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Imagine if you could explore, with genuine curiosity, the most controversial and divisive topics of our time. The conversations would push you to explore new areas and uncover insightful ‘a-ha’ moments that pique your interest. These talks could help answer the questions you may have, like: why would anyone support capital punishment? Or, what are the pros and cons to tobacco control, or public healthcare, or legalizing sex work? I’m Christopher, and I have created engaging Podcast discussio ...
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In honour of his 300th New Books Network podcast, a flip interview featuring a candid conversation with NBN host Raj Balkaran ranging from scholarship, to teaching, to entrepreneurship, and beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/…
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In his book Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2023), J. Christopher Edwards explores the early Christian teachings regarding who actually killed Jesus. Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general p…
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Meat, Mercy, and Morality: Animals and Humanitarianism in Colonial Bengal, 1850-1920 (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Samiparna Samanta disentangles complex discourses around humanitarianism to understand the nature of British colonialism in India. Dr. Samanta contends that the colonial project of animal protection in late nineteenth-century …
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The “barbarian” nomads of the Eurasian steppes have played a decisive role in world history, but their achievements have gone largely unnoticed. These nomadic tribes have produced some of the world’s greatest conquerors: Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, among others. Their deeds still resonate today. Indeed, these nomads built long-lasti…
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Seasoned scholar Asko Parpola discusses his Indological career, from how it began in the 1960s to what he’s working on now. Key themes include his longstanding work on Sāmaveda Jaiminīya texts, the Indus valley script, and the ancient Indo-European Aryans. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hi…
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Seasoned scholar Asko Parpola discusses his Indological career, from how it began in the 1960s to what he’s working on now. Key themes include his longstanding work on Sāmaveda Jaiminīya texts, the Indus valley script, and the ancient Indo-European Aryans. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hi…
  continue reading
 
Our contemporary world is inescapably Greek. Whether in a word like “pandemic,” a Freudian state of mind like the “Oedipus complex,” or a replica of the Parthenon in a Chinese theme park, ancient Greek culture shapes the contours of our lives. Ever since the first Roman imitators, we have been continually falling under the Greeks’ spell. But how di…
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Greg Bailey discusses his new translation of the Gaṇeśa Khaṇḍa of the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa, one of the few texts dedicated solely to the popular elephant-headed Indian god Gaṇeśa. About the book: The first two khaas of the Brahmavaivarta Puraa (BvP) deal with Brahma and Prakti respectively. Both introducing the theology that enables Ka to be treat…
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Greg Bailey discusses his new translation of the Gaṇeśa Khaṇḍa of the Brahmavaivarta Purāṇa, one of the few texts dedicated solely to the popular elephant-headed Indian god Gaṇeśa. About the book: The first two khaas of the Brahmavaivarta Puraa (BvP) deal with Brahma and Prakti respectively. Both introducing the theology that enables Ka to be treat…
  continue reading
 
The mantra known as Gāyatrī or Sāvitrī (Ṛgveda III 62.10) is one of the most frequently recited texts of mankind. Over the course of time it has not only been personified as the mother of the Vedas – the oldest religious literature of South Asia –, but has even come to be venerated as a goddess. Today many consider it the most important, most effic…
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The mantra known as Gāyatrī or Sāvitrī (Ṛgveda III 62.10) is one of the most frequently recited texts of mankind. Over the course of time it has not only been personified as the mother of the Vedas – the oldest religious literature of South Asia –, but has even come to be venerated as a goddess. Today many consider it the most important, most effic…
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Sanskrit narrative is the lifeblood of Indian culture, encapsulating and perpetuating insights and values central to Indian thought and practice. Raj Balkaran and McComas Taylor's edited volume Visions and Revisions in Sanskrit Narrative: Studies in the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas (ANU Press, 2023) brings together eighteen of the foremost scholars a…
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Sanskrit narrative is the lifeblood of Indian culture, encapsulating and perpetuating insights and values central to Indian thought and practice. Raj Balkaran and McComas Taylor's edited volume Visions and Revisions in Sanskrit Narrative: Studies in the Sanskrit Epics and Purāṇas (ANU Press, 2023) brings together eighteen of the foremost scholars a…
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In her book Hell Hath No Fury: Gender, Disability, and the Invention of Damned Bodies in Early Christian Literature (Yale University Press, 2021), Meghan Henning illuminates how the bodies that populate hell in early Christian literature are punished after death in spaces that mirror real carceral spaces, effectually criminalizing those bodies on E…
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The Rabbinic Sages of the Tannaitic era were fixated on memory and terrified of forgetfulness. In promulgating their own interpretations of Jewish law, the Tannaim not only took seriously Moses’s admonitions to remember and not forget, they painstakingly constructed a system of laws thar recognized that helped create and enhance a powerful and dyna…
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Exegetes have long relied on the framework of the Acts of the Apostles to understand the behavior and organization of Paul’s various ekklēsiai (assemblies), or church communities, from which Christ-groups have often been conceptualized as extensions from practices of diasporic Jewish synagogues. However, Richard S. Ascough’s work has been at the fo…
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Keith Cantú's Like a Tree Universally Spread: Sri Sabhapati Swami And Śivarājayoga (Oxford UP, 2023) examines the life of a nineteenth- to early twentieth-century Tamil yogin named Sri Sabhapati Swami (Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmī or Capāpati Cuvāmikaḷ, ca. 1828-1923/4) and his unique English, Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali literature on a Sanskrit-based system …
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Today I talked to Steven B. Bowman about his book Sepher Yosippon: A Tenth-Century History of Ancient Israel (Wayne State UP, 2022). Sepher Yosippon was written in Hebrew by a medieval historian noted by modern scholars for its eloquent style. This is the first known chronicle of Jewish history and legend from Adam to the destruction of the Second …
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In The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya (SUNY Press, 2023), Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure prior to the Buddha. Drawing on history, literary studies, ritual studies, Sanskrit philology, narrative studies…
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In The Literary Life of Yājñavalkya (SUNY Press, 2023), Steven E. Lindquist investigates the intersections between historical context and literary production in the "life" of Yājñavalkya, the most important ancient Indian literary figure prior to the Buddha. Drawing on history, literary studies, ritual studies, Sanskrit philology, narrative studies…
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Vanessa R. Sasson's book The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women (Equinox, 2023) is a retelling of the story of the first Buddhist women's request for ordination. Inspired by the Therigatha and building on years of research and experience in the field, Sasson follows Vimala, Patachara, Bhadda Kundalakesa, and many others as they walk thr…
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Vanessa R. Sasson's book The Gathering: A Story of the First Buddhist Women (Equinox, 2023) is a retelling of the story of the first Buddhist women's request for ordination. Inspired by the Therigatha and building on years of research and experience in the field, Sasson follows Vimala, Patachara, Bhadda Kundalakesa, and many others as they walk thr…
  continue reading
 
In the ancient Mediterranean world, individuals routinely looked for divine aid to cure physical afflictions. Contested Cures: Identity and Ritual Healing in Roman and Late Antique Palestine (Edinburgh University Press, 2022) by Dr. Megan Nutzman argues that the inevitability of sickness and injury made people willing to experiment with seemingly b…
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The obvious riddles and difficulties in Exodus 3:13-15 and 6:2-8 have attracted an overwhelming amount of attention and comment. These texts make important theological statements about the divine name and the contours of the divine character. In his book Making Sense of the Divine Name in the Book of Exodus: From Etymology to Literary Onomastics (E…
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Belisarius and Antonina were titans in the Roman world some 1,500 years ago. Belisarius was the most well-known general of his age, victor over the Persians, conqueror of the Vandals and the Goths, and as if this were not enough, wealthy beyond imagination. His wife, Antonina, was an impressive person in her own right. She made a name for herself b…
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In this volume entitled Biblical Heroes and Classical Culture in Christian Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2023), Carson Bay focuses on an important but neglected work of Late Antiquity: Pseudo-Hegesippus' On the Destruction of Jerusalem (De Excidio Hierosolymitano), a Latin history of later Second Temple Judaism written during the fourth century CE.…
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A Lasting Vision: Dandin's Mirror in the World of Asian Letters (Oxford University Press, 2023) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary volume that introduces a remarkably long-lasting poetic treatise, the Mirror on Literature (Kavyadarsha), whose impact extended far beyond its origins in the south of India in 700 CE. Editor Yigal Bronner does not me…
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A Lasting Vision: Dandin's Mirror in the World of Asian Letters (Oxford University Press, 2023) is a collaborative, interdisciplinary volume that introduces a remarkably long-lasting poetic treatise, the Mirror on Literature (Kavyadarsha), whose impact extended far beyond its origins in the south of India in 700 CE. Editor Yigal Bronner does not me…
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Christopher Jain Miller's book Embodying Transnational Yoga: Eating, Singing, and Breathing in Transformation (Routledge, 2023) is a refreshingly original, multi-sited ethnography of transnational yoga that obliges us to look beyond postural practice (as̄ana) in modern yoga research. The book introduces readers to three alternative, understudied ca…
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My discussion with Mahmoud Mourra on the protests against LGBTQ discussions in the classroom. Support the show Visit my Website: https://openmindspodcast.com/ Check out my Instagram/Tik Tok for daily posts: Instagram @openmindspod Tiktok @openmindspodcast ChristiTutionalist Politics podcast (Freedom OF Religion, not From Religion) CTP: Weekly (week…
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Réka Máté's Portrayals of Women in Pakistan: An Analysis of Fahmīdah Riyāẓ's Urdu Poetry (de Gruyter, 2023) examines the connection between progressivism and feminist movements in the Indian subcontinent, scrutinizing shifting portrayals of women in Fahmīdah Riyāẓ’s poetry at the time of her writing from a historical perspective, and the historical…
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When King Arthur was conveyed to Avalon they were there. When Odin summoned warriors to Valhalla they were there. When Apollo was worshipped on Greek mountains they were there. When Brendan came to the Island of Women they were there. They are the Nine Maidens – from the mothers of the Norse God Heimdall, Morgan and her sisters on Avalon, to the ni…
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Proxy wars like those in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine have played major roles in military history. Historian Paul Rahe takes us back to one of the earliest yet most influential proxy wars in the West: Athens' invasions of Spartan-backed Sicily. Here, he discusses his most recent book, Sparta's Sicilian Proxy War (Encounter Books, 2023), th…
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Excavating and interpreting Paul’s thought, belief, ideas, and mission from his authentic letters and those otherwise attributed to him remains an ongoing effort in scholarship, with several competing perspectives vying for prominence. Matthew Thiessen advances an important reading of Paul within first-century Judaism, which he conceives not as a m…
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Late Classical Chinese Thought (Oxford University Press, 2023) is Chris Fraser's topically organized study of the Warring States period of Chinese philosophy, the third century BCE. In addition to well-known texts like the Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Mencius, Fraser's book introduces readers to Lu's Annals, the Guanzi, the Hanfeizi, the Shangjun Shu, and …
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A candid conversation with Corinne Dempsey on her wide-ranging, fascinating research in religion, from the Indian Goddess in New York and Icelandic Spirit Work. Books The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York: Breaking Convention and Making Home at a North American Hindu Temple Kerala Christian Sainthood: Collisions of Culture and Worldview in South In…
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In 1798, young French general Napoleon Bonaparte entered Egypt with a veteran army and a specialist group of savants—scientists, engineers, and artists—his aim being not just conquest, but the rediscovery of the lost Nile kingdom. A year later, in the ruins of an old fort in the small port of Rosetta, the savants made a startling discovery: a large…
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Edith Hamilton (1867-1963) didn't publish her first book until she was sixty-two. But over the next three decades, this former headmistress would become the twentieth century's most famous interpreter of the classical world. Today, Hamilton's Mythology (1942) remains the standard version of ancient tales and sells tens of thousands of copies a year…
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The Apostle Paul's Letter to the Romans has been foundational for Christianity, and well-studied throughout the history of the Church. Ben Witherington, however, gleans fresh insights by reading Paul's epistle in light of early Jewish theology, the historical situation of Rome in the middle of the first century, and Paul's own rhetorical concerns. …
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The Indian sage Ramana Maharshi (1879- 1950) is perhaps the most widely known Indian spiritual figure of the last century, second only to Gandhi. Patrick Laude's book Surrendering to the Self: Ramana Maharshi's Message for the Present (Hurst, 2021) offers a fresh introduction to the Maharshi's life and teachings, intending to situate him within the…
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LGBTQ issues have been in the news, particularly with more parents and concerned citizens worried about school curricula including discussions on gender fluidity and sexual orientation. I chat with Dean Lobo and Reenita V of the 519, a local non-profit in Toronto that works with the LGBTQ2+ community on these issues. Connect with the 519: https://w…
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Learn about the history and mandate of the Inter-University Centre, which is affiliated with over one hundred academic institutions across the globe. The Centre hosts international advanced academic events in a wide array of fields, located on the Adriatic coast in the historically rich city of Dubrovnik. Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narra…
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In From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylonia (Mohr Siebeck, 2017), Seth L. Sanders offers a history of first-millennium scribes through their heavenly journeys and heroes, treating the visions of ancient Mesopotamian and Judean literature as pragmatic things made by people. He presents each scribal culture as …
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Tom Boomershine, one of the pioneers of performance criticism for biblical texts, joined the New Books Network to discuss the publication of First-Century Gospel Storytellers and Audiences: The Gospels as Performance Literature (Cascade Books, 2022), a collection of his essays dating back to 1981. On this episode, we discuss his life and career in …
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Against High-Caste Polygamy: An Annotated Translation (Oxford UP, 2023) offers a complete, annotated translation of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar's 1871 tract arguing against the practice of high-caste Kulin marriage in Bengal. Vidyasagar published this work fifteen years after passage of the Hindu Widow's Remarriage Act, which owed so much to his earli…
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There is a lot of talk about online learning, and particularly universities going online. Today I talked to Caleb Simmons, Executive Director of Arizona Online (and notable scholar of religion and South Asian Studies). We talk about how online learning is done at Arizona and the promise of online learning generally. Listeners might be interested in…
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Sumit Chakrabarti's book Local Selfhood, Global Turns: Akshay Kumar Dutta and Public Culture in Nineteenth-Century Bengal (Cambridge UP, 2023) examines the works of Akshay Kumar Dutta (1820-1886), who can be seen as ideologically inhabiting the cusp between religion and rationalism - the two most crucial avenues of debate and discussion in the publ…
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Petition to the Law Society of Alberta: https://www.change.org/p/get-politics-out-of-the-law-society-of-alberta?recruiter=1292735136&recruited_by_id=c75c5010-9907-11ed-b6c6-876123ba9012&utm_source=share_petition&utm_campaign=share_petition&utm_medium=copylink&pt=AVBldGl0aW9uADVRwAEAAAAAZLCEO0uX024yZjE2NDM1OQ%3D%3D&utm_content=cl_sharecopy_36827011_…
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