Category: Religion

Tony Tian-Ren Lin: The Faithful Shall Not be Deterred

Today we welcome a guest post from Tony Tian-Ren Lin, author of Prosperity Gospel Latinos and Their American Dream, out now from UNC Press. In this immersive ethnography, Tony Tian-Ren Lin explores the reasons that Latin American immigrants across the United States are increasingly drawn to Prosperity Gospel Pentecostalism, a strand of Protestantism gaining popularity around the world. Lin contends… Continue Reading Tony Tian-Ren Lin: The Faithful Shall Not be Deterred

Mary J. Henold: The Most Extraordinary (Catholic) Fashion Show of 1970

Today we welcome a guest post from Mary J. Henold, author of The Laywoman Project: Remaking Catholic Womanhood in the Vatican II Era, out today from UNC Press. Summoning everyday Catholic laywomen to the forefront of twentieth-century Catholic history, Mary J. Henold considers how these committed parishioners experienced their religion in the wake of Vatican II (1962–1965). This era saw major… Continue Reading Mary J. Henold: The Most Extraordinary (Catholic) Fashion Show of 1970

Taylor Petrey: Are Mormons Feminists Now?

Today we welcome a guest post from Taylor G. Petrey, author of Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism, forthcoming from UNC Press. Taylor G. Petrey’s trenchant history takes a landmark step forward in documenting and theorizing about Latter-day Saints (LDS) teachings on gender, sexual difference, and marriage. Drawing on deep archival research, Petrey situates LDS doctrines in… Continue Reading Taylor Petrey: Are Mormons Feminists Now?

Author Interview: Shalom Goldman on How the Arts Shaped American Passions about Israel

In this Q&A, Shalom Goldman discusses his new book, Starstruck in the Promised Land: How the Arts Shaped American Passions about Israel, out now from UNC Press. From the days of steamship travel to Palestine to today’s evangelical Christian tours of Jesus’s birthplace, the relationship between the United States and the Holy Land has become one of the world’s most… Continue Reading Author Interview: Shalom Goldman on How the Arts Shaped American Passions about Israel

Alex Dika Seggerman: A New Modernism for a New America

Today we welcome a guest post from Alex Dika Seggerman, author of Modernism on the Nile: Art in Egypt Between the Islamic and the Contemporary, out now from UNC Press. Analyzing the modernist art movement that arose in Cairo and Alexandria from the late nineteenth century through the 1960s, Alex Dika Seggerman reveals how the visual arts were part of… Continue Reading Alex Dika Seggerman: A New Modernism for a New America

Interview with Candy Gunther Brown about Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion?

The second episode in Siobhan Barco’s podcast series featuring UNC Press books is live! You can listen to Siobhan talk with Candy Gunther Brown on New Books in Law about her book Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion?  (UNC Press, 2019). The series is produced with support from the Versatile Humanists at Duke… Continue Reading Interview with Candy Gunther Brown about Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools: Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion?

Interview: Candy Gunther Brown: How I Became an Expert Witness on Yoga and Meditation

Today we welcome a guest post from Candy Gunther Brown, author of Debating Yoga and Mindfulness in Public Schools:  Reforming Secular Education or Reestablishing Religion?, just published by UNC Press. Yoga and mindfulness activities, with roots in Asian traditions such as Hinduism or Buddhism, have been brought into growing numbers of public schools since the 1970s. While they are commonly… Continue Reading Interview: Candy Gunther Brown: How I Became an Expert Witness on Yoga and Meditation

Author Interview: Lawrence N. Powell on the Power of Historical Memory

Lawrence N. Powell is professor emeritus of history at Tulane University and a founding member of the Louisiana Coalition against Racism and Nazism.  The new Second Edition of his book, Troubled Memory: Anne Levy, the Holocaust, and David Duke’s Louisiana, has just been published by UNC Press. Troubled Memory tells the story of Anne Skorecki Levy, a Holocaust survivor who… Continue Reading Author Interview: Lawrence N. Powell on the Power of Historical Memory

Alexander Rocklin: Draupadi through the Fire

Today we welcome a guest post from Alexander Rocklin, author of The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad, just published this month by UNC Press. How can religious freedom be granted to people who do not have a religion? While Indian indentured workers in colonial Trinidad practiced cherished rituals, “Hinduism” was not a widespread category… Continue Reading Alexander Rocklin: Draupadi through the Fire

Alexander Rocklin: Caravan Politics

Today we welcome a guest post from Alexander Rocklin, author of The Regulation of Religion and the Making of Hinduism in Colonial Trinidad, just published this month by UNC Press. How can religious freedom be granted to people who do not have a religion? While Indian indentured workers in colonial Trinidad practiced cherished rituals, “Hinduism” was not a widespread category… Continue Reading Alexander Rocklin: Caravan Politics

Author Interview: A conversation with Kathleen Sprows Cummings, author of A Saint of Our Own

Kathleen Sprows Cummings is the author of A Saint of Our Own:  How the Quest for a Holy Hero Helped Catholics Become American, just published by UNC Press. What drove U.S. Catholics in their arduous quest, full of twists and turns over more than a century, to win an American saint? The absence of American names in the canon of the… Continue Reading Author Interview: A conversation with Kathleen Sprows Cummings, author of A Saint of Our Own

Ali Altaf Mian: Who is Allah? Islamic Diversity for Muslims and non-Muslims

Today we welcome a guest post from Ali Altaf Mian, assistant professor of Islamic studies at Seattle University.  Today he writes about Who is Allah? by Bruce B. Lawrence, a book he has been assigning students in his courses.  The paperback edition of Who is Allah? will be released in July by UNC Press. ### Who is Allah? Islamic Diversity… Continue Reading Ali Altaf Mian: Who is Allah? Islamic Diversity for Muslims and non-Muslims

David J. Neumann: Karma

Today we welcome a guest post from David J. Neumann, author of Finding God through Yoga:  Paramahansa Yogananda and Modern American Religion in a Global Age, just published by UNC Press. Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), a Hindu missionary to the United States, wrote one of the world’s most highly acclaimed spiritual classics, Autobiography of a Yogi, which was first published in… Continue Reading David J. Neumann: Karma

David J. Neumann: What is Yoga? Who is a Yogi?

Today we welcome a guest post from David J. Neumann, author of Finding God through Yoga:  Paramahansa Yogananda and Modern American Religion in a Global Age, just published by UNC Press. Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), a Hindu missionary to the United States, wrote one of the world’s most highly acclaimed spiritual classics, Autobiography of a Yogi, which was first published in… Continue Reading David J. Neumann: What is Yoga? Who is a Yogi?

Samira K. Mehta: Beyond Chrismukkah

Today is the first day of Hanukkah, and we welcome a post from Samira K. Mehta, author of Beyond Chrismukkah:  The Christian-Jewish Interfaith Family in the United States, published by UNC Press. The rate of interfaith marriage in the United States has risen so radically since the sixties that it is difficult to recall how taboo the practice once was.… Continue Reading Samira K. Mehta: Beyond Chrismukkah

Bruce B. Lawrence: Celebrating the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks Book Series at UNC Press

Today we welcome a guest post from Bruce B. Lawrence, who is co editor, with Carl W. Ernst, of the Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks series at UNC Press.  This year marks the Fifteenth Anniversary of the series.  You can find out more about the series and its books here. ### Celebrating the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Islamic Civilization and… Continue Reading Bruce B. Lawrence: Celebrating the Fifteenth Anniversary of the Islamic Civilization and Muslim Networks Book Series at UNC Press

Sally Dwyer-McNulty: Fashioning Catholicism and Jewish Allies

Today we welcome a guest post from Sally Dwyer-McNulty, author of Common Threads: A Cultural History of Clothing in American Catholicism available in paperback from UNC Press. A well-illustrated cultural history of the apparel worn by American Catholics, Dwyer-McNulty’s book reveals the transnational origins and homegrown significance of clothing in developing identity, unity, and a sense of respectability for a… Continue Reading Sally Dwyer-McNulty: Fashioning Catholicism and Jewish Allies

Irfan Ahmad: Beyond Trump’s Notion of the “Pathetic Critic”

Today we welcome a guest post from Irfan Ahmad, author of Religion as Critique:  Islamic Critical Thinking from Mecca to the Marketplace.  Professor Ahmad is an anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Studies in Göttingen, Germany. In Religion as Critique, Irfan Ahmad makes the far-reaching argument that potent systems and… Continue Reading Irfan Ahmad: Beyond Trump’s Notion of the “Pathetic Critic”

Elaine Maisner: Announcing a Multimedia Collaboration between UNC Press and Mavcor on Material Religion

Elaine Maisner is Executive Editor at UNC Press.  A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America, is available now in both print and e-book editions. ### As the UNC Press editor responsible for our list in religious studies, I am delighted to announce that Rachel McBride Lindsey’s book, A Communion of Shadows: Religion and Photography in Nineteenth-Century America,… Continue Reading Elaine Maisner: Announcing a Multimedia Collaboration between UNC Press and Mavcor on Material Religion

John Hayes: “Those People”

Today we welcome a guest post from John Hayes, author of Hard, Hard Religion:  Interracial Faith in the Poor South, on the history of class and race in the American South. In Hard, Hard Religion, his captivating study of faith and class, John Hayes examines the ways folk religion in the early twentieth century allowed the South’s poor–both white and… Continue Reading John Hayes: “Those People”