Episodios

  • Robert E. Jones, "Priesthood, Cult, and Temple in the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran: Analyzing a Pre-Hasmonean Jewish Literary Tradition" (Brill, 2023)

    Robert E. Jones, "Priesthood, Cult, and Temple in the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran: Analyzing a Pre-Hasmonean Jewish Literary Tradition" (Brill, 2023)
    Jul 8 2024
    The Hellenistic period was a pivotal moment in the history of the Jewish priesthood. The waning days of the Persian empire coincided with the continued ascendance of the high priest and Jerusalem temple as powerful political, cultural, and religious institutions in Judea. The Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran, only recently published in full, testify to the existence of a flourishing but previously unknown Jewish literary tradition dating from the end of Persian rule to the rise of the Hasmoneans. In Priesthood, Cult, and Temple in the Aramaic Scrolls from Qumran: Analyzing a Pre-Hasmonean Jewish Literary Tradition (Brill, 2023), Robert Jones analyzes how Israel's priestly institutions are represented in these writings, and he demonstrates that they are essential for understanding the Jewish priesthood at this crucial stage in its history.
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    52 m
  • Travis B. Williams et al., "The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture" (Brill, 2023)

    Travis B. Williams et al., "The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture" (Brill, 2023)
    Jul 1 2024
    Media studies is an emerging discipline that is quickly making an impact within the wider field of biblical scholarship. The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture (Brill, 2023) is designed to evaluate the status quaestionis of the Dead Sea Scrolls as products of an ancient media culture, with leading scholars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and related disciplines reviewing how scholarship has addressed issues of ancient media in the past, assessing the use of media criticism in current research, and outlining potential directions for future discussions.
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    1 h y 28 m
  • Judith Vitale et al., "Drugs and the Politics of Consumption in Japan" (Brill, 2023)

    Judith Vitale et al., "Drugs and the Politics of Consumption in Japan" (Brill, 2023)
    Jun 22 2024
    In early modern Japan, upper status groups coveted pills and powders made of exotic foreign ingredients such as mummy and rhinoceros horn. By the early twentieth century, over-the-counter-patent medicines, and, more alarmingly, morphine, had become mass commodities, fueling debates over opiates in Japan's expanding imperial territories. The fall of the empire and the occupation of Japan by the United States created conditions favorable for heroin use, followed, in time, by glue sniffing and psychedelic mushroom ingestion. By illuminating the neglected history of drugs, Drugs and the Politics of Consumption in Japan (Brill, 2023) highlights both the transnational embeddedness and national peculiarities of the "politics of consumption" in Japan.
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    1 h y 13 m
  • The Religious Landscape of Taiwan: A Discussion with Yushuang Yao

    The Religious Landscape of Taiwan: A Discussion with Yushuang Yao
    Jun 21 2024
    How is Buddhism seen and practiced in Taiwan? And how do neighbouring countries influence Taiwanese Buddhism? In this episode we explore the religious landscape of Taiwan in conversation with Dr. Yushuang Yao, a leading expert on religion in contemporary Taiwan. Yushuang Yao is an Associate Professor at Fo Guang University, Taiwan, specializing in contemporary religions of Taiwan. She is also a research fellow at Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies, and currently professorial fellow at the University of Tartu with "Taiwan Studies Programme”. Heidi Maiberg, the host of the episode, is the Head of Communication at the University of Tartu Asia Centre.
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    56 m
  • Tahera Qutbuddin, trans., "Nahj al-Balāghah: The Wisdom and Eloquence of ʿAlī" (Brill, 2024)

    Tahera Qutbuddin, trans., "Nahj al-Balāghah: The Wisdom and Eloquence of ʿAlī" (Brill, 2024)
    Jun 17 2024
    Nahj al-Balagha is among the most powerful, consequential, and linguistically brilliant masterpieces of Arabic and of Islamic thought and literature. Based on the orations, letters, and sayings of wisdom of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661), the first Imam or successor to Prophet Muhammad in Shi‘i Islam and the fourth caliph in Sunni Islam, this oral treasure was compiled and brought together as a text by the late tenth/early eleventh scholar and poet Al-Sharif al-Radi (d. 1015). In this episode I speak with Professor Tahera Qutbuddin who has provided us with a majestic and brilliant complete English translation of Nahj al-Balagha titled Nahj al-Balāgha: The Wisdom and Eloquence of ‘Alī (Brill, 2024), a parallel English-Arabic text published open access by Brill. The publication of this volume is an event of seismic importance in the study of Islam, religion, and Arabic. Qutbuddin’s translation is animated with the purpose of rendering the Arabic text of Nahj al-Balagha in English in a fashion that amplifies its literary and philosophical potency, a task at which she excels throughout the translation. The experience of reading this translation is nothing short of a deeply moving, philosophically enriching, and linguistically powerful rhapsody. In addition to an eminently user friendly translation with the particular sections and moments of Nahj al-Balagha clearly marked out, Qutbuddin also presents an erudite account of the text’s reception, reception history, and archival density. This outstanding volume will also be a joy to teach and use as primary source material in a range of courses on Islam, religion, Arabic, and the Humanities more broadly. SherAli Tareen is Professor of Religious Studies at Franklin and Marshall College. His research focuses on Muslim intellectual traditions and debates in early modern and modern South Asia. His book Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020) received the American Institute of Pakistan Studies 2020 Book Prize and was selected as a finalist for the 2021 American Academy of Religion Book Award. His second book is called Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023). His other academic publications are available here. Listener feedback is most welcome.
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    1 h y 44 m
  • Julia Wojnowska-Radzińska, "Implications of Pre-Emptive Data Surveillance for Fundamental Rights in the European Union" (Brill Nijhoff, 2023)

    Julia Wojnowska-Radzińska, "Implications of Pre-Emptive Data Surveillance for Fundamental Rights in the European Union" (Brill Nijhoff, 2023)
    Jun 12 2024
    In Implications of Pre-Emptive Data Surveillance for Fundamental Rights in the European Union (Brill Nijhoff, 2023) Julia Wojnowska-Radzińska offers a comprehensive legal analysis of various forms of pre-emptive data surveillance adopted by the European legislator and their impact on fundamental rights. It also identifies what minimum guarantees have to be set up to recognize pre-emptive data surveillance as a legitimate measure in a democratic society. The book aims to answer the essential question of how to strike the proper balance between fundamental rights and security interests in the digital age. Caleb Zakarin is Editor at the New Books Network.
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    35 m
  • Youngna Kim, "Korean Art Since 1945: Challenges and Changes" (Brill, 2024)

    Youngna Kim, "Korean Art Since 1945: Challenges and Changes" (Brill, 2024)
    Jun 8 2024
    In this beautiful new book, Dr. Youngna Kim draws on her vast understanding of Korean art to provide an overview of the peninsula’s contemporary art scene. Korean artists have become increasingly active at an international level, with many being invited for residencies and exhibitions all over the world. Nonetheless, for various reasons, the general understanding of Korean contemporary art remains insufficient. Korean Art since 1945: Challenges and Changes (Brill, 2024) is volume 9 in the series Modern Asian Art and Visual Culture. The book draws on primary sources to discuss the ideological stakes that affected the art world, modernist art vs. political art, and the fluidity of concepts such as tradition and national identity. Moreover, the book also has a chapter on the art of North Korea. The book is an excellent resource for anyone interested in Korean studies or contemporary art. Dr. Youngna Kim is Professor Emerita of the Department of Archaeology and Art History at Seoul National University and was the Director of the National Museum of Korea from 2011 until 2016. Dr. Kim received her bachelor’s degree from Muhlenberg College and her Ph.D. in the History of Art from The Ohio State University. She has many publications to her name about Korea’s ever-evolving art scene. Buy Youngna Kim’s new book about Korean art before independence (only available in Korean) here. Leslie Hickman is a translator and writer. She has an MA in Korean Studies from Yonsei University and lives in Seoul, South Korea. You can follow her activities at https://twitter.com/AJuseyo.
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    30 m
  • Joshua Paul Smith, "Luke Was Not a Christian: Reading the Third Gospel and Acts Within Judaism" (Brill, 2024)

    Joshua Paul Smith, "Luke Was Not a Christian: Reading the Third Gospel and Acts Within Judaism" (Brill, 2024)
    Jun 3 2024
    One orthodoxy of critical biblical scholarship on the Third Gospel, attributed by later Christian tradition to a companion of Paul named Luke, holds that its author was not ethnically Jewish but rather a Gentile of some kind, either a proselyte to Judaism, a “Godfearer” once attached to a diasporic synagogue, or perhaps a pagan convert to a form of early Christianity reverent to Israel’s scriptures. In Luke Was Not A Christian: Reading the Third Gospel and Acts within Judaism (Brill, 2024), Joshua Paul Smith addresses the consensus for the supposedly Gentile Luke and concludes that no solid New Testament or patristic evidence exists to substantiate such a claim. Moreover, Smith suggests by means of a cognitive linguistic analysis of insider and outsider terms in Luke and Acts, as well as their author’s attitudes toward the Torah and intricate knowledge of Jewish festival celebrations, that these books were more likely to have been written by an individual enculturated in “a Jewish setting … among the Hellenistic Jewish diaspora” (p. 233). Smith joined the New Books Network to discuss this revision of his Ph.D. thesis, our ability to know an ancient author through their textual remains, and why it would be inappropriate to interpret Luke’s full-throated embrace of the Gentile mission as an indicator of his non-Jewish identity. Joshua Paul Smith (Ph.D., University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology, 2021) teaches presently at Southeast Missouri State University. His research interests include literary and cognitive approaches to New Testament texts, as well as early Jewish and Christian identity formation. He is currently working on a short book on Acts for a general audience, and conducting research for an article that applies social network analysis to named characters in Luke and Acts. Additionally, he serves as Managing Editor for Reviews of the Enoch Seminar, publishing book reviews on a wide range of topics related to the study of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic origins. Rob Heaton (Ph.D., University of Denver, 2019) hosts Biblical Studies conversations for New Books in Religion and teaches New Testament, Christian origins, and early Christianity at Anderson University in Indiana. He recently authored The Shepherd of Hermas as Scriptura Non Grata: From Popularity in Early Christianity to Exclusion from the New Testament Canon (Lexington Books, 2023). For more about Rob and his work, or to offer feedback related to this episode, please visit his website at https://www.robheaton.com.
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    1 h y 43 m