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Interviews with Authors about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

  1. 14 HR AGO

    Michael Plekon, "Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today" (Wipf and Stock, 2024)

    In an era where congregations are shrinking and fewer people engage with faith communities, Michael Plekon's book Ministry Matters: Pastors, Their Life and Work Today (Wipf and Stock, 2024) offers a timely exploration of both the challenges and opportunities facing modern Christian ministry. Through detailed analysis, Plekon traces the factors behind congregational decline while also highlighting inspiring stories of parishes that have successfully reimagined themselves for contemporary times. Our conversation today exemplifies what contemporary theological discussions should encompass - a profound dialogue about the relevance of Christian theology in our time, acknowledging both trauma and pain, while exploring the tremendous opportunity Christianity can offer each of us. This is more than just a book discussion - it's a sustained meditation on the vocation, lives, and work of pastors in our changing times. Michael Plekon is a unique voice in contemporary religious scholarship, bridging academic theology and lived spirituality. Born in Yonkers in 1948, he has dedicated his life to exploring what holiness looks like in modern times through both scholarly work and pastoral experience. As a professor at Baruch College (1977-2017) and an ordained priest who has served in both Western and Eastern Churches, Plekon brings a rare dual perspective to religious studies. His dozen-plus books, including the award-winning "Uncommon Prayer," focus on finding the sacred in everyday life and examining how modern saints - from Dorothy Day to Thomas Merton - navigate faith in contemporary society. Plekon's work is particularly relevant today as he explores the intersection of religious identity, social justice, and community building in an increasingly diverse America. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    1h 3m

  2. 14 HR AGO

    Leah Kardos, "Kate Bush's Hounds of Love" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

    Hounds Of Love invites you to not only listen, but to cross the boundaries of sensory experience into realms of imagination and possibility. Side A spawned four Top 40 hit singles in the UK, 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)', 'Cloudbusting', 'Hounds of Love' and 'The Big Sky', some of the best-loved and most enduring compositions in Bush's catalogue. On side B, a hallucinatory seven-part song cycle called The Ninth Wave broke away from the pop conventions of the era by using strange and vivid production techniques that plunge the listener into the psychological centre of a near-death experience. Poised and accessible, yet still experimental and complex, with Hounds Of Love Bush mastered the art of her studio-based songcraft, finally achieving full control of her creative process. When it came out in 1985, she was only 27 years old. Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love (Bloomsbury, 2024) charts the emergence of Kate Bush in the early-to-mid-1980s as a courageous experimentalist, a singularly expressive recording artist and a visionary music producer. Track-by-track commentaries focus on the experience of the album from the listener's point of view, drawing attention to the art and craft of Bush's songwriting, production and sound design. It considers the vast impact and influence that Hounds Of Love has had on music cultures and creative practices through the years, underlining the artist's importance as a barrier-smashing, template-defying, business-smart, record-breaking, never-compromising role model for artists everywhere. Leah Kardos is a senior lecturer in music at Kingston University London, UK. She is the author of Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie (Bloomsbury, 2022), which was included as one of The Wire's 'Best Books of 2022'. Leah on Twitter. Bradley Morgan is a media arts professional in Chicago and author of U2's The Joshua Tree: Planting Roots in Mythic America. He manages partnerships on behalf of CHIRP Radio 107.1 FM and is the director of its music film festival. His forthcoming books are Frank Zappa's America (Louisiana State University Press, June 2025) and U2: Until the End of the World (Palazzo Editions, Fall 2025). Bradley on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    1h 2m

  3. 14 HR AGO

    Mou Banerjee, "The Disinherited: The Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India" (Harvard UP, 2025)

    An illuminating history of religious and political controversy in nineteenth-century Bengal, where Protestant missionary activity spurred a Christian conversion “panic” that indelibly shaped the trajectory of Hindu and Muslim politics. In 1813, the British Crown adopted a policy officially permitting Protestant missionaries to evangelize among the empire’s Indian subjects. The ramifications proved enormous and long-lasting. While the number of conversions was small—Christian converts never represented more than 1.5 percent of India’s population during the nineteenth century—Bengal’s majority faith communities responded in ways that sharply politicized religious identity, leading to the permanent ejection of religious minorities from Indian ideals of nationhood. Mou Banerjee details what happened as Hindus and Muslims grew increasingly suspicious of converts, missionaries, and evangelically minded British authorities. Fearing that converts would subvert resistance to British imperialism, Hindu and Muslim critics used their influence to define the new Christians as a threatening “other” outside the bounds of authentic Indian selfhood. The meaning of conversion was passionately debated in the burgeoning sphere of print media, and individual converts were accused of betrayal and ostracized by their neighbors. Yet, Banerjee argues, the effects of the panic extended far beyond the lives of those who suffered directly. As Christian converts were erased from the Indian political community, that community itself was reconfigured as one consecrated in faith. While India’s emerging nationalist narratives would have been impossible in the absence of secular Enlightenment thought, the evolution of cohesive communal identity was also deeply entwined with suspicion toward religious minorities. Recovering the perspectives of Indian Christian converts as well as their detractors, The Disinherited: The Politics of Christian Conversion in Colonial India (Harvard UP, 2025) is an eloquent account of religious marginalization that helps to explain the shape of Indian nationalist politics in today’s era of Hindu majoritarianism. Arighna Gupta is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His dissertation attempts to trace early-colonial genealogies of popular sovereignty located at the interstices of monarchical, religious, and colonial sovereignties in India and present-day Bangladesh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    1h 20m

  4. 14 HR AGO

    Robert Caper, "Bion and Thoughts Too Deep for Words: Psychoanalysis, Suggestion, and the Language of the Unconscious" (Routledge, 2020)

    Bion and Thoughts Too Deep for Words: Psychoanalysis, Suggestion, and the Language of the Unconscious (Routledge, 2020) is Robert Caper's most recent book, and it offers a sustained exploration and discussion of key problematics that have informed psychoanalysis since its inception. Caper offers a nuanced discussion of psychotherapy's tendency to fall into suggestion, and thus move away from an exploration of the truth, which he considers to be psychoanalysis's central task. The psychoanalyst has to mirror back to the patient who they are, rather than keep them in a state of blithe affirmation, and thereby inspire in them the notion that the therapist, like the analysand, is unwilling to explore what lies beneath the rubble of conscious beliefs and statements. In his discussion of these matters, Caper draws on a wide range of thinkers, most importantly that of W.R. Bion, asserting that there are always "thoughts too big for words," which is a reminder that there is always more. He hightlights the importance of the aesthetic drawing on Meltzer, and he introduces a new distinction between maternal and paternal container. I greatly enjoyed both reading the book and talking to Robert, and I happily recommend this book to anyone seeking to reconnect to psychoanalysis's foundations, utilizing the British school's key thinkers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    1h 8m

  5. 14 HR AGO

    Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee, "The Illustrated Cairo Genizah" (Gorgias Press, 2024)

    Starting nearly a thousand years ago at the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, worn-out books and scrolls were put in the genizah, a storage area for sacred texts.  In The Illustrated Cairo Genizah: A Visual Tour of Cairo Genizah Manuscripts at Cambridge Univertity Library (Gorgias Press, 2024), Nick Posegay and Melonie Schmierer-Lee tell the story of the genizah and show the journey of discovery through more than 125 years of research, showcasing over 300 stunning full-colour images, revealing forgotten stories of Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities over a millennium of world history. In the nineteenth century, Scottish sisters Agnes and Margaret Smith brought manuscript pages back to England where Solomon Schechter recognized the lost Hebrew book of Ben Sira, also known as Ecclesiasticus or Sirach. Schechter then traveled to Cairo and toured the genizah, an attic chamber he described as a "windowless and doorless room of fair dimensions. The entrance is ... through a big, shapeless hole reached by a ladder."  Over the millenia, hundreds and thousands of documents were buried in this attic crypt, vividly described by Schechter: "It is a battlefield of books, and the literary production of many centuries had their share in the battle ... some of the belligerents have perished outright, and are literally ground to dust in the terrible struggle for space". In addition to images of the book of Ben Sira, the collection includes fragments of the oldest known Latin edition of St Augustine's sermons, Origen's Hexapla, and a 5th or 6th century copy of Aquila's translation of Kings, approximately 60 manuscripts written by Moses Maimonides, and a medieval copy of the 'Damascus Document' which was confirmed as an ancient text by the discovery of another copy among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Qumram in 1947.  See visual examples of the collection online. Learn more about the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit. Recommended reading:  The Mind of a Bee by Lars Chittka From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit edited by Nick Posegay, Magdalen M. Connolly, and Ben Outhwaite (open access edition available)  Hosted by Meghan Cochran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    1h 4m

  6. 14 HR AGO

    Who Cares? A Conversation with Emily Kenway

    In this episode, Emily Kenway shares insights from her powerful new book Who Cares: The Hidden Crisis of Caregiving, and How We Solve It (Seal Press, 2023), an eye-opening exploration of the invisible world of unpaid caregivers. Drawing from her own experience caring for her terminally ill mother, Emily sheds light on the challenges faced by millions who provide critical care while being marginalized, unsupported, and overburdened. In our conversation, she urges us to reimagine a society that places care at its core, rather than on the sidelines. This conversation is a call to action for all of us to recognize and support those who give so much and ask for so little in return. Tune in to hear why Who Cares? is a book for everyone, now and in the future. Madison’s Notes is the podcast of Princeton University’s James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    52 min

  7. 14 HR AGO

    Non Buddhist Mysticism: Performing Irreducible and Primitive Presence

    Glenn’s latest, Non Buddhist Mysticism: Performing Irreducible and Primitive Presence (Eyecorner Press, 2022), presents a radical reorientation to “spiritual” practice. Drawing from François Laruelle’s concept of future mysticism and the author’s own previous work on non-buddhism, Glenn Wallis galvanizes a materialist spirituality for the twenty-first century. Liberated from the punctilious gaze of the masters, delivered into the hands (and hearts) of the reader, this is a spirituality “born in the spirit of heresy rather than sanctity.” The intended outcome is a subject “fit for the clash with Hell” – a person equipped, lovingly and compassionately, to confront the injustices of the world. We also look at the great work taking place at INCITE Seminars, a place of practice which all listeners are invited to. Order at EyeCorner Press Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    1h 55m

  8. 14 HR AGO

    Kathleen A. Abromeit and Dyani Sabin, "Music Information Literacy: Inclusion and Advocacy" (Library Juice Press, 2024)

    Becoming a more equitable librarian is an ongoing process. In the face of the last decade’s events and increased public awareness of issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA), library workers in music libraries can do things to create the space in our teaching for optimal creativity and connection by and with our library users. As the editors of Music Information Literacy: Inclusion and Advocacy (Library Juice Press, 2024), Kathleen A. Abromeit and Dyani Sabin bring together contributions that imagine what it would be like to expand our inclusion structures so that we increasingly recognize and accommodate differences in our music libraries. The ways librarians teach and assist students must change to amplify the voices of those who have been traditionally marginalized and create effective and equitable libraries and classrooms. Doing so is a multi-part process, where critical information literacy overlaps with self-reflection as a librarian and a deep understanding that our students have identities and experiences that influence how they navigate their world. Many of our students have experienced trauma from the generational oppression of systemic racism, gender fluidity, invisible disabilities, discrimination, or poverty. Ongoing trauma triggers toxic stress that can rewire parts of the brain and impact one’s ability to process information, formulate questions, and feel safe enough to be creative and in the zone of ideas. The chapters in the volume are authored by librarians who have actively been learning and self-reflecting on what is needed to invite users into their libraries and teaching spaces fully. The book is divided into three sections: Critical Theories, Concepts, & Reflections, Bringing Underrepresentation to the Forefront, and Supporting Activism. Each chapter includes case studies and discussion questions supporting ideas and concepts. A sample reading guide for each chapter is included as well. Kathleen A. Abromeit is the Head of the Conservatory Library at Oberlin College and Conservatory, and Dyani Sabin is a writer based in the Midwest. Jen Hoyer is Technical Services and Electronic Resources Librarian at CUNY New York City College of Technology. She is co-author of What Primary Sources Teach: Lessons for Every Classroom and The Social Movement Archive. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

    45 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.3
out of 5
16 Ratings

About

Interviews with Authors about their New Books Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Information

  • Creator
    New Books
  • Years Active
    2011 - 2024
  • Episodes
    749
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © New Books Network
  • Show Website
    New Books Network

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