Podcast appearances and mentions of russell mccutcheon

This week, religion scholars Reza Aslan and Ilan Stavans sit down with Emily D. Crews to discuss their new anthology, A Nation Wrestles with God: American Prophets, Philosophers, and Firebrands, a historic collection of the radicals and freethinkers that sparked a country's journey through divinity—praising, challenging, and redefining the sacred. This book and conversation are presented in conjunction with the American Writers Museum's special exhibit American Prophets: Writers, Religion, and Culture, of which Stavans and Crews were advisors. American Prophets is now on display at the AWM. This program was part of the 2026 American Writers Festival. Co-hosted by the American Writers Museum and Chicago Public Library, the American Writers Festival is a free literary event featuring in-depth conversations with diverse writers from across genres and backgrounds. This conversation took place June 7, 2026 and was recorded live at the Harold Washington Library Center. AWM PODCAST NETWORK HUB More about A Nation Wrestles with God: Spanning more than 400 years of spiritual transformation and imagination, A Nation Wrestles with God collects diverse writers—poets, novelists, theologians, scientists, musicians, politicians, comedians, artists, mavericks, naturalists, futurists, and more—whose daring texts incited dialogue, even change, and continue to influence a growing nation. From the pre-colonial to the present day, these landmark stories, poems, essays, letters, speeches, songs, comic strips, and more awoke new generations to free religious thought. On the occasion of America's 250th year of independence, and during a time of deep ideological division, this sweeping anthology is an urgent reminder of the pluralities that strengthen and unite us. About the speakers: REZA ASLAN is a renowned writer, commentator, professor, Emmy- and Peabody-nominated producer, and scholar of religions. He is the author of numerous internationally bestselling books, including the #1 New York Times Bestseller Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, currently in development at Fremantle Media with Pablo Larrain attached to direct. A former Truman Capote Fellow in Fiction at the Iowa Writers' Workshop and recipient of the prestigious James Joyce Award, Aslan has helped craft the mythologies for Hollywood's most acclaimed franchises, including Dune, Game of Thrones, and The Leftovers. In addition to his writing and production work, he has served as host and executive producer of CNN's Believer and Rough Draft with Reza Aslan, and co-hosts the podcast Metaphysical Milkshake alongside Rainn Wilson. His latest book, An American Martyr in Persia, was nominated for the PEN/Jacqueline Beograd Weld Award. Born in Iran, he lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their four children. EMILY D. CREWS is the Executive Director of the Martin Marty Center at the University of Chicago Divinity School. In collaboration with its staff and faculty co-directors, she sets the research and programming agenda of the Marty Center. She also acts as its public representative and leads its partnerships with collaborators across the University, the city of Chicago, and beyond. A graduate of the University of Chicago Divinity School's PhD program in the History of Religions, Emily is a scholar of Christianities in Africa and the United States. Emily is the co-editor of Remembering Jonathan Z. Smith: A Career and Its Consequence (with Russell McCutcheon, 2020) and African Diaspora Religions in 5 Minutes (with Curtis J. Evans, 2024). She has published scholarly articles in Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Religion and Theology, and numerous edited volumes, as well as articles for the public in Sightings and The Local Palate. She was recently a scholar-consultant on the Court Theatre's production of The Gospel at Colonus. ILAN STAVANS is the publisher of Restless Books and the Lewis-Sebring Professor of Humanities and Latin American and Latino Culture at Amherst College. His books include On Borrowed Words, Spanglish, Dictionary Days, The Disappearance, and A Critic's Journey. He has edited The Norton Anthology of Latino Literature, the three-volume set Isaac Bashevis Singer: Collected Stories, and The Poetry of Pablo Neruda, among dozens of other volumes. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, Chile's Presidential Medal, the International Latino Book Award, and the Jewish Book Award. Stavans's work, translated into twenty languages, has been adapted to the stage and screen.

First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion is utterly unique, inexplicable, and therefore able only to be interpreted by privileged scholars. Claiming religion to be sui generis (or self-caused), this approach has undisclosed practical effects--institutional and geo-political--at a variety of sites, from the types of textbooks commonly used in introductory classes to the way that political events are often represented in the mass media. Russell McCutcheon documented the ubiquity of this approach and showed how harmful it was Updating its wide-ranging evidence and adding new chapters, this new edition demonstrates the impact of this critique while showing how little the field has generally moved in the past thirty years. Russell T. McCutcheon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now an honorary life member of the International Association for the History of Religions. Beginning in 2001, he was the Department Chair at the University of Alabama, a role that he played for 18 years. His many publications on the history of the field and the practical effects of the category religion in liberal democracies, along with a number of resources created specifically for teachers and students, are widely used in the field today. This episode's host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com00:00 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

First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion is utterly unique, inexplicable, and therefore able only to be interpreted by privileged scholars. Claiming religion to be sui generis (or self-caused), this approach has undisclosed practical effects--institutional and geo-political--at a variety of sites, from the types of textbooks commonly used in introductory classes to the way that political events are often represented in the mass media. Russell McCutcheon documented the ubiquity of this approach and showed how harmful it was Updating its wide-ranging evidence and adding new chapters, this new edition demonstrates the impact of this critique while showing how little the field has generally moved in the past thirty years. Russell T. McCutcheon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now an honorary life member of the International Association for the History of Religions. Beginning in 2001, he was the Department Chair at the University of Alabama, a role that he played for 18 years. His many publications on the history of the field and the practical effects of the category religion in liberal democracies, along with a number of resources created specifically for teachers and students, are widely used in the field today. This episode's host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com00:00 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion is utterly unique, inexplicable, and therefore able only to be interpreted by privileged scholars. Claiming religion to be sui generis (or self-caused), this approach has undisclosed practical effects--institutional and geo-political--at a variety of sites, from the types of textbooks commonly used in introductory classes to the way that political events are often represented in the mass media. Russell McCutcheon documented the ubiquity of this approach and showed how harmful it was Updating its wide-ranging evidence and adding new chapters, this new edition demonstrates the impact of this critique while showing how little the field has generally moved in the past thirty years. Russell T. McCutcheon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now an honorary life member of the International Association for the History of Religions. Beginning in 2001, he was the Department Chair at the University of Alabama, a role that he played for 18 years. His many publications on the history of the field and the practical effects of the category religion in liberal democracies, along with a number of resources created specifically for teachers and students, are widely used in the field today. This episode's host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com00:00 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion is utterly unique, inexplicable, and therefore able only to be interpreted by privileged scholars. Claiming religion to be sui generis (or self-caused), this approach has undisclosed practical effects--institutional and geo-political--at a variety of sites, from the types of textbooks commonly used in introductory classes to the way that political events are often represented in the mass media. Russell McCutcheon documented the ubiquity of this approach and showed how harmful it was Updating its wide-ranging evidence and adding new chapters, this new edition demonstrates the impact of this critique while showing how little the field has generally moved in the past thirty years. Russell T. McCutcheon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now an honorary life member of the International Association for the History of Religions. Beginning in 2001, he was the Department Chair at the University of Alabama, a role that he played for 18 years. His many publications on the history of the field and the practical effects of the category religion in liberal democracies, along with a number of resources created specifically for teachers and students, are widely used in the field today. This episode's host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com00:00 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics

First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion is utterly unique, inexplicable, and therefore able only to be interpreted by privileged scholars. Claiming religion to be sui generis (or self-caused), this approach has undisclosed practical effects--institutional and geo-political--at a variety of sites, from the types of textbooks commonly used in introductory classes to the way that political events are often represented in the mass media. Russell McCutcheon documented the ubiquity of this approach and showed how harmful it was Updating its wide-ranging evidence and adding new chapters, this new edition demonstrates the impact of this critique while showing how little the field has generally moved in the past thirty years. Russell T. McCutcheon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now an honorary life member of the International Association for the History of Religions. Beginning in 2001, he was the Department Chair at the University of Alabama, a role that he played for 18 years. His many publications on the history of the field and the practical effects of the category religion in liberal democracies, along with a number of resources created specifically for teachers and students, are widely used in the field today. This episode's host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com00:00

Our Primary Expertise argues counter to the longstanding trend in the field by seeing religion as mundane and not unique, which means that the field's research and teaching can have relevance all across human culture, and well beyond academia. Russell McCutcheon offers a timely argument by taking seriously threats to the humanities now happening all across higher education. 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

Our Primary Expertise argues counter to the longstanding trend in the field by seeing religion as mundane and not unique, which means that the field's research and teaching can have relevance all across human culture, and well beyond academia. Russell McCutcheon offers a timely argument by taking seriously threats to the humanities now happening all across higher education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

Our Primary Expertise argues counter to the longstanding trend in the field by seeing religion as mundane and not unique, which means that the field's research and teaching can have relevance all across human culture, and well beyond academia. Russell McCutcheon offers a timely argument by taking seriously threats to the humanities now happening all across higher education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology

Our Primary Expertise argues counter to the longstanding trend in the field by seeing religion as mundane and not unique, which means that the field's research and teaching can have relevance all across human culture, and well beyond academia. Russell McCutcheon offers a timely argument by taking seriously threats to the humanities now happening all across higher education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

Our Primary Expertise argues counter to the longstanding trend in the field by seeing religion as mundane and not unique, which means that the field's research and teaching can have relevance all across human culture, and well beyond academia. Russell McCutcheon offers a timely argument by taking seriously threats to the humanities now happening all across higher education. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. 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

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/islamic-studies

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/jewish-studies

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/buddhist-studies

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/indian-religions

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama, Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/christian-studies

Russell McCutcheon shares his views on the academic study of religion, and the path ahead for religion graduates and the field itself. McCutcheon is a professor of religious studies at the University of Alabama and a contributor to the Religious Studies Project podcast.  Raj Balkaran is a scholar of Sanskrit narrative texts. He teaches at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and at his own virtual School of Indian Wisdom. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

PrayerMatthew 6:11-13 • Russell McCutcheon

Rev. Russell McCutcheon, Roman 8:31-39

Grace Means Change: Church PlantingGenesis 12:1-3; Ephesians 2:12-16 • Russell McCutcheon

Rev. Russell McCutcheon, Luke 7:36-50

Deliver UsMatthew 6:5-15 • Russell McCutcheon

Philippians 4:10-23Russell McCutcheon

Philippians 2:12-18Russell McCutcheon

Witnesses: Death and BurialLuke 23:44-56 • Russell McCutcheon

Witness: Trial Before PilateJohn 18:28-38 • Russell McCutcheon

Witness: Arrest in the GardenJohn 18:1-11 • Russell McCutcheon

The Sight of the Eyes vs. the Wandering of the AppetiteEcclesiastes 5:10 - 6:12 • Russell McCutcheon

Prepared to Give an Answer for Hope1 Peter 3:8-17 • Russell McCutcheon

Father Knows Best1 Peter 4:12-19 • Russell McCutcheon

Planting ChurchesMatthew 28:18-20 • Russell McCutcheon

True Wisdom vs. CounterfeitEccl. 2:12-17; (John 3:1-15) • Russell McCutcheon

Ephesians 4: 1 - 6 - Russell McCutcheon by Restoration Church - Wilmington, NC

In this podcast we have a group discussion about Russell McCutcheon's new book, Religion in Theory and Practice: Demystifying the Field for Burgeoning Academics. Joining us on the podcast is not only the author himself, but two young scholars who also contributed to the book, Matt Sheedy and Tara Baldrick-Marone.

Russell McCutcheon preaches at our Germantown Outpost on Philippians 4

Russell McCutcheon preaches at our Germantown Outpost on Philippians Chapter 1

Russell McCutcheon preaches at our Germantown Outpost from the passage Luke 14:25-33

Russell McCutcheon | 5/06/2018 | Mark 2:1-13

Dr Russell McCutcheon preaches on Mark 2: 1-12 on "How do you see Jesus"?

In this interview, Russell McCutcheon and Aaron Hughes discuss the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), an international organization dedicated to historical, critical, and social scientific approaches to the study of religion. In this interview, Russell McCutcheon and Aaron Hughes discuss the North American ...

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Taking Jonathan Z. Smith’s much quoted line seriously: “there is nothing that must be taught, there is nothing that cannot be left out,” this workshop with Russell McCutcheon (University of Alabama) focuses on the choices an instructor makes in designing and teaching an introductory course in the academic study of religion. Because such courses serve broad curricular needs (often comprising a General Education or Core Curriculum credit) while also recruiting majors for Departments of Religious Studies, the students taking such course, and their interest in/prior exposure to the material, can vary widely. So the choices the instructor makes—what to include and what to leave out—must take into account such a variety of concerns as to sometimes make designing and teaching such courses surprisingly difficult. This workshop provides an opportunity to think more widely about the intellectual tools that can be used in such courses, so long as the instructor can clearly distinguish a delimited set of skills (e.g., description, interpretation, comparison, explanation) from the innumerable human situations where their scholarly use can be exemplified. For if Smith is correct that the liberal arts and/or the Humanities are concerned with “developing the students’ capacities for reading, writing, and speaking—put another way, for interpreting and arguing,” then teaching skills, used in precise situations, to make sense of human doings, likely ought to be the aim of such courses. The workshop presumes that attendees have read Smith’s essay, “The Introductory Course: Less is Better” (available here). Please also review Prof. McCutcheon's latest introductory syllabus, and read as much as you are able of Prof. McCutcheon’s concise book Studying Religion: An Introduction, this being an example of one way to approach the challenge of an introductory course that is about more than memorizing names and dates. Russell McCutcheon is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama; his interests have long revolved around the practical implications of classification systems. He has written or edited a variety of books in the study of religion, often focused on methodology and theory, and frequently blogs at his Department’s site or at the blog for Culture on the Edge, a research collaborative of which he is a member. The Craft of Teaching (CoT) is the Divinity School's program of pedagogical development for its graduate students, dedicated to preparing a new generation of accomplished educators in the field of religious studies. We bring together Divinity School faculty, current students, and an extensive alumni network of decorated teachers to share our craft and to advance critical reflection on religious studies pedagogy.

If you experience any technical difficulties with this video or would like to make an accessibility-related request, please send a message to digicomm@uchicago.edu. Taking Jonathan Z. Smith’s much quoted line seriously: “there is nothing that must be taught, there is nothing that cannot be left out,” this workshop with Russell McCutcheon (University of Alabama) focuses on the choices an instructor makes in designing and teaching an introductory course in the academic study of religion. Because such courses serve broad curricular needs (often comprising a General Education or Core Curriculum credit) while also recruiting majors for Departments of Religious Studies, the students taking such course, and their interest in/prior exposure to the material, can vary widely. So the choices the instructor makes—what to include and what to leave out—must take into account such a variety of concerns as to sometimes make designing and teaching such courses surprisingly difficult. This workshop provides an opportunity to think more widely about the intellectual tools that can be used in such courses, so long as the instructor can clearly distinguish a delimited set of skills (e.g., description, interpretation, comparison, explanation) from the innumerable human situations where their scholarly use can be exemplified. For if Smith is correct that the liberal arts and/or the Humanities are concerned with “developing the students’ capacities for reading, writing, and speaking—put another way, for interpreting and arguing,” then teaching skills, used in precise situations, to make sense of human doings, likely ought to be the aim of such courses. The workshop presumes that attendees have read Smith’s essay, “The Introductory Course: Less is Better” (available here). Please also review Prof. McCutcheon's latest introductory syllabus, and read as much as you are able of Prof. McCutcheon’s concise book Studying Religion: An Introduction, this being an example of one way to approach the challenge of an introductory course that is about more than memorizing names and dates. Russell McCutcheon is Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama; his interests have long revolved around the practical implications of classification systems. He has written or edited a variety of books in the study of religion, often focused on methodology and theory, and frequently blogs at his Department’s site or at the blog for Culture on the Edge, a research collaborative of which he is a member. The Craft of Teaching (CoT) is the Divinity School's program of pedagogical development for its graduate students, dedicated to preparing a new generation of accomplished educators in the field of religious studies. We bring together Divinity School faculty, current students, and an extensive alumni network of decorated teachers to share our craft and to advance critical reflection on religious studies pedagogy.

Often when we read about new Muslim intellectuals we are offered a presentation of their politicized Islamic teachings and radical interpretations of theology, or Western readings that nominally reflect the Islamic tradition. We are rarely introduced to critical Muslim thinkers who neither abandon their Islamic civilizational heritage nor adopt, wholesale, a Western intellectual perspective. In Carool Kersten‘s Cosmopolitans and Heretics: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam (Columbia University Press, 2011), we learn about a few modern Muslim thinkers who engage their Islamic intellectual heritage with the philosophical apparatus of contemporary Western thought. Kersten, a professor of Religious and Islamic Studies at King's College London, has tracked Muslim thinkers for years (follow his blog Critical Muslims), and book reflects a deep understanding of the wider dialogues occurring in contemporary Islamic thought. His analysis also traverses geographical limitations of much of the scholarship on contemporary Islam by discussing figures from both the eastern and western regions of Islam. We are introduced to the thought of Nurcholish Madjid (Indonesia), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Mohammad Arkoun (Algeria). Through these thinkers Kersten explores how phenomenology, hermeneutics, secularization, and postcolonial vocabulary can assist us in approaching religion generally. He frames his work through Russell McCutcheon's model of theological, phenomenological, and critical-anthropological strategies for engaging religion in order to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches in the study of Islam. Altogether, we have the first book length analysis of these important modern Muslim thinkers and their critique of both western scholarship and Muslim intellectualism.

Often when we read about new Muslim intellectuals we are offered a presentation of their politicized Islamic teachings and radical interpretations of theology, or Western readings that nominally reflect the Islamic tradition. We are rarely introduced to critical Muslim thinkers who neither abandon their Islamic civilizational heritage nor adopt, wholesale, a Western intellectual perspective. In Carool Kersten‘s Cosmopolitans and Heretics: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam (Columbia University Press, 2011), we learn about a few modern Muslim thinkers who engage their Islamic intellectual heritage with the philosophical apparatus of contemporary Western thought. Kersten, a professor of Religious and Islamic Studies at King’s College London, has tracked Muslim thinkers for years (follow his blog Critical Muslims), and book reflects a deep understanding of the wider dialogues occurring in contemporary Islamic thought. His analysis also traverses geographical limitations of much of the scholarship on contemporary Islam by discussing figures from both the eastern and western regions of Islam. We are introduced to the thought of Nurcholish Madjid (Indonesia), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Mohammad Arkoun (Algeria). Through these thinkers Kersten explores how phenomenology, hermeneutics, secularization, and postcolonial vocabulary can assist us in approaching religion generally. He frames his work through Russell McCutcheon’s model of theological, phenomenological, and critical-anthropological strategies for engaging religion in order to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches in the study of Islam. Altogether, we have the first book length analysis of these important modern Muslim thinkers and their critique of both western scholarship and Muslim intellectualism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Often when we read about new Muslim intellectuals we are offered a presentation of their politicized Islamic teachings and radical interpretations of theology, or Western readings that nominally reflect the Islamic tradition. We are rarely introduced to critical Muslim thinkers who neither abandon their Islamic civilizational heritage nor adopt, wholesale, a Western intellectual perspective. In Carool Kersten‘s Cosmopolitans and Heretics: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam (Columbia University Press, 2011), we learn about a few modern Muslim thinkers who engage their Islamic intellectual heritage with the philosophical apparatus of contemporary Western thought. Kersten, a professor of Religious and Islamic Studies at King’s College London, has tracked Muslim thinkers for years (follow his blog Critical Muslims), and book reflects a deep understanding of the wider dialogues occurring in contemporary Islamic thought. His analysis also traverses geographical limitations of much of the scholarship on contemporary Islam by discussing figures from both the eastern and western regions of Islam. We are introduced to the thought of Nurcholish Madjid (Indonesia), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Mohammad Arkoun (Algeria). Through these thinkers Kersten explores how phenomenology, hermeneutics, secularization, and postcolonial vocabulary can assist us in approaching religion generally. He frames his work through Russell McCutcheon’s model of theological, phenomenological, and critical-anthropological strategies for engaging religion in order to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches in the study of Islam. Altogether, we have the first book length analysis of these important modern Muslim thinkers and their critique of both western scholarship and Muslim intellectualism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Often when we read about new Muslim intellectuals we are offered a presentation of their politicized Islamic teachings and radical interpretations of theology, or Western readings that nominally reflect the Islamic tradition. We are rarely introduced to critical Muslim thinkers who neither abandon their Islamic civilizational heritage nor adopt, wholesale, a Western intellectual perspective. In Carool Kersten‘s Cosmopolitans and Heretics: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam (Columbia University Press, 2011), we learn about a few modern Muslim thinkers who engage their Islamic intellectual heritage with the philosophical apparatus of contemporary Western thought. Kersten, a professor of Religious and Islamic Studies at King’s College London, has tracked Muslim thinkers for years (follow his blog Critical Muslims), and book reflects a deep understanding of the wider dialogues occurring in contemporary Islamic thought. His analysis also traverses geographical limitations of much of the scholarship on contemporary Islam by discussing figures from both the eastern and western regions of Islam. We are introduced to the thought of Nurcholish Madjid (Indonesia), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Mohammad Arkoun (Algeria). Through these thinkers Kersten explores how phenomenology, hermeneutics, secularization, and postcolonial vocabulary can assist us in approaching religion generally. He frames his work through Russell McCutcheon’s model of theological, phenomenological, and critical-anthropological strategies for engaging religion in order to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches in the study of Islam. Altogether, we have the first book length analysis of these important modern Muslim thinkers and their critique of both western scholarship and Muslim intellectualism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Often when we read about new Muslim intellectuals we are offered a presentation of their politicized Islamic teachings and radical interpretations of theology, or Western readings that nominally reflect the Islamic tradition. We are rarely introduced to critical Muslim thinkers who neither abandon their Islamic civilizational heritage nor adopt, wholesale, a Western intellectual perspective. In Carool Kersten‘s Cosmopolitans and Heretics: New Muslim Intellectuals and the Study of Islam (Columbia University Press, 2011), we learn about a few modern Muslim thinkers who engage their Islamic intellectual heritage with the philosophical apparatus of contemporary Western thought. Kersten, a professor of Religious and Islamic Studies at King’s College London, has tracked Muslim thinkers for years (follow his blog Critical Muslims), and book reflects a deep understanding of the wider dialogues occurring in contemporary Islamic thought. His analysis also traverses geographical limitations of much of the scholarship on contemporary Islam by discussing figures from both the eastern and western regions of Islam. We are introduced to the thought of Nurcholish Madjid (Indonesia), Hasan Hanafi (Egypt), and Mohammad Arkoun (Algeria). Through these thinkers Kersten explores how phenomenology, hermeneutics, secularization, and postcolonial vocabulary can assist us in approaching religion generally. He frames his work through Russell McCutcheon’s model of theological, phenomenological, and critical-anthropological strategies for engaging religion in order to demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses of these approaches in the study of Islam. Altogether, we have the first book length analysis of these important modern Muslim thinkers and their critique of both western scholarship and Muslim intellectualism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices