New Books in 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

Do historians of East Asia sufficiently account for the role of religious communities in the construction of history? Of course, there are histories of the Taiping Rebellion, and groups like Soka Gakkai or Falungong. But have historians probed how these movements have shaped the history of China and Japan more generally? Thomas David DuBois, Senior Research Fellow at Australian National University, argues that religion forcefully shaped the social, political, military, and economic dimensions of modern East Asia. In his new book, Religion and the Making of Modern East Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2011), DuBois explores a variety of religious actors and groups who were influential from the fourteenth century until today. The book outlines both continuing characteristics, such as Chinese millenarian movements and heresies, Japanese temples and funerals, Zen Buddhism and the Samurai, and also key events, including Matteo Ricci’s efforts in China, the Buddhist danka system, the Boxer Uprising, D.T. Suzuki, and the Dalai Lama. DuBois also explores how East Asian religions are transforming in a globalizing world and the effects the will have on the future of East Asia. During our too brief conversation we discussed Zhu Yuanzhang, the success and failures of Christian Missionaries, Buddhism and Shinto in the Tokugawa and Meiji periods, the diversity of Japanese Buddhisms, the Chinese Communist Party’s position on religion, and new religious movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Sikivu Hutchinson‘s book Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars (Infidel Books, 2011) is a brave examination of African American religious perspectives vis a vis progressive racial politics, gender relations, and cultural values. She tackles uncomfortable questions about the possibly excessive role of religiosity among African Americans, especially woman. And she wonders even as she offers a critique about the abundance of storefront churches in communities that need essential resources. Why so many churches? Why so few activist cultural institutions? A prolific cultural critic and writer, Hutchinson received a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from New York University and has taught women’s studies, cultural studies, urban studies and education at UCLA, the California Institute of the Arts and Western Washington University. She is also the author of Imagining Transit: Race, Gender, and Transportation Politics in Los Angeles (Lang, 2003) and has published fiction, essays and critical theory in Social Text, California English, Black Agenda Report, Free Inquiry and American Atheist Magazine. She is the editor of blackfemlens.org and a senior fellow for the Institute for Humanist Studies. Readers can also look forward to the publication of her latest project, Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels. But for now, enjoy our conversation about Moral Combat. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Many academics, especially in the aftermath of September 11th, have had to become a public authority on Islam. This is largely due to the ongoing negative portrayal of Muslims in the media and the numerous misconceptions individuals derive from these portraits. Others have noted some of the consequences of this new call many Islamicists choose to answer but in this new volume, Theorizing Islam: Disciplinary Deconstruction and Reconstruction (Equinox, 2012), the types of scholarship scholars of Islam produce are put under the microscope. In this book, Aaron Hughes, professor in the Department of Religion and Classics at the University of Rochester, does not reflect on how Muslims understand the boundaries of their tradition but offers a study of the study of Islam. Overall, Hughes contends that scholars of Islam working in Religious Studies Departments generally reproduce apologetic portraits of Islam that do not effectively demonstrate the spectrum of Muslim perspectives. For Hughes, the result is that the complicated relationship between Islamic and Religious Studies is never resolved and Islamicist continue to remain relegated to their own quarter of the field and avoid contributing to larger ongoing discourses. The provocation introduced in Theorizing Islam is a call for a more sophisticated approach to the academic study of Islam, which accounts for critical theory and methodology. In our conversation we discuss contemporary presentations of Muhammad’s life, how research is affected when stepping into the public discourse about Islam, the rhetorical dichotomy of culture and religion, orientalism, historicity versus redaction, institutional and academic affiliation, and when the academic study of religion work best. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion