Category: Religion

March 17, 2011

Craig Calhoun on Religion's Many Powers

“To say that religion has power in the public sphere is not to say that it can be easily absorbed or that it should be. It is a basis for radical challenges and radical questions; it brings enthusiasm, passion, indignation,...

March 15, 2011

New Book Tuesday: Religion and International Theory

Just one new book this week: Religion and International Relations Theory Edited by Jack Snyder Includes contributions by Jack Snyder, Timothy Samuel Shah, Daniel Philpott, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, Michael Barnett, Monica Duffy Toft, Daniel H. Nexon, Il Hyun Cho, J....

March 8, 2011

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam: Postmodern Islam and the Arab Revolts

Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, author of A Metahistory of the Clash of Civilisations: Us and Them Beyond Orientalism, recently wrote an op-ed for Open Democracy on the revolutions in the Arab world, in which he argues: What is striking about this moment...

February 15, 2011

New Book Tuesday — A New Book from Judith Butler, Jurgen Habermas, and Cornel West

The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere Judith Butler, Jurgen Habermas, Charles Taylor, Cornel West, Edited by Eduardo Mendieta, and Jonathan VanAntwerpen Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique: Dialogues Edited by Gabriel Rockhill and Alfredo Gomez-Muller; with...

January 14, 2011

Olivier Roy Talks to the New Humanist about Holy Ignorance

“The more you believe the less you know – or the less you want to know [and that] is the exact definition of holy ignorance.”—Olivier Roy The above quote comes from a recent interview with the New Humanist and Olivier...

November 10, 2010

Obama’s new bid to engage the Muslim World — A Post by Roger Hardy

In light of Obama’s trip to Indonesia, Roger Hardy, author of The Muslim Revolt: A Journey Through Political Islam, looks at the administration’s attempts to wins the “hearts and minds” of the Muslim world in an op-ed on the BBC....

November 9, 2010

An Interview with B. Alan Wallace

The following is an interview with B. Alan Wallace, author of Meditations of a Buddhist Skeptic: A Manifesto for the Mind Sciences and Contemplative Practice coming out Fall 2011. In this interview Wallace reflects on some of the major ideas...

September 28, 2010

John Calvert on Sayyid Qutb

On Rorotoko, John Calvert. author of Sayyid Qutb and the Origins of Radical Islamism, offers a fascinating discussion of the subject of his book and his ambitions in writing the book. While recognizing the faults of Qutb’s fundamentalist thought, he...

September 21, 2010

"Fried chicken and French fries to snack. Soccer after school. Hip hop music. Nike threads. Family obligations. Difference has rarely been so strikingly familiar"

Justin Gest begins his book Apart: Alienated and Engaged Muslims in the West with a description of the young man portrayed on the cover of the book (see above). Zak lives on London’s East End in an unfinished project. Like...

September 2, 2010

Summer Reading from The Immanent Frame

The Immanent Frame, a blog on secularism, religion, and the public sphere hosted on the Social Science Research Council’s site, recently asked some of its contributors what they had read and liked over the summer. It is a great list...

August 12, 2010

Richard Bulliet on the Mosque at Ground Zero

An article from the new web site, Capital, recently interviewed Richard Bulliet, author of The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, about the proposed Mosque at Ground Zero. Bulliet admits that when he first heard about the project he thought it might...

July 21, 2010

Eliot Wolfson's Open Secret reviewed in Tablet

In an article in Tablet about Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the former Lubavichter leader of the Chabad movement, Adam Kirsch discusses Eliot Wolfson’s new book Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menahem Mendel Schneerson. Kirsch, who calls Wolfson’s...