oana Lupascu is a PhD candidate in dual-title doctoral program in Comparative Literature and Asian Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. Her areas of interest include 20th and 21st Chinese literature and visual art, medical humanities and Global South studies.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In her fascinating book, Material Acts in Everyday Hindu Worlds (SUNY Press, 2020), Joyce Flueckiger analyzes the agency of materiality, that is, the ability of materials to have effect beyond what was intended.This ethnographic journey across three Indian locales examines the agency of various materials – from ornaments, to female guising, to cement images.This book not only delivers deep insight into the Hindu world, but broadens our understanding of the role of material agency within the study of religion.Joyce Burkhalter Flueckiger is Professor of Religion at Emory UniversityFor information about your host Raj Balkaran’s background, see https://www.rajbalkaran.com/scholarship Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Those who exit a religion—particularly one they were born and raised in—often find themselves at sea in their efforts to transition to life beyond their community. In Degrees of Separation: Identity Formation While Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Judaism (Temple UP, 2020), Schneur Zalman Newfield, who went through this process himself, interviews seventy-four Lubavitch and Satmar ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jews who left their communities.He presents their motivations for leaving as well as how they make sense of their experiences and their processes of exiting, detailing their attitudes and opinions regarding their religious upbringing. Newfield also examines how these exiters forge new ways of being that their upbringing had not prepared them for, while also considering what these particular individuals lose and retain in the exit process.Degrees of Separation presents a comprehensive portrait of the prolonged state of being “in-between” that characterizes transition out of a totalizing worldview. What Newfield discovers is that exiters experience both a sense of independence and a persistent connection; they are not completely dislocated from their roots once they “arrive” at their new destination. Moreover, Degrees of Separation shows that this process of transitioning identity has implications beyond religion.Dr. Yakir Englander is the National Director of Leadership programs at the Israeli-American Council. He also teaches at the AJR. He is a Fulbright scholar and was a visiting professor of Religion at Northwestern University, the Shalom Hartman Institute and Harvard Divinity School. His books are Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (English/Hebrew and The Male Body in Jewish Lithuanian Ultra-Orthodoxy (Hebrew). He can be reached at: Yakir1212englander@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion