Select Faculty Publications

Ahmed Souaiaia

Human Rights Islamic Societies Human Rights in Islamic Societies, Muslims and the Western Conception of Rights. Routledge, May 2021

This book compares Islamic and Western ideas of human rights in order to ascertain which human rights, if any, can be considered universal. This is a profound topic with a rich history that is highly relevant within global politics and society today.

The arguments in this book are formed by bringing William Talbott’s Which Rights Should Be Universal? (2005) and Abdulaziz Sachedina’s Islam and the Challenge of Human Rights (2014) into conversation. By bridging the gap between cultural relativists and moral universalists, this book seeks to offer a new model for the understanding of human rights. It contends that human rights abuses are outcomes of complex systems by design and/or by default. Therefore, it proposes that a rigorous systems-thinking approach will contribute to addressing the challenge of human rights.

Engaging with Islamic and Western, historical and contemporary, and relativist and universalist thought, this book is a fresh take on a perennially important issue. As such, it will be a first-rate resource for any scholars working in religious studies, Islamic studies, Middle East studies, ethics, sociology, and law and religion. Click here for more information and review.

Anatomy of Dissent in Islamic Societies, Ibadism, Rebellion, and Legitamacy. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

The 'Arab Spring' that began in 2011 has placed a spotlight on the transfer of political power in Islamic societies, reviving old questions about the place of political dissent and rebellion in Islamic civilization and raising new ones about the place of religion in modern Islamic societies. In Anatomy of Dissent in Islamic Societies, Ahmed E. Souaiaia examines the complex historical evolution of Islamic civilization in an effort to trace the roots of the paradigms and principles of Islamic political and legal theories. This study is one of the first attempts at providing a fuller picture of the place of dissent and rebellion in Islamic civilization by interpreting Sunni and Shi`i records in the context of little-known Ibad?i political and legal materials. As the oldest sect, Ibad?iyyah provides a record of the ways sectarianism and dissent developed and impinged on Islamic society and thought. Click here for more information.

Contesting Justice Souaiaia Contesting Justice: Women, Law, and Society. SUNY Press, 2008

Contesting Justice examines the development of the laws and practices governing the status of women in Muslim society, particularly in terms of marriage, polygamy, inheritance, and property rights. Ahmed E. Souaiaia argues that such laws were not methodically derived from legal sources but rather are the preserved understanding and practices of the early ruling elite. Based on his quantitative, linguistic, and normative analyses of Quranic texts—and contrary to the established practice—the author shows that these texts sanction only monogamous marriages, guarantee only female heirs’ shares, and do not prescribe an inheritance principle that awards males twice the shares of females. He critically explores the way religion is developed and then is transformed into a social control mechanism that transcends legal reform, gender-sensitive education, or radical modernization. To ameliorate the legal, political, and economic status of women in the Islamic world, Souaiaia recommends the strengthening of civil society institutions that will challenge wealth-engendered majoritism, curtail society-manufactured conformity, and bridle the absolute power of the state. Click here for more information.

Reviews:
“…[Souaiaia’s] ideas are illuminating … his examination of Qur’anic laws, particularly those concerning women, should resonate well in the international community. Moreover, he offers moderate Muslims a refreshing new approach to the sort of interpretations that have traditionally stifled women’s advancement.” — Religion
“Contesting Justice may be appreciated from two points of view. It is, on the one hand, an advocacy piece, an original contribution to Islamic thought … But Justice also includes at least two chapters which, although part of the author’s impassioned argument for a new view of Islamic law, also contain material that reveals much about the workings of the classical tradition … [Souaiaia] is surely an intellectual to watch on the North American Muslim scene.” — Studies in Religion

Richard Turner

Soundtrack to a Movement, African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism. New York University Press, 2021

Explores how jazz helped propel the rise of African American Islam during the era of global Black liberation. Amid the social change and liberation of the civil rights and Black Power movements, the tenor saxophonist Archie Shepp recorded a tribute to Malcolm X’s emancipatory political consciousness. Shepp saw similarities between his revolutionary hero and John Coltrane, one of the most influential jazz musicians of the era. Later, the esteemed trumpeter Miles Davis echoed Shepp’s sentiment, recognizing that Coltrane’s music represented the very passion, rage, rebellion, and love that Malcolm X preached.

Soundtrack to a Movement examines the link between the revolutionary Black Islam of the post-WWII generation and jazz music. It argues that from the late 1940s and ’50s though the 1970s, Islam rose in prominence among African Americans in part because of the embrace of the religion among jazz musicians. The book demonstrates that the values that Islam and jazz shared—Black affirmation, freedom, and self-determination—were key to the growth of African American Islamic communities, and that it was jazz musicians who led the way in shaping encounters with Islam as they developed a Black Atlantic “cool” that shaped both Black religion and jazz styles.

Reviews:
"A tour de force of interdisciplinary research that identifies, explains, and analyzes previously underexplored links between expressive culture and social identities. For both expert and novice readers, African American Islam and Jazz is filled with delightful surprises. Turner’s chapters on Black urban life in Boston and Philadelphia delineate the rich social and historical contexts out of which the musical texts of bebop music emerged. His careful attention to empirical detail reveals southern and Caribbean migrants to these cities to have been neither ruthlessly uprooted nor seamlessly transplanted, but instead positioned inside complex struggles for self-defense, self-determination, and self-activity." ~George Lipsitz, author of How Racism Takes Places

Jazz Religion, the Second Line and Black New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina. Indiana University Press, 2016.

An examination of the musical, religious, and political landscape of black New Orleans before and after Hurricane Katrina, this revised edition looks at how these factors play out in a new millennium of global apartheid. Richard Brent Turner explores the history and contemporary significance of second lines—the group of dancers who follow the first procession of church and club members, brass bands, and grand marshals in black New Orleans’s jazz street parades. Here music and religion interplay, and Turner’s study reveals how these identities and traditions from Haiti and West and Central Africa are reinterpreted. He also describes how second line participants create their own social space and become proficient in the arts of political disguise, resistance, and performance. More information can be found here.

Reviews:
Turner straddles religion, music, the performance arts, languages, nationalities, and identities skillfully . . . with aplomb, with brio, in a language all his own that sings. ~Patrick Bellegarde-Smith, editor of Haitian Vodou
With this book Turner issues both a warning and reassurance that while post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans is changing, the vibrant traditions of jazz religion and second lines must continue. ~Journal of African American History
I highly recommend this text to undergrads, grads, faculty, and researchers. Its pages unfold critical analysis for the advanced scholar, and its prose makes clear a complex culture to the casual learner. ~Journal of African American Studies

Jenna Supp-Montgomerie

When the Medium Was the Mission, The Atlantic Telegraph and the Religious Origins of Network Culture. NYU Press, 2021

An innovative exploration of religion's influence on communication networks

When Samuel Morse sent the words “what hath God wrought” from the US Supreme Court to Baltimore in mere minutes, it was the first public demonstration of words travelling faster than human beings and farther than a line of sight in the US. This strange confluence of media, religion, technology, and US nationhood lies at the foundation of global networks.

The advent of a telegraph cable crossing the Atlantic Ocean was viewed much the way the internet is today, to herald a coming world-wide unification. President Buchanan declared that the Atlantic Telegraph would be “an instrument destined by divine providence to diffuse religion, civilization, liberty, and law throughout the world” through which “the nations of Christendom [would] spontaneously unite.” Evangelical Protestantism embraced the new technology as indicating God’s support for their work to Christianize the globe. Public figures in the US imagined this new communication technology in primarily religious terms as offering the means to unite the world and inspire peaceful relations among nations. Religious utopianists saw the telegraph as the dawn of a perfect future.

Religious framing thus dominated the interpretation of the technology’s possibilities, forging an imaginary of networks as connective, so much so that connection is now fundamental to the idea of networks. In reality, however, networks are marked, at core, by disconnection. With lively historical sources and an accessible engagement with critical theory, When the Medium was the Mission tells the story of how connection was made into the fundamental promise of networks, illuminating the power of public Protestantism in the first network imaginaries, which continue to resonate today in false expectations of connection.

Reviews:

"Supp-Montgomerie models how to integrate the study of human and non-human actors in American religious history, offering us a fascinating account of infrastructure's work to animate religious life and of the politics such religious infrastruture enabled." Judith Weisenfeld, Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion - Princeton University.

"As refreshingly original as it is persuasive, Supp-Montgomerie's media history traces the entwined trajectories of religious affect and network-oriented thinking as they emerged in reference to American telegraphy. Her stories of fervid missionaries, Bible communists, and Protestant utopians - as of failed connections and togetherness defeated - should resonate for readers today who are steeped in Silicon Valley evangelism." Lisa Gitelman, author of Paper Knowledge: Toward a Media History of Documents.

Hyaeweol Choi

Gender Politics Choi Gender Politics at Home and Abroad. Cambridge University Press, 2020

Hyaeweol Choi examines the formation of modern gender relations in Korea from a transnational perspective. Diverging from a conventional understanding of 'secularization' as a defining feature of modernity, Choi argues that Protestant Christianity, introduced to Korea in the late nineteenth century, was crucial in shaping modern gender ideology, reforming domestic practices and claiming new space for women in the public sphere. In Korea, Japanese colonial power - and with it, Japanese representations of modernity - was confronted with the dominant cultural and material power of Europe and the US, which was reflected in Korean attitudes. One of the key agents in conveying ideas of “Western modernity” in Korea was globally connected Christianity, especially US-led Protestant missionary organizations. By placing gender and religion at the center of the analysis, Choi shows that the development of modern gender relations was rooted in the transnational experience of Koreans and not in a simple nexus of the colonizer and the colonized. More information can be found here.

Reviews
'Choi's ground-breaking study explores the transnational dynamics shaping the lives of elite Korean women under colonial rule. She traces how their active encounter with 'protestant modernity' at home and abroad nurtured their own rise as leaders who helped frame notions of domesticity, nationalism, and gender in 1920s-30s Korea.' Jan Bardsley - University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
‘By detailing transnational encounters beyond the colonizer Japan, this book offers a fresh, compelling account of Korea’s transition to modernity. With its extensive research and carefully selected focus, it adds nuance and rigor to broader conversations about colonialism, modernity, and gender. A truly pathbreaking work - a must-read.’ Ji-Eun Lee - Washington University in St. Louis

Paul Dilley

Monasteries - Dilley Monasteries and the Care of Souls in Late Antique Christianity: Cognition and Discipline. Cambridge University Press, 2017

In Monasteries and the Care of Souls in Late Antique Christianity, Paul C. Dilley explores the personal practices and group rituals through which the thoughts of monastic disciples were monitored and trained to purify the mind and help them achieve salvation. Dilley draws widely on the interdisciplinary field of cognitive studies, especially anthropology, in his analysis of key monastic 'cognitive disciplines', such as meditation on scripture, the fear of God, and prayer. In addition, various rituals distinctive to communal monasticism, including entrance procedures, the commemoration of founders, and collective repentance, are given their first extended analysis. Participants engaged in 'heart-work' on their thoughts and emotions, which were understood to reflect the community's spiritual state. This book will be of interest to scholars of early Christianity and the ancient world more generally for its detailed description of communal monastic culture and its innovative methodology. Click here for more information.

Reviews:
Paul C. Dilley provides an authoritative account of how early cenobitic monks acted on their hearts and minds to achieve virtue and thus salvation. Based on deep knowledge of the primary sources and informed by perspectives from cognitive theory, this innovative, original, and clear book will appeal to historians of the emotions as well as scholars of early Christianity, monasticism, and the history of spirituality. An impressive achievement.' David Brakke, The Ohio State University

Robert Cargill

Cities Build Bible The Cities That Built the Bible. San Francisco: Harper One, 2017

For many, the names Bethlehem, Babylon, and Jerusalem are known as the setting for epic stories from the Bible featuring rustic mangers, soaring towers, and wooden crosses. What often gets missed is that these cities are far more than just the setting for the Bible and its characters—they were instrumental to the creation of the Bible as we know it today. Taking us behind-the-scenes of the Bible, Cargill blends archaeology, biblical history, and personal journey as he explores these cities and their role in the creation of the Bible. He reveals surprising facts such as what the Bible says about the birth of Jesus and how Mary’s Virgin Birth caused problems for the early church. We’ll also see how the God of the Old Testament was influenced by other deities, that there were numerous non-biblical books written about Moses, Jacob, and Jesus in antiquity, and how far more books were left out of the Bible than were let in during the messy, political canonization process. Click here for more information.

Reviews:
“An engaging journey into the Bible and archaeology from a new perspective: instead of starting with kings, prophets, or texts, the author starts with ancient cities in which so much was born - all the while combined with a lively personal account that puts flesh and bones on the tale.” -Richard Elliott Friedman, Th.D. author of The Bible with Sources Revealed

“With heartfelt sincerity and timely humor, Cargill possesses the historical knowledge, command of biblical languages, and archaeological expertise necessary to successfully communicate the tale of the Bible’s beginnings with a passion that highlights his love for the biblical world.” -Oded Lipschits, Ph.D. Professor of Jewish History and Director of the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University

Qumran through (Real) Time: A Virtual Reconstruction of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Bible In Technology 1. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2009.

The settlement of Khirbet Qumran has been at the center of archaeological debate since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Recent publications have questioned Roland de Vaux’s initial conclusion that the Essenes built Qumran and there composed the Dead Sea Scrolls. This book examines the history of interpretation of the settlement at Qumran and introduces a new digital methodology that employs virtual reality to analyze the remains. The book concludes that after an initial Iron Age occupation, the site of Qumran was established as a Hasmonean fortress, abandoned, and later reoccupied by a small religious community that expanded the site in a communal, non-military manner. This group was ultimately responsible for some of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the nearby caves. For more information click here.

Raymond Mentzer

Huegenots A Companion to the Huguenots. Coedited with Bertrand Van Ruymbeke. Brill Companion Series 68. Leiden: Brill, 2016.

The Huguenots are among the best known of early modern European religious minorities. Their suffering in 16th and 17th-century France is a familiar story. The flight of many Huguenots from the kingdom after 1685 conferred upon them a preeminent place in the accounts of forced religious migrations. Their history has become synonymous with repression and intolerance. At the same time, Huguenot accomplishments in France and the lands to which they fled have long been celebrated. They are distinguished by their theological formulations, political thought, and artistic achievements. This volume offers an encompassing portrait of the Huguenot past, investigates the principal lines of historical development, and suggests the interpretative frameworks that scholars have advanced for appreciating the Huguenot experience. Click here for more information.

Reviews:
"an absorbing and informative read and a very useful addition to my bookshelf." - Jane McKee, Ulster University, in: Huguenot Society Journal, 2017, pp. 721-722
"a clear overview of the current state of affairs of Huguenot research [....]. The companion offers a wide perspective on Huguenot history for a nonspecialist readership." - David Onnekink, Utrecht University, in: Renaissance Quarterly 71.2 (Summer 2018), pp. 768-769
"This is an important new collection that should be of great interest to those who study early modern history, not just Huguenot specialists but wider audiences too." - Nicholas Must, Wilfrid Laurier University, in: Journal of Jesuit Studies 4.1 (2017), pp. 125-127

Les registres des consistoires des Églises réformées de France, XVIe - XVIIe siècles. Un inventaire. Librairie Droz, 2014.

The consistory was the institutional foundation of the French Reformed Churches during the early modern period. Every local church had a consistory, composed of pastors, elders and deacons. Presided over by the pastor, it met each week to discuss matters of ecclesiastical administration, the spiritual and liturgical life of the congregation, assistance to the poor and, above all, morals control. Accordingly, the registers of consistorial deliberation constitute a remarkable source for the study of church discipline, the implementation of new liturgical forms and the organization of social welfare. They also disclose the details of human sociability, everyday behavior and popular culture. R. Mentzer has identified 309 surviving manuscript registers of consistorial deliberation for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They come from 156 different churches. The manuscripts are housed primarily at Paris in the Archives Nationales and the Bibliothèque du Protestantisme Français, and in the provincial departmental and municipal archives. More information can be found here.

Ahmed Souaiaia

Anatomy of Dissent in Islamic Societies, Ibadism, Rebellion, and Legitamacy. Hampshire, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Contesting Justice Souaiaia Contesting Justice: Women, Law, and Society. SUNY Press, 2008

Kristy Nabhan-Warren

The Cursillo Movement in America: Catholics, Protestants, and Fourth-Day Spirituality. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2013.

The internationally growing Cursillo movement, or "short course in Christianity," founded in 1944 by Spanish Catholic lay practitioners, has become popular among American Catholics and Protestants alike. This lay-led weekend experience helps participants recommit to and live their faith. Emphasizing how American Christians have privileged the individual religious experience and downplayed denominational and theological differences in favor of a common identity as renewed people of faith, Kristy Nabhan-Warren focuses on cursillistas--those who have completed a Cursillo weekend--to show how their experiences are a touchstone for understanding these trends in post-1960s American Christianity.

Drawing on extensive ethnographic fieldwork as well as historical research, Nabhan-Warren shows the importance of Latino Catholics in the spread of the Cursillo movement. Cursillistas' stories, she argues, guide us toward a new understanding of contemporary Christian identities, inside and outside U.S. borders, and of the importance of globalizing American religious boundaries. More information can be found here.

Reviews:
“Challenges scholars of American religions to think across national and denominational boundaries.”--BeforeItsNews.com
"An important study. Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates through researchers/faculty; general readers."--Choice

Vigin of El Barrio The Virgin of El Barrio. New York: New York University Press, 2005.

In 1998, a Mexican American woman named Estela Ruiz began seeing visions of the Virgin Mary in south Phoenix. The apparitions and messages spurred the creation of Mary’s Ministries, a Catholic evangelizing group, and its sister organization, ESPIRITU, which focuses on community-based initiatives and social justice for Latinos/as.

Based on ten years of participant observation and in-depth interviews, The Virgin of El Barrio traces the spiritual transformation of Ruiz, the development of the community that has sprung up around her, and the international expansion of their message. Their organizations blend popular and official Catholicism as well as evangelical Protestant styles of praise and worship, shedding light on Catholic responses to the tensions between popular and official piety and the needs of Mexican Americans. Click here for more information.

Reviews:
"A thorough ethnography that sweeps the reader into the world of Marian visionary Estela Ruiz, her family and followers, and the evangelizing ministries they have created in South Phoenix. . . . Fascinating." ~Timothy Matovina,Director, Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, University of Notre Dame
"This book stands as an intimate portrait of the visionary; 'a woman torn between the individualism she enjoyed in the & Anglo world and her familial commitments in her Mexican-American home" ~Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion

Diana Fritz Cates

Aquinas on the Emotions: A Religious-Ethical Inquiry. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press (Moral Tradition Series), 2009.

All of us want to be happy and live well. Sometimes intense emotions affect our happiness—and, in turn, our moral lives. Our emotions can have a significant impact on our perceptions of reality, the choices we make, and the ways in which we interact with others. Can we, as moral agents, have an effect on our emotions? Do we have any choice when it comes to our emotions? More information can be found here.

Medicine and Ethics Cates Medicine and the Ethics of Care. Ed. with Paul Lauritzen. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

In these essays, a diverse group of ethicists draw insights from both religious and feminist scholarship in order to propose creative new approaches to the ethics of medical care. While traditional ethics emphasizes rules, justice, and fairness, the contributors to this volume embrace an "ethics of care," which regards emotional engagement in the lives of others as basic to discerning what we ought to do on their behalf.

The essays reflect on the three related themes: community, narrative, and emotion. They argue for the need to understand patients and caregivers alike as moral agents who are embedded in multiple communities, who seek to attain or promote healing partly through the medium of storytelling, and who do so by cultivating good emotional habits. A thought-provoking contribution to a field that has long been dominated by an ethics of principle, Medicine and the Ethics of Care will appeal to scholars and students who want to move beyond the constraints of that traditional approach. Click here for more information.

Reviews:
"A sensitive and sensible exploration of important new directions in bioethics from several highly respected voices. . . . Their essays grip one's attention and expand one's horizons."—Lisa Cahill, Boston College
"Curious about what feminism, narrative, and the ethics of care mean for bioethics? Medicine and the Ethics of Care is an excellent place to begin satisfying that curiosity. Some of the voices are familiar and distinguished; some are new and exciting. All are worth reading."—Thomas H. Murray, president, The Hastings Center

Morten Schlütter

How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China. University of Hawai’i Press, 2009.

How Zen Became Zen takes a novel approach to understanding one of the most crucial developments in Zen Buddhism: the dispute over the nature of enlightenment that erupted within the Chinese Chan (Zen) school in the twelfth century. Click here for more information.

Readings Platform Sutra Readings of the Platform Sutra. Co-Edited with Stephen F. Teiser, Columbia University Press (Readings of Buddhist Literature Series), 2012.

The Platform Sutra comprises a wide range of important Chan/Zen Buddhist teachings. Purported to contain the autobiography and sermons of Huineng (638–713), the legendary Sixth Patriarch of Chan, the sutra has been popular among monastics and the educated elite for centuries. The first study of its kind in English, this volume offers essays that introduce the history and ideas of the sutra to a general audience and interpret its practices. Leading specialists on Buddhism discuss the text's historical background and its vaunted legacy in Chinese culture. Click here for more.

Frederick Smith

The Self Possessed: Deity and Spirit Possession in South Asian Literature and Civilization. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007.

The Self Possessed is a multifaceted, diachronic study reconsidering the very nature of religion in South Asia, the culmination of years of intensive research. Frederick M. Smith proposes that positive oracular or ecstatic possession is the most common form of spiritual expression in India, and that it has been linguistically distinguished from negative, disease-producing possession for thousands of years. Read more here.

Modern & Global Modern and Global Ayurveda: Pluralism and Paradigms. Ed. with Dagmar Wujastyk. Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 2008.

Modern and Global Ayurveda provides an overview of the relatively recent history of Ayurveda in its modern and globalized forms. One of the traditional medical systems originating on the Indian subcontinent, Ayurveda is fast becoming a transnational phenomenon. Contributors to this volume include both scholars and practitioners of Ayurveda. The wide range of perspectives they offer include the philosophical, anthropological, sociopolitical, economic, biomedical, and pharmacological. Issues such as the ideological clashes between “classical” and “modernized” Ayurveda, the “export” of Ayurvedic medical lore to Western countries, and the possible “reimport” of its adapted and reinterpreted contents are covered and prove particularly relevant to contemporary discussion on the integration of complementary and alternative health care.

Jay Holstein

The Jewish Experience (Fourth Edition). Pearson Custom Publishing. 2002

This is a book about the Hebrew Bible. It is the author's intention that this book serve to introduce the reader to both the problems and delights of biblical study. The problems are legion: the Hebrew Bible is an ancient book written in an ancient tongue; it consists of thirty-nine books which appear to differ widely both in form and content; and it is considered by the adherents of three world religions to be sacred literature, which for many implies that it is not to be read as one would read any other book. These and other problems will be discussed in this book with the goal in mind of formulating a method of beginning to read the Hebrew Bible. More than anything else, this book is about how to read the Hebrew Bible. Click here for information.