New Books in Religion

In A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing (Atria, 2012), Lawrence M. Krauss presents this big idea: something can–and perhaps must–come from nothing. That something is, well, everything–you, me, and the entire universe. If that doesn’t get your attention, nothing will. Of course, as Lawrence explains, nothing usually turns out on close inspection to be something. Listen in and find out how. Lawrence and I also discussed the relationship between science (especially physics) and religion, and in particular the question “What came before that?” and whether said question has any meaning at all. No matter what you believe, I’m sure you’ll find what Lawrence has to say of great interest. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

The end of the Cold War dramatically changed research into the Holocaust. The gradual opening up of archives across Eastern Europe allowed a flood of local and regional studies that transformed our understanding of the Final Solution. We now know much more about the mechanics of destruction in the East, about the interaction between center and periphery in planning and carrying out mass killings, and about the interaction between Germans, local inhabitants and Jews. Twenty years later, historians have begun to integrate these new studies into broad reexaminations of the Holocaust. Donald Bloxham has written one of the best of these. His book, The Final Solution: A Genocide (Oxford UP, 2009), is a remarkable attempt to put the Holocaust into the broader context of global history. It’s analytical rather than narrative. Its arguments are careful and always attentive to nuance and complexity. And Bloxham demonstrates a deep understanding of research on the Holocaust and in the broader field of Genocide Studies. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, you will come out of this book having reconsidered what you thought you knew about the Holocaust and about European history in the first half of the Twentieth Century. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Kevin Gray Carr‘s beautiful new book explores the figure of Prince Shotoku (573? – 622?) the focus of one of the most widespread visual cults in Japanese history. Introducing us to a range of stories materialized in both verbal and visual narratives, Plotting the Prince: Shotoku Cults and the Mapping of Medieval Japanese Buddhism (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012) frames Shotoku as a symbolic vessel. Part I of the book looks at the changing identities of the prince as objects of devotion and veneration, tracing his visual cult through the fourteenth century. In this context, the figure of Shotoku, across multiple lives and associations with other religious figures, grounded a new sacred topography whose center had shifted away from India and China and toward the spaces of Japan. Part II of the book focuses on the visual culture that mapped the various identities of the prince onto the Japanese sacral landscape. Carr introduces the notion of “cognitive maps” that integrated the elements of time, space, and personhood into the many renderings of Shotoku’s life that were simultaneously cartographic, narrative, and iconic. In addition to this fine-grained and innovative analysis of the time and space of visual materials, Carr also shows readers the centrality of stories and storytelling in helping us make sense of the world around us, and of our own place in it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

It opens with a parakeet named Homer, and it closes with a dog named Hachiko. In the intervening pages, Barbara Ambros explores the deaths, afterlives, and necrogeographies of pets in contemporary Japan. Bones of Contention:Animals and Religion in Contemporary Japan (University of Hawai’i Press, 2012) takes readers through the urban spaces of pet memorialization, from zoos and aquaria to pet cemeteries and household altars. The story begins with an introduction and two chapters that offer a broad grounding in the mythical and religious accounts of animals in premodern Japanese texts, as well as a modern history of animal mortuary rites in Japan. Modern animal memorial rituals, Ambros argues, emerged out of a context of the increasing commodification and consumption of animals, and she describes fascinating accounts of the memorializing of animals by whalers and fishers, in the food industry, and in the context of research laboratories and zoos. From the third chapter on, the book focuses specifically on pets and their hybrid status between animal and human, describing responses to some of the key questions that have animated attitudes toward and practices surrounding the death of pets in modern Japan. Are pet memorial rituals religious activities (and thus tax-exempt)? Are pet remains more like the bones of family members or the broken bodies of dolls, or are they simply trash? Should people be allowed to have their pets interred with them after death? Are the spirits of deceased animal companions angry and vengeful, or are they protective and loving? Across interviews, necro-landscapes, chat rooms, and books by a wide range of interlocutors from historians to psychics, Bones of Contention expertly traces the very different ways that these questions have been engaged and debated in contemporary Japan. Enjoy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

According to the Marriam-Webster dictionary, an “enigma” can be defined as “something hard to understand or explain.” What is it that is so enigmatic about education? Aren’t schools there to teach information, and expand people’s minds? What’s so mysterious about that? In Christian J. Churchill and Gerald E. Levy’s new book, The Enigmatic Academy: Class, Bureaucracy, and Religion in American Education (Temple University Press, 2012) the authors, both educators, describe a tremendous paradox within the educational system in the United States. Despite the secular redemption that people search in educational institutions, and the free spirit associated with the liberal arts, schools actually reinforce the status quo, by training upper-class students for positions of authority while leading lower-class students in a direction which serve the purposes of higher social classes. Most people view education as the way to achieve social mobility, and while this is not entirely false on an individual level, the educational system concomitantly teaches students to develop a bureaucratic character, reinforcing existing social and ideological structures instead of challenging them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

The 1970s and the Israel-Palestinian Conflict are quite possibly the two most depressing subjects an academic could study. With shag carpeting, disco, Watergate, malaise defining the former and an internecine and (seemingly) eternal clash characterizing the latter who on earth would want to study those topics in one monograph? Well, Gil Troy is up to that task. The McGill University history professor not only took up this unenviable task, he has penned a remarkable work, Moynihan’s Moment: America’s Fight Against Zionism as Racism (Oxford University Press, 2012). On the surface, Troy details Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s iconic 1975 speech at the United Nations that took issue with that body’s definition of Zionism as racism.  The author’s work, however, is much more than the history of a speech. Troy expertly depicts the history of the contemporary Western left as it pertains to Israel and Zionism while also detailing the work and life of an American original, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. If you are at all interested in contemporary US political history or the modern Middle East–this is a must read. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Just east of the Norwich-New London Turnpike in Uncasville, Connecticut, stands the Mohegan Congregational Church. By most accounts, it’s little different than the thousands of white-steepled structures dotting the New England landscape: the same high-backed wooden chairs, high ceilings, images of lordly white men. To the careful observer, there is one notable distinction. Just above a traditional cross near the front entrance hangs a single, perfect eagle feather. The juxtaposition might be startling for some. But as Brown historian Linford D. Fisher beautifully illuminates in The Indian Great Awakening: Religion and the Shaping of Native Cultures in Early America(Oxford University Press, 2012), Native cultures in New England – and, indeed, most everywhere – are highly incorporative, blending elements of Christian religious practice with their own. This was never more the case than during the eighteenth century evangelical revival known to scholars as the First Great Awakening. A significant turning point in American spiritual life, Native peoples of New England are often left out of the narrative. When they’re included, it’s as passive targets of conversion. Fisher tells a dramatically different story. (Many thanks to New Books in American Studies host Benjamin Smith for composing our new intro music!) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Religious conviction enjoys a privileged status in our society.This is perhaps most apparent in legal contexts, where religious conviction is often given special consideration. To be more precise, religious conscience is recognized as a legitimate basis for exemption from standing laws, whereas claims of conscience deriving from non-religious commitments generally are not. Why is this? Is there something special about religiously-based claims of conscience? Is there something special about religion such that it gives rise to claims of conscience that deserve special consideration? If so, what? In his new book, Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton University Press, 2013) Brian Leiter offers subtle analyses of toleration, conscience, and respect. He argues that religion is indeed to be tolerated, because liberty of conscience is a central moral and political ideal. However, he holds that there’s nothing special about religion that gives special moral or legal weight to the demands it places on the consciences of believers. Contending that all claims of conscience–religious and non-religious–deserve toleration, Leiter argues that legal exemption may be granted on the basis of a claim of conscience–religious or otherwise–only when doing so does not place additional burdens on the non-exempt. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Atheist blogger extraordinaire Adam Lee has published his first book, Daylight Atheism (Big Think, 2012), where he makes the case that religion is harmful and that secular humanism is a much better option. He demolishes many myths about atheism, such as that atheists don’t have a moral compass, or that morality for nonbelievers is always relative. He describes the incredible privilege that Christianity enjoys in American life, where it’s deemed so normal that if anyone criticizes religious belief, it is immediately seen as an attack. He argues that the fundamental problem with religious belief is that it is not based on human needs or concerns, but on an idea of God’s will, and the obedience to that will. Sometimes, that so-called will matches the needs of people, and good actions can result. However, as is also the case, that interpreted will of God can clash with the needs and desires of people, and disastrous consequences can result. Lee, by rebuking common stereotypes about atheism, also presents secular humanism as a mentality leading to a better appreciation of this one and only life. Essentially, he argues, life as an atheist can be a life full of meaning and wonder. Audio Interview Below Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Are you looking for a good Hanukkah gift? A good Christmas gift? Heck, any gift? Or maybe you just want to read a terrific book? Well I’ve got just the ticket: Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin‘s, El Iluminado: A Graphic Novel (Basic Books, 2012). Stavans and Scheinkin team up to perform a minor miracle: they not only tell the story of hispanic crypto-Jews (conversos, marranos) in the Old and New Worlds, but they do it in the most entertaining, compelling way possible–with a great, moving, thought-provoking, and often funny (yes, funny) mystery. This is how popular history should be done. El Iluminado is–or should be–a model for all those scholars who want to bring their work to the public. I strongly urge you to take a look at the book and perhaps give it to someone you love. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion