New Books in Religion

Wendy Hasenkamp and Janna R. White spent four years editing a series of conversations between prominent scientists, philosophers, scholars of Tibetan Buddhism, and the Dalai Lama, resulting in The Monastery and the Microscope: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on Mind, Mindfulness, and the Nature of Reality (Yale University Press, 2017). This book presents a record of these conversations, annotated with explanations and footnotes, surrounding topics related to consciousness, the nature of mind and reality, meditative practices, and more. Of interest to specialists as well as general audiences, The Monastery and the Microscope is skillfully edited, drawing readers into the conversation and making them feel as though they are present for the discussion. In our conversation, Hasenkamp and White discuss the processes and special challenges involved in editing a volume with nearly twenty contributors, and they reflect on the far-reaching impacts of interdisciplinary and cross-cultural exchange. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

The Himalayas have long been at the crossroads of the exchange between cultures, yet the social lives of those who inhabit the region are often framed as marginal to historical narratives. And while scholars have studied religious diversity in the context of modern nation-states, such as India, Pakistan, Tibet, or Nepal, seldom has the Himalaya been the focus of examination in and of itself. Megan Adamson Sijapati, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Gettysburg College, and Jessica Vantine Birkenholtz, Assistant Professor of Religion at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, remedy this scholarly void in their new collection of essays, Religion and Modernity in the Himalaya (Routledge, 2016). The volume explores religious responses to Himalayan modernity as witnessed in the cultural encounter with new social realities, expectations, and limits. The characteristics of the Himalayan region are fluid, moving beyond geographical boundaries, or mountain and valley zones, as are the contemporary human processes of meaning-making in the face of globalization and modernization. In our conversation we discuss how modernity operates, the social and political factors shaping the Himalayan religious environment, processes of emplacement, Tibetan Buddhist media, environmentalism and development, changing pilgrimage practices, the Nepali Goddess tradition, political limits to religious education, and the dynamics of perceived margins and discourses of peripherality. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Muslim women are often the focus of debate when it comes to public conversations about Islam. Much of this centers on feelings and assumptions surrounding an object, the veil. Rafia Zakaria, journalist and author, unravels the complex nexus of attitudes, policies, and histories revolving around this object in her fascinating new book, Veil (Bloomsbury Academic, 2017). She demonstrates how the object can serve as a moral delineator, a disciplinary measure, a signifier of goodness, or as a means to subvert or rebel social norms. Through personal narratives and detailed analysis of various social and political conditions Zakaria offers an engaging and nuanced assessment of the veil in the contemporary context. In our conversation we discussed notions of the exotic Orient, colonization, representation in photography and painting, prostitution, veiling in legal contexts, public aesthetics, violence, forms of feminism, contextual meaning-making, and much more. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Psychology and spirituality have a complicated relationship. Dating back to ancient times, we see them treated as sister disciplines which inform and enhance one another. But at some point in the last century, Western psychology decided to divorce itself from Eastern philosophy and spirituality, leaving us with an incomplete way of understanding human experience. Author Margot Esther Borden takes up this story in her new book, Psychology in the Light of the East (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), and in our interview, we discuss her conviction that our understanding of human nature is best served by attending to the soul as well as the psyche, and be utilizing wisdom from Eastern as well as Western traditions and worldviews. Margot Esther Borden, M.A., is a psychotherapist, international public speaker, and adjunct professor at Antioch University Midwest. She completed her training in breathwork in Paris and her master of arts in person-centered counseling/humanistic psychology at the University of Durham. She works in India, Europe, and the United States and is coeditor of Spirituality and Business: Exploring Possibilities for a New Management Paradigm. Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in gender and sexuality, eating and body image, and relationship issues. He is a graduate of the psychoanalytic training program at William Alanson White Institute, where he also chairs their monthly LGBTQ Study Group. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

On Second Thought: Learned Women Reflect on Profession, Community, and Purpose (University of Utah Press, 2017) is a collection of thirteen essays by women, all in the second half of their lives, in which they contemplate the ways in which the different facets of their identities—personal, professional and spiritual—have hitherto unfolded and intertwined. Among their number is the folklorist, ethnographer, oral historian, and prolific independent scholar Luisa Del Giudice, who is also the editor of the volume and the driving force behind it. The seed for the book began some years ago, when a career crisis led Del Giudice to question many aspects of her life. In the process, she developed an acute awareness of its often fragmented nature, a fragmentation exacerbated, if not caused, by an academic establishment that tends to looks askance on its members bringing any aspect of their personal lives, still less their spiritual beliefs, into their work. Del Giudice decided to push back against the resulting dichotomous state, which effectively pits the pursuit of knowledge (academia) against the pursuit of wisdom (spirituality). She contacted a number of women, most of whom she knew personally, and asked if they would be willing to provide written reflections on their lives to date often complex and multifaceted lives that encompassed a range of personal and professional identities. She encouraged each to describe how their existence has accrued meaning and purpose, as well as any spiritual leanings underpinning that process. The result is a kind of textual “Wise Women’s Circle.” It includes four folklorists (aside from Del Giudice herself, there is Mary Ellen Brown, Sabina Magliocco, and Christine Zinni) along with contributors whose professional backgrounds embrace a range of other scholarly disciplines, as well as practitioners of law, medicine, public health, and art. The spiritual and cultural leanings expressed are similarly diverse and include Catholicism, Paganism, Episcopalianism, Jungian Psychology, Judaism and Zen Buddhism. The paths of the women have often been shaped by societal and cultural expectations and institutional constraints. Despite the singular nature of each essay, a number of recurring themes emerge, not least the importance of cultural heritage, the challenges of combining a professional role with that of a domestic caregiver, workplace side-lining, the power of story-telling, and, perhaps most notably, an ongoing experience of existing within a creative, albeit uncomfortable, state of betwixt and betweeness. Del Giudice describes the contributors as “masters of bricolage and diverse resources who find meaning in lonely marginalized places, who struggle to weave together disparate aspects of life to make them meaningful” (23). All can speak to lessons learned, rewards gained, and the critical need for women’s voices to be heard. Overall, this collection is designed to inspire its readers to examine their own lives, to help them clarify their own sense of purpose, and then commit to fulfilling it, despite the obstacles which will surely arise. Rachel Hopkin is a UK born, US based folklorist and radio producer and is currently a PhD candidate at the Ohio State University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Despite the general perception that Daoism is simply an informal and carefree philosophical perspective, the Daoist tradition is a highly formalized spectrum of ritual practices and communal beliefs. Religious Daoism emerged within the rich second-century political and social milieu when challengers to official rulership offered alternative political structures to the imperial order. The establishment of the Celestial Master theocracy in Northwest China provided a structured system that emphasized the apocalyptic urgency of social reform. The new community was shaped by rigid codes of conduct and supported by religious professionals who mediated the bureaucratic relationship with a pantheon of gods. With unparalleled detail, Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities (Harvard University Press, 2016), by Terry Kleeman, Professor of Chinese and Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, outlines the historical development of the Daoist church during this formative period. He also provides a thorough account of the ritual and institutional life of Daoist communities during the first five centuries. In the second half of the book, Kleeman explains the various roles for community members including the Daoist citizen, the novice, and the parish priest. In our conversation we discussed Chinese official histories, the Daoist Canon, the Celestial Master founder Zhang Daoling, the relationship between Daoism and Buddhism, the Xianger commentary of Laozis Dao De Jing, ordination rituals, gender and women, petitions and talismans, Daoist daily and seasonal life, and rituals for the dead. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is the author of Interpreting Islam in China: Pilgrimage, Scripture, and Language in the Han Kitab (Oxford University Press, 2017). He is currently working on a monograph entitled The Cinematic Lives of Muslims, and is the editor of the forthcoming volumes Muslims in the Movies: A Global Anthology (ILEX Foundation) and New Approaches to Islam in Film (Routledge). You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kjpetersen@unomaha.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In his recent monograph, Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan (University of Hawaii Press, 2017), Bryan D. Lowe examines eighth-century Japanese practices that ritualized writing, or, in other words, conceptually and practically set sutra-transcription apart from other forms of writing. Drawing on a rich trove of eighth-century documents that describe everything from donation sums and sources, to the types of paper used, to the purification rites practiced prior to transcription, to records of which scribes had borrowed or returned their brushes, Lowe provides us not only with an expert analysis of the religious meaning of various aspects of sutra-copying, but also with a detailed description of the fascinating ritual and material culture of public and private scriptoria and intimate glimpses into the lives of the patrons and laborers of these institutions. More broadly, Lowe’s book asks us to rethink our assumptions about ritual, for in the case studies found within we see ritual used not simply symbolically–as a representation of a pre-extant cultural or political system–but rather as a social and ethical practice that generates new communal identities and offers opportunities for individual cultivation. Ritual, Lowe shows, is not just a result, but also a cause. In the first part of the book Lowe looks at the ritualization of writing. Here we learn of the way in which sutra-copying and purification rites executed prior to copying are simultaneously ethical, soteriological, and ritually efficacious. That is, copying a sutra in the ritually correct and pure way was conceived as morally upright, but also as an act that would bring about the rituals intended results and by which one would make soteriological progress. In this part of the book Lowe also introduces a type of prayer text called a ganmon, and shows how these texts drew on Buddhist and non-Buddhist language to create a uniquely East Asian genre that was unquestionably Buddhist even as it incorporated norms and imagery from non-Buddhist sources. In the second part of the book we learn about the ways in which ritualized writing was produced by certain forms of social and institutional organization, but also about the ways in which this practice in turn affected those forms of organization. Lowe discusses grassroots fellowships of pious friends that were formed for the purpose of commissioning sutra-transcriptions, and also examines private and public scriptoria, which were highly bureaucratic. A key theme in this part of the book, and indeed throughout this work, is that taking a closer look at the networks of people and institutions involved in the production of ritualized writing calls into question the stark divisions between state, aristocratic, clan, and popular Buddhism, divisions that are often assumed in research on this period. Many of the fellowships that Lowe examines, for instance, were created by individuals who had strong ties to the state and to certain clans, but whose intentions, while in part political and aimed at forming new social ties between groups, were also deeply personal, pious, and religious. In the third part of the book Lowe provides us with two carefully crafted microhistories. First, we read about the career of a scriptorium worker who served as a scribe, proofreader, and administrator, and find that rather than simply being a cog in a sutra-copying bureaucracy, through his work this individual developed his own religious, literary, Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In The Charm of Wise Hesitancy: Talmudic Stories in Contemporary Israeli Culture (Academic Studies Press, 2017), David Jacobson, Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University, offers an overview and detailed analysis of one of a most intriguing cultural phenomenon in contemporary Israel: A “return to the (supposedly religious) Jewish bookshelf” by both self-proclaimed secularist Israelis and orthodox Jews. Specifically, Jacobson is interested in Israeli readings of Talmudic narratives, and the way these readings reflect upon contemporary Jewish-Israeli identity. His book both situates the phenomenon in its socio-historical context, and offers a detailed analysis of the discourse on certain Talmudic narratives. Yaacov Yadgar is the Stanley Lewis Professor of Israel Studies at the University of Oxford. His most recent book is Sovereign Jews: Israel, Zionism and Judaism (SUNY Press, 2017). You can read more of Yadgar’s work here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In her new book Pilgrimage in Islam: Traditional and Modern Practices (Oneworld Publications, 2017), Sophia Rose Arjana explores the diverse array of pilgrimage practices in the Muslim world. Pilgrimage in Islam is often synonymous with the hajj, or the pilgrimage to Mecca, but Arjana’s study deconstructs this normatively held assumption by taking her readers on a journey across various sacred spaces throughout the contemporary global context. Her itineraries in this book beautifully illuminate the ways in which mobility around the sacred varies, challenging any easy categorizations scholars and students may apply in the study of Islamic pilgrimages and sacred spaces. Her book moves us beyond sectarian binaries, notions of mystical or Sufi rituals, and gendered norms, to help us deconstruct labels that have been conventionally used by Religious Studies scholars. Arjana’s text is a valuable resource for undergraduate students, but also for graduate students, as it provides provocative case studies and theorizations on pilgrimages, spatiality, and ritual performances in Religious Studies. M. Shobhana Xavier is an Assistant Professor of Religion at Ithaca College. Her research areas are on contemporary Sufism in North America and South Asia. She is the author of Sacred Spaces and Transnational Networks in American Sufism (Bloomsbury Press, 2018) and a co-author of Contemporary Sufism: Piety, Politics, and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2018). More details about her research and scholarship may be found here and here. She may be reached at mxavier@ithaca.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Kathryn Lofton is a professor of religious studies and history at Yale University. Her book Consuming Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2017) offers a collection of eleven essays of cultural critique that reflect on the connections between religion, consumer culture, celebrity and the corporation. Her definition of religion is capacious and founded on Durkheim’s understanding of it as a form of social organization that determines who we are. In contemporary culture religion is an attempt to mass-produce relations of value and generate both control and freedom. Applying this definition to popular culture, she examines binge watching, the cubicle of the Action Office of Herman Miller, Purity Balls, Hotel Preston’s innovation in the Spiritual Menu offerings, and the fascination with the Kardashians. In an ethnographic study of the Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs, she demonstrates how the idea of corporate culture becomes a form of religion. Lofton challenges us to see religion everywhere in our construction of meaning and values. This episode of New Books in American Studies was produced in cooperation with the Society for U.S. Intellectual History. Lilian Calles Barger, www.lilianbarger.com, is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book project is tentatively entitled The World Come of Age: Religion, Intellectuals and the Challenge of Human Liberation is forthcoming from Oxford University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion