Best Manuscript Library Podcasts (2025)

1
Candace Lukasik, "Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire" (NYU Press, 2025) 54:58

1d ago54:58

54:58

Coptic Orthodox Christians comprise the largest Christian community in the Middle East and are among the oldest Christian communities in the world. While once the objects of American missionary efforts, in recent years Copts have been in the spotlight for their Christianity. A spate of ISIS-related bombings and attacks have garnered worldwide atten…

1
Isaac Portilla, "Interfaith Dialogue and Mystical Consciousness in India: Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, the Hari-Hara Mystery, and the Hindu-Christian Encounter" (Routledge, 2025) 38:37

2d ago38:37

38:37

Interfaith Dialogue and Mystical Consciousness in India: Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Aurobindo, the Hari-Hara Mystery, and the Hindu-Christian Encounter (Routledge, 2025) is a research inquiry in interfaith studies that uses hermeneutical phenomenology to address vexing issues arising in the study of mysticism and enlightened sages. This book raises t…

1
Mark Somos, Matthew Cleary, Pablo Dufour, Edward Jones Corredera, and Emanuele Salerno, "The Unseen History of International Law" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:05:37

3d ago1:05:37

1:05:37

The Unseen History of International Law (Oxford University Press, 2025) locates and describes almost one thousand surviving copies of the first nine editions of Hugo Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis (IBP) published between 1625 and 1650. Meticulously reconstructing the publishing history of these first nine editions and cataloguing copies across hun…

1
Brook Ziporyn, "Experiments in Mystical Atheism: Godless Epiphanies from Daoism to Spinoza and Beyond" (U Chicago Press, 2024) 2:07:54

3d ago2:07:54

2:07:54

A new approach to the theism-scientism divide rooted in a deeper form of atheism. Western philosophy is stuck in an irresolvable conflict between two approaches to the spiritual malaise of our times: either we need more God (the “turn to religion”) or less religion (the New Atheism). In Experiments in Mystical Atheism: Godless Epiphanies from Daois…

1
Gregory N. Evon, "Salvaging Buddhism to Save Confucianism in Choson Korea (1392-1910)" (Cambria Press, 2023) 1:10:55

3d ago1:10:55

1:10:55

Salvaging Buddhism to Save Confucianism in Chosŏn Korea (1392-1910) (Cambria Press, 2023) is a fascinating book that sits at the intersection of Buddhist studies and premodern Korean literary history. Gregory N. Evon’s book unfolds in two parts: the first charts the history of the place, position, and status of Buddhism in Chosŏn Korea, charting ho…

1
Patrick McCartney, "Authenticity, Legitimacy and the Transglobal Yoga Industry: A Sociological Analysis of Shanti Mandir" (Routledge, 2025) 34:58

15d ago34:58

34:58

This book is a sociological study of knowledge and knowers and explores the production and perceived value of 'yogic knowledge', how distinction is curated, and how access to this knowledge is gained. The book focuses on the organization Shanti Mandir (SM) in India, a new religious movement, which was founded in 1987 by Swami Nityananda Saraswati. …

1
Simon Stjernholm, "Sensing Islam: Engaging and Contesting the Senses in Muslim Religiosity" (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2025) 45:23

17d ago45:23

45:23

Simon Stjernholm's new book Sensing Islam: Engaging and Contesting the Senses in Muslim Religiosity (Bloomsbury Press, 2025) considers specific case studies of embodiment and oratory productions by Muslims in Denmark, Sweden, and Cyprus. In the chapter on approaching God, we learn how rituals such as du‘a (intercessory prayers) or dhikr (remembranc…

1
Kathleen Miller, ed., "Doctrine and Disease in the British and Spanish Colonial World" (Penn State UP, 2025) 36:24

17d ago36:24

36:24

Kathleen Miller talks about her new edited volume, Doctrine and Disease in British and Spanish Colonial World (Penn State University Press, 2025). In the sixteenth century, unprecedented migration caused diseases to take hold in new locales, turning illness and the human body into battlegrounds for competing religious beliefs as well as the colonia…

1
Robert Garland, "What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife" (Princeton UP, 2025) 53:49

18d ago53:49

53:49

A lively story of death, What to Expect When You're Dead: An Ancient Tour of Death and the Afterlife (Princeton University Press, 2025) by Dr. Robert Garland explores the fascinating death-related beliefs and practices of a wide range of ancient cultures and traditions—Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Hindu, Jewish, Zoroastrian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Earl…

1
Yonatan Y. Brafman, "Critique of Halakhic Reason: Divine Commandments and Social Normativity" (Oxford UP, 2024) 1:05:20

18d ago1:05:20

1:05:20

For centuries, Jewish thinkers have asked two parallel questions. First, what is the reasoning behind an individual commandment and second, why bother heeding a command at all, something Dr. Brafman terms “reasons for” vs “reasons of” the commandments. In his newest book, Critique of Halakhic Reason: Divine Commandments and Social Normativity (Oxfo…

1
Sven Trakulhun, "Confronting Christianity: The Protestant Mission and the Buddhist Reform Movement in Nineteenth-Century Thailand" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 40:54

19d ago40:54

40:54

Siam had been dealing with Christian missionaries for centuries, but from the 1830s a new wave of Protestant missionaries began to work in Siam, just as the European imperial powers were encroaching on Southeast Asia. They brought with them modern science and technology, which was of interest to the Siamese elite, but at the same time they challeng…

1
Adi Nester, "Unsettling Difference: Music Drama, the Bible, and the Critique of German Jewish Identity" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:11:50

21d ago1:11:50

1:11:50

Adi Nester is an Assistant Professor of German and Jewish Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her first monograph, Unsettling Difference: Bible, Music Drama, and the Critique of German Jewish Identity, appeared with Cornell University Press. The book studies the discourse of Jewish difference in the first half of the twentie…

1
Maya Mayblin "Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desire, and the Turbulent Lives of Priest Politicians" (Fordham UP, 2024) 1:23:46

21d ago1:23:46

1:23:46

A richly cinematic and compelling look at priest-politicians in Brazil and their religious and secular entanglements, Vote of Faith: Democracy, Desire, and the Turbulent Lives of Priest Politicians (Fordham UP, 2024) explores the complex intersection of democracy, patriarchy, and religiosity in Brazil. For over a hundred years, Catholic priests hav…

1
Jessica X. Zu, "Just Awakening: Yogācāra Social Philosophy in Modern China" (Columbia UP, 2025) 1:28:02

22d ago1:28:02

1:28:02

Just Awakening: Yogācāra Social Philosophy in Modern China (Columbia University Press, 2025) uncovers a forgotten philosophy of social democracy inspired by Yogācāra, an ancient, nondualistic Buddhist philosophy that claims everything in the perceptible cosmos is mere consciousness and consists of multiple karmically connected yet bounded lifeworld…

1
Krista N. Dalton, "How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity" (Princeton UP, 2025) 55:14

23d ago55:14

55:14

At the turn of the common era, the Jewish communities of Roman Palestine saw the organization of a small group of literate Jewish men who devoted their lives to the interpretation and teaching of their sacred ancestral texts. In How Rabbis Became Experts: Social Circles and Donor Networks in Jewish Late Antiquity (Princeton University Press, 2025),…

1
Stephen Okey, "A Theology of Conversation: An Introduction to David Tracy" (Liturgical Press, 2018) 1:23:50

26d ago1:23:50

1:23:50

Sometimes described as "a theologian's theologian," David Tracy's scholarship has impacted countless thinkers around the globe. The complexity of his thought, however, has often made engaging his work into a daunting challenge. Combining analysis of the most influential features of Tracy's theology (theological method, the religious classic, public…

1
David G. Bonagura Jr, "100 Tough Questions for Catholics: Common Obstacles to Faith Today" (Sophia Institute, 2025) 1:07:41

27d ago1:07:41

1:07:41

David Bonagura teaches classical languages and theology at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York and Catholic International University; he also teaches high school kids. He invited them to ask their questions about the faith, which led to some exciting classroom discussions and David’s new book—100 Tough Questions for Catholics—which we are talking abo…

1
Anne C. Klein on Becoming a Buddha & Being Human too 1:28:47

27d ago1:28:47

1:28:47

You’re human, but are you also a Buddha? If so, which one comes first? What does it mean to be human? What is a Buddha exactly? Is our humanity lost or superseded if we become a Buddha? Such questions might interest our more philosophical listeners. Being Human and a Buddha Too (Wisdom Publications, 2023) by today’s guest Anne Klein explores the 7-…

1
Z'ev Ben Shimon Halevi: "The Kabbalistic Tree of Life" and "The Anointed" 24:22

28d ago24:22

24:22

The late Z'ev Ben Shimon HaLevi (Warren Kenton 1933-2020) wrote The Kabbalistic Tree of Life (KS Books, 2025), a metaphysical scheme based on ancient, medieval and modern views of its principles, which describes the structure and dynamic of cosmic laws that operate throughout the four Worlds of Jacob's Ladder and humanity. HaLevi also wrote The Ano…

1
Korshi Dosoo and Markéta Preininger, "Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies" (de Gruyter, 2023) 1:28:50

28d ago1:28:50

1:28:50

Papyri Copticae Magicae: Coptic Magical Texts, Volume 1: Formularies (de Gruyter, 2023) offers an accessible repository of edited Coptic magical texts. The book is a careful and thorough edition and philological study of thirty-seven distinct Coptic manuscripts, covering a wide range of magical applications—from love spells, to curses, to exorcisms…

1
Ryan Klejment-Lavin, "Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective" (American Society of Missiology, 2024) 46:02

28d ago46:02

46:02

The purpose of Evil: A North Korean Christian Refugee Perspective (American Society of Missiology, 2024) is to describe how the North Korean refugee understanding of evil can shape missionary practice in the Korean Peninsula. The central research question guiding this study is, How do North Korean Christian refugees describe evil based on their liv…

1
Yosie Levine, "Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate" (Littman Library, 2024) 41:43

29d ago41:43

41:43

My recent interview with Rabbi Dr. Yosie Levine about his book, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate (Littman Library, 2024), illuminated the dynamic interplay between Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions-a theme that resonates deeply with our mission at the Unity Through Diversity Institute. From the outset, Rabb…

1
Abdul Wohab, "Secularism and Islam in Bangladesh: 50 Years After Independence" (Routledge, 2025) 38:42

29d ago38:42

38:42

Secularism and Islam in Bangladesh: 50 Years After Independence (Routledge, 2025) comprehensively analyses the syncretistic form of Bengali Islam and its relationship with secularism in Bangladesh from pre-British to contemporary times. It focuses on the importance of understanding the dynamics between religion and secularism within specific cultur…

1
Alan Strathern, "Converting Rulers: Global Patterns, 1450-1850" (Cambridge UP, 2024) 1:21:01

30d ago1:21:01

1:21:01

Why did so many rulers throughout history risk converting to a new religion brought by outsiders? In his award-winning Unearthly Powers (2019), Dr. Alan Strathern set out a theoretical framework for understanding the relation between religion and political authority based on a distinction between two kinds of religion - immanentism and transcendent…

1
Kai Shmushko, "Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics" (Leiden UP, 2024) 1:04:04

1M ago1:04:04

1:04:04

In the past decades, various forms of Buddhism have emerged in-between, above, and beyond conventional conceptions of religious and spiritual life in China. Multiple Liminalities of Lay Buddhism in Contemporary China: Modalities, Material Culture, and Politics (Leiden UP, 2024) is a qualitative study exploring manifestations of the massive revival …

1
Marc Katz, "Yochanan's Gamble: Judaism's Pragmatic Approach to Life" (U Nebraska Press, 2024) 50:56

1M ago50:56

50:56

Some two thousand years ago, as the story goes, a rabbi named Yochanan makes the epitome of pragmatic gambles—wagering the entire fate of the Jewish people. In dialogue with the soon-to-be Roman emperor Vespasian, Yochanan tacitly acknowledges the Romans’ planned destruction of Jerusalem in return for a plot of land in a town called Yavneh. There, …

1
Aviva Briefel, "Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism" (Cornell UP, 2025) 1:01:06

1M ago1:01:06

1:01:06

Ghosts and Things: The Material Culture of Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Aviva Briefel argues that Victorians turned to the dead to understand the material culture of their present. With the rise of spiritualism in Britain in the early 1850s, séances invited participants to contact ghosts using material thi…

1
David Kraemer, "Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:00:52

1M ago1:00:52

1:00:52

Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora (Oxford University Press, 2025) analyzes biblical and rabbinic texts, philosophical treatises, studies of Kabbalah, Hasidism, and a multiplicity of modern expressions for a comprehensive history of Jewish responses to and justifications of their diasporas. It shows that Diaspora Jews through the ages in…

1
Michael A. Meyer, "Above All, We Are Jews: A Biography of Rabbi Alexander Schindler" (CCAR Press, 2025) 44:53

1M ago44:53

44:53

Reform Judaism looks different today than it did a century ago. There are a lot of factors that lead to that change, but among these is Rabbi Alexander Schindler (1925-2000). Doing most of his work in the middle of the 20th century, Schindler was either part of or directly responsible for the changes in Reform (and even American) Judaism that we se…

1
Rochelle Rojas, "Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675" (Cornell UP, 2025) 45:09

1M ago45:09

45:09

Bad Christians and Hanging Toads: Witch Crafting in Northern Spain, 1525–1675 (Cornell University Press, 2025) by Dr. Rochelle Rojas tells riveting stories of witchcraft in everyday life in early modern Navarra. Belief in witchcraft not only emerged in moments of mass panic but was woven into the fabric of village life. Some villagers believed witc…

1
Marc Shapiro, "Renewing the Old, Sanctifying the New: The Unique Vision of Rav Kook" (Littman Library, 2025) 49:51

1M ago49:51

49:51

Rav Kook’s Vision: Halakhah, Secular Knowledge, and the Renewal of Judaism. Those of us who know something about Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaKohen Kook’s life and philosophy know about his being stuck outside of the Land of Israel during WWI, being the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of British Mandatory Palestine, and his encouragement of the secular Zionis…

1
Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025) 39:53

1M ago39:53

39:53

Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish …

1
Catherine Hartmann, "Making the Invisible Real: Practice of Seeing in Tibetan Pilgrimage" (Oxford UP, 2025) 1:07:20

1M ago1:07:20

1:07:20

Dr. Catherine Hartmann is Assistant Professor of Asian Religions in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at University of Wyoming. She received her B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of Virginia in 2011, M.A. in the History of Religions from the University of Chicago in 2013, and a Ph.D. from the Committee on the Study of R…

1
Nancy M. Rourke, "Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model" (Georgetown UP, 2024) 39:40

1M ago39:40

39:40

The images we use to think about moral character are powerful. They inform our understanding of the moral virtues and the ways in which moral character develops. However, this aspect of virtue ethics is rarely discussed. In Ecological Moral Character: A Catholic Model (Georgetown UP, 2024) , Nancy M. Rourke creates an ecological model through which…

1
Katherine Stewart, "Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy" (Bloomsbury, 2025) 57:51

1M ago57:51

57:51

Today, and for the past several years, many people both here and abroad have been trying to make sense of the radical right and its financial and ideological grip on the Republican party. Why is it that so many Americans have turned against democracy? What explains the authoritarian reaction of so many American citizens, even when that reaction wor…

1
Art and Its Holy Object (with Steve Auth) 1:10:32

1M ago1:10:32

1:10:32

For the transcendental and numinous things, sometimes there are no words. But art—paintings, sculpture, music, film—can knock us sideways a little and help us see something, or understand a fleeting meaning, a dream we’ve woken from, that we try to hang onto. He was a successful Wall Street investment guy for decades, but he had a deep love of art …

1
Stephanie Schmidt, "Child Martyrs and Militant Evangelization in New Spain: Missionary Narratives, Nahua Perspectives" (U Texas Press, 2025) 51:20

1M ago51:20

51:20

A cornerstone of the evangelization of early New Spain was the conversion of Nahua boys, especially the children of elites. They were to be emissaries between Nahua society and foreign missionaries, hastening the transmission of the gospel. Under the tutelage of Franciscan friars, the boys also learned to act with militant zeal. They sermonized and…

1
Astrid von Schlachta, "Anabaptists: From the Reformation to the 21st Century" (Pandora Press, 2024) 1:05:51

1M ago1:05:51

1:05:51

The Anabaptists, alongside the Lutheran and Reformed churches, were the third major current in the sixteenth century Reformation movements. From their beginnings, the Anabaptists were highly diverse and yet they shared some central beliefs and practices for which they were quickly persecuted – for example, defenselessness and nonresistance, the ref…

1
Simon Mayall, "The House of War: The Struggle Between Christendom and the Caliphate" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 1:11:54

2M ago1:11:54

1:11:54

A powerful new history detailing the most significant military clashes between Islam and Christendom over the 1,300 years of the Muslim caliphate. From the taking of the holy city of Jerusalem in the 7th century AD by Caliph Umar, to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire following the end of World War I, Christian popes, emperors and kings, and Muslim…

1
Miles Pattenden, "Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700" (Oxford UP, 2017) 54:19

2M ago54:19

54:19

Jana Byars talks to Miles Pattenden about his book, Electing the Pope in Early Modern Italy, 1450-1700 (Oxford UP, 2017), just about to be released in paperback. This study offers a radical reassessment of the history of early modern papacy, constructed through the first major analytical treatment of papal elections in English. Papal elections, wit…

1
Karl-Stéphan Bouthillette, "Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas" (Springer, 2025) 59:18

2M ago59:18

59:18

Metaphysics As Therapy: List-Making and Renunciation in Gnostic Yogas (Springer, 2025) examines the significance of metaphysical list-making as a determining feature of 'spiritual exercises' in South Asian gnostic yogas. It examines how these ancient traditions sought spiritual transformation through the dialectical practice of taxonomy. It highlig…

1
Christy Cobb and Katherine A. Shaner, "Ancient Slavery and Its New Testament Contexts" (Eerdmans, 2025) 1:11:57

2M ago1:11:57

1:11:57

The institution of slavery permeated the ancient world, such that the realities of slavery and its long shadows pervade the New Testament and other early Christian texts. Yet enslavement remains an under-taught aspect of the context of the New Testament and early Christianity, leaving pastors, laypersons, and neophyte college students alike to fill…

1
Mehrdad Alipour, "Negotiating Homosexuality in Islam: A Legal-hermeneutical Examination of Modern Shīʿī Discourse" (Brill, 2024) 1:43:47

2M ago1:43:47

1:43:47

What does Islam, particularly Shīʿī Islam, really say about same-sex sexual relations? Can Islamic legal frameworks, rooted in centuries of jurisprudence, ever be used to imagine the possibility of an Islamically valid same-sex marriage? What terms and categories did pre-modern Islamic sources use to describe what we might now call “homosexuality,”…

1
Las G. Newman, "To Die in Africa’s Dust: West Indian Missionaries in Western Africa in the Nineteenth Century" (Langham, 2024) 1:32:52

2M ago1:32:52

1:32:52

Christian mission in the modern era has generally been conceptualized as a Western endeavor: “from the West to the rest.” The rise and explosive growth of world Christianity has challenged this narrative, emphasizing Christian mission as “from everywhere to everywhere.” Dr. Las Newman contributes to this revitalized perspective, interrogating our u…

1
Udi Greenberg, "The End of the Schism: Catholics, Protestants, and the Remaking of Christian Life in Europe, 1880s-1970s" (Harvard UP, 2025) 1:13:56

2M ago1:13:56

1:13:56

Reconciliation between Europe's Protestants and Catholics led to a new era of Christian collaboration. Why did these erstwhile foes end their schism and begin to make peace? In this riveting study, Udi Greenberg shows that ecumenism grew out of a shared desire to protect against perceived threats to Christian life. The End of the Schism: Catholics,…

1
Jerome Gellman, "The Problem of God in Jewish Thought" (Cambridge UP, 2025) 31:44

2M ago31:44

31:44

The Hebrew Bible contains two quite different divine personae. One is quick to anger and to exact punishment while the other is a compassionate God slow to anger and quick to forgive. One God distant, the other close by. This severe contrast posed a theological challenge for Jewish thought for the ages. The Problem of God in Jewish Thought (Cambrid…

1
Farouk Yahya, "Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts" (Brill, 2015) 32:26

2M ago32:26

32:26

Magic and Divination in Malay Illustrated Manuscripts (Brill, 2015) offers an integrated study of the texts and images of illustrated Malay manuscripts on magic and divination from private and public collections in Malaysia, the UK and Indonesia. Containing some of the rare examples of Malay painting, these manuscripts provide direct evidence for t…

1
Samuel Ross, "Qur’an Commentary and the Biblical Turn: A History of Muslim Exegetical Engagement with the Biblical Text" (de Gruyter, 2024) 1:26:58

2M ago1:26:58

1:26:58

Quran Commentary and the Biblical Turn (de Gruyter, 2024) examines the exegetical relationship between the Quran and the Bible in Islamic intellectual history. As the two have been called "intertwined scriptures" due to the Quran’s frequent invocation of biblical narratives and figures, a question is raised: what is the history of Muslims’ exegetic…

1
Faith Tibble, "Crown of Thorns: Humble Gods and Humiliated Kings" (T&T Clark, 2025) 41:51

2M ago41:51

41:51

Jesus' Crown of Thorns has become one of the most ubiquitous features of Christian religious art, but was the original crown anything like the crown of popular medieval art and piety? The image conjured by art history is that of a bloodied, beaten Jesus, wearing a cruelly fashioned, woven crown made of sharp thorns. But this image is deeply mislead…

1
Laura Miller, "Occult Hunting and Supernatural Play in Japan" (U Hawaii Press, 2024) 1:07:08

2M ago1:07:08

1:07:08

In Occult Hunting and Supernatural Play in Japan (Hawaii 2024), Laura Miller examines the intersections of ludic capitalism with formal and informal religious practices and beliefs in contemporary Japan. Miller shows that women―often younger women―are the primary drivers of industries of religiously flavored entertainment that offer avenues of self…

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