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New Books in Religion

New Books in Religion

By: New Books Network
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 Interviews with Scholars of Religion about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religionNew Books Network Spirituality
Episodes
  • Jeffrey K. Salkin, "Inviting God In: A Guide to Jewish Prayer" (CCAR Press, 2025)

    Jeffrey K. Salkin, "Inviting God In: A Guide to Jewish Prayer" (CCAR Press, 2025)
    Nov 24 2025
    In this episode Rabbi Marc Katz is in discussion with Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin about his new book Inviting God In: A Guide to Jewish Prayer (Central Conference of American Rabbis Press, 2025), an engaging and insightful commentary on the Shabbat evening and morning services. Designed for students of all ages, from bet mitzvah to adulthood, the book's relatable tone and discussion questions meaningfully engage readers in the worship service they are leading or attending. In the book, Rabbi Salkin breaks down each prayer and ritual, helping learners connect to the service with fresh insight and knowledge. With a blend of humor and depth, Inviting God In shows how the ancient words of prayer still speak to the challenges and joys of contemporary life. Our discussion, not only touches on the main themes and ideas in the book, but about prayer itself and the role that ritual plays in helping Jews connect with God. Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin is the author of numerous books, including Righteous Gentiles in the Hebrew Bible: Ancient Role Models for Sacred Relationships and Putting God on the Guest List, winner of the 1993 Benjamin Franklin Award for the best religion book published in the United States. Rabbi Marc Katz is the Senior Rabbi at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, NJ. He is the author of Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion
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    45 mins
  • Faisal Devji, "Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam" (Yale UP, 2025)

    Faisal Devji, "Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam" (Yale UP, 2025)
    Nov 22 2025
    Faisal Devji's Waning Crescent: The Rise and Fall of Global Islam (Yale UP, 2025) is a compelling examination of the rise of Islam as a global historical actor. Until the nineteenth century, Islam was variously understood as a set of beliefs and practices. But after Muslims began to see their faith as an historical actor on the world stage, they needed to narrate Islam's birth anew as well as to imagine its possible death. Faisal Devji argues that this change, sparked by the crisis of Muslim sovereignty in the age of European empire, provided a way of thinking about agency in a global context: an Islam liberated from the authority of kings and clerics had the potential to represent the human race itself as a newly empirical reality. Ordinary Muslims, now recognized as the privileged representatives of Islam, were freed from traditional forms of Islamic authority. However, their conception of Islam as an impersonal actor in history meant that it could not be defined in either religious or political terms. Its existence as a civilizational and later ideological subject also deprived figures like God and the Prophet of their theological subjectivities while robbing the Muslim community of its political agency. Devji illuminates this history and explores its ramifications for the contemporary Muslim world. Rounak Bose is a doctoral student in History at the University of Delaware. His research explores the historical categories of caste, religion, ecology, and sovereignties in South Asia and Indian Ocean networks. Besides these specific interests, his disciplinary interests revolve around public history, anthropology, literary studies, the digital humanities, and more recently, the history and politics of Artificial Intelligence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • Jasbeer Musthafa Mamalipurath, "TEDified Islam: Postsecular Storytelling in New Media" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)

    Jasbeer Musthafa Mamalipurath, "TEDified Islam: Postsecular Storytelling in New Media" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024)
    Nov 21 2025
    Jasbeer Mamalipurath’s TEDified Islam: Postsecular Storytelling in New Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) is the first of its kind in-depth examination of the TedTalk phenomenon and in particular how Islam and Muslim experiences are represented in these talks. Mamalipurath argues that TED Talks on Islam are part of a larger postsecular (the secular's renewed interest in faith) discourse. The book examines the perspectives of Muslim and non-Muslim TED viewers about TED's storytelling strategies. Finally, the book studies aspects of the authority that both Muslim and non-Muslim TED speakers represent and embody as ‘spokespersons of Islam.’ By doing so, this book offers an empirical and context-oriented understanding of postsecular storytelling by problematizing secular translations of Islam that are part of this TED talk universe. Themes the book explores include the nature of storytelling in a postsecular media environment, insider and outsider dynamics in how Islam is constructed and represented in digital media, the impacts of the 20th and 21st century media environment on how Islam and Muslim lives are translated for primarily non-Muslim audiences, the influence of Jewish and Christian frameworks on how stories of Islam get told, and the role of religion as faith in secular storytelling today. Listeners will certainly never look at TedTalks the same way after learning about the strategies, stories, and consequences of TEDified Islam from Mamalipurath’s research. Dr. Jasbeer Mamalipurath is a lecturer in media and broadcast studies at the School of Arts, English and Languages, Queen's University Belfast (UK). His research sits at the intersection of media, society, and culture. Dr. Jaclyn Michael is Associate Professor of Religion at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (USA). She is the author of several articles on Muslim cultural representation, performance, and religious belonging in India and in the United States. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion
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    1 hr and 14 mins
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