New Books in Religion

In her new book, Identity, Youth, and Gender in the Korean American Church (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Dr. Christine Hong explores the lives of female Korean American Mainline Christian adolescents. Hong’s work, an exercise in feminist ethnography and practical theology, focuses on the difficulties these young women encounter as people who face marginalization within both broader American society and their own faith communities, and discusses ways to help them overcome these obstacles. Hong’s sensitive analysis is sure to benefit anyone interested in religion, ethnicity, and youth in America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, a writer and former journalist, introduces us to the larger-than-life personality Harry Golden. A writer, publisher, and humorist, as well as activist, Golden used his popularity and incredibly wide network for a variety of causes, most notably the civil rights movement. Hartnett explores the ways Golden utilized his talents (he was, at his core, a salesman) to make America more equal and free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

What are the differences between religion, magic, and spirituality? Over time, these categories have been articulated in a variety of ways across differing cultures. However, many assume that the multiple understandings are merely derivative of western assertions about secular modernity. In The Modern Spirit of Asia: The Spiritual and the Secular in China and India (Princeton University Press, 2013), Peter van der Veer, director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, explores how Chinese and South Asians interpreted western discourses about religion and spirituality. Through his work he demonstrates that cross-cultural comparison provides us with a complex interactional history, where non-western participants shape their own visions of society, nation, and self, often in dialogue with westerners but not dependent on them. In our conversation we discussed scholarly conceptualizations of Asian traditions, secularism, European imperialism, Mohandas Gandhi, nationalism, modern interpretations of Buddhism and Daoism, Christian Missionaries, political spirituality, religious minorities and the state, and Chinese and Indian modernities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Saba Mahmood, Professor of Anthropology at UC Berkeley, challenges the belief that secularism is the solution to religious violence. She argues that political secularism exacerbates religious tensions in the Middle East. Mahmood explores the genealogy of minority rights, the influence of Evangelical Christian histories, and the contradictions of secularism. She also discusses the regulation of Baha'i identity, the concept of secularity, and the implications of the Shia-Sunni conflict in South Asia.

Mark A. Smith is the author of Secular Faith: Culture Has Trumped Religion in American Politics (University of Chicago Press, 2015). Smith is professor of political science at the University of Washington. The provocative central thesis of this book is that religion is not the unchanging institution of tradition we might sometimes think. Smith argues that religion in the U.S., especially the Christian church, responds to changing political and cultural values rather than shaping them. Smith makes his case by charting five contentious issues in America’s history: slavery, divorce, homosexuality, abortion, and women’s rights. For each, he shows how the political views of even the most conservative Christians evolved in the same direction as the rest of society–perhaps not as swiftly, but always on the same arc. During periods of cultural transition, Christian leaders may resist prevailing values and behaviors, yet those same leaders eventually change–often by reinterpreting the Bible–if their positions become no longer tenable. Secular ideas and influences thereby shape the ways Christians read and interpret their scriptures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Finalist, 2015 National Jewish Book Award In her new book Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel (Northwestern University Press, 2015), Leah Garrett, the Loti Smorgon (Professor of Contemporary Jewish Life and Culture at Monash University in Australia) takes the reader through best-selling novels of World War II. These novels became source material for American’s popular perceptions of that war and a mirror on American society back home. Garrett tells the back story of how each novel was written, how much they reveal of their famous authors’ war experiences and how they reflect the politics of each authors perspective on America. Manyof the great American war novels published during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s were written by Jewish authors. Listen to Garrett’s explanation to understand why that was the case.You don’t need to have read Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Herman Wouk’s The Caine Mutiny, Leon Uris’s Battle Cry or Joseph Heller’s Catch 22 to enjoy this book. Garrett walks you through what you need to know to enjoy the findings she’s unearthed in her research.Reaching across disciplines, Garrett’s book about American war novels casts light on American culture at home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In Yankel’s Tavern: Jews, Liquor, and Life in the Kingdom of Poland (Oxford UP, 2014), Glenn Dynner, Professor of Religion at Sarah Lawrence College, explores the world of Jewish-run taverns in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. Jews had to fend off reformers and government officials that sought to drive Jews out of the liquor trade. Dynner argues that many nobles helped their Jewish tavernkeepers evade fees, bans, and expulsions by installing Christians as fronts for their taverns, revealing a surprising level of Polish-Jewish co-existence that changes the way we think about life in the Kingdom of Poland. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

In Obligation in Exile: The Jewish Diaspora, Israel and Critique (Edinburgh University Press, 2015), Ilan Baron, Lecturer in International Political Theory in the School of Government and International Affairs and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Jewish Culture, Society and Politics at Durham University, explores the transnational political obligation of Diaspora Jewry to have a relationship with Israel, including one of critique. The book, featuring Baron’s interviews about the Israel-Diaspora relationship with key figures and community leaders in North America, the UK, and Israel, combines empirical work with political theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

While “fundamentalism” and “authoritarian secularism” are commonly perceived as the two mutually exclusive paradigms available to Muslim majority countries Naser Ghobadzadeh‘s new book Religious Secularity: A Theological Challenge to the Islamic State (Oxford UP, 2014) highlights the recent political developments that challenge this binary perception. Ghobadzadeh examines the case of Iran which has been subject to both authoritarian secularization and authoritarian Islamization over the last nine decades. While politico-religious discourse in Iran is articulated in response to the Islamic state, it also bears signs of a third discourse. Ghobadzadeh conceptualizes this politico-religious discourse as religious secularity. He uses this apparent oxymoronic term to describe the Islamic quest for a democratic secular state. Naser Ghobadzadeh is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Justice, the Australian Catholic University (ACU). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Skepticism is a familiar term to many of us conjuring up notions of doubt, uncertainty, and perhaps even unbelief. Yet, Skepticism did not always have such a narrow meaning. In fact Skepticism has helped formulate a number of important religious and intellectual positions throughout history. Paul L. Heck‘s new book Skepticism in Classical Islam: Moments of Confusion (Routledge, 2013) is perhaps the first major treatment of skepticism in the Islamic context. This book explores the critical role skepticism played in the development of Islamic theology from the 10th through 14th centuries. Paul Heck suggests we should not understand skepticism as atheism. Rather, it is the admission that one cannot convincingly demonstrate a truth claim with certainty. Heck surveys a number of important Islamic scholars, such as Al-Jahiz, al-Amiri, Al-Ghazali, and Ibn Taymiyya, concluding they all acknowledged such impasses only to be inspired to find new ways to resolve the conundrums they faced. In his book Paul Heck examines the way these key thinkers, among others, in classical Islam faced perplexing theological and philosophical questions, all the while walking a fine line between belief in God’s message as revealed in the Qur’an and the power of the mind to discover truths on its own. Although this is a book about Islamic skepticism, Heck wants to stimulate scholars in the field of religious studies to inquire into how skepticism has formed, and continues to form, a constitutive part of religious reasoning and how we understand the nature of religion. Seeking to put Islam on the map of the broader study of the history of skepticism, I believe this book will be of interest to scholars and students of Religion, History, Islamic Studies, and Philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion