Time in Ancient Judaism & Christianity
A selected reading list from Annette Yoshiko Reed’s course “Time in Ancient Judaism & Christianity.”
Category: In Review
Small Revelations
Garth Greenwell’s latest novel, Small Rain, centers attention as a moral discipline and asks how art can help us live. By Sarah Fleming
Draw Them In, Paint Them Out
The Jewish Museum exhibition Draw Them In, Paint Them Out: Trenton Doyle Hancock Confronts Philip Guston conjures a multisensory world that compels belief. By Emmy Waldman
A Very Special (and Mysterious) Day
A Q&A with Jon D. Levenson on his new book, Israel’s Day of Light and Joy: The Origin, Development, and Enduring Meaning of the Jewish Sabbath. By Faye Bodley-Dangelo
The Children at 80
Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness: A Vindication of Democracy and a Critique of Its Traditional Defense offers a still relevant perspective on the idealistic and cynical tendencies in US democracy. By Bradley Shingleton
Honoring Lives Ravaged by Addiction
Barbara Kingsolver’s Demon Copperhead and Donovan X. Ramsey’s When Crack Was King: A People’s History of a Misunderstood Era offer powerful narratives in the context of communities beset by addiction epidemics. By Mara Willard
‘A Pedagogy of Coming to See’
A Q&A with Francis X. Clooney, S.J., about his memoir Hindu and Catholic, Priest and Scholar: A Love Story. By Wendy McDowell
Knowing Animals: Buddhist and Posthuman Resources for a New Interspecies Ethics
A selected reading list from Janet Gyatso’s course.
The Smoldering Superhuman
Jeffrey J. Kripal’s The Superhumanities: Historical Precedents, Moral Objections, New Realities calls for a “postcritical” study of religion that embraces more expansive anthropologies, ontologies, and epistemologies. By Charles M. Stang
Dreaming of Superhumans: New Reactionary Nietzschean Fantasies
A fresh round of reactionary groups are appropriating Friedrich Nietzsche to promote virulent new strains of the “superhuman.” By Nicholas E. Low
Thinking (and Talking) in an Emergency
In How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2023), crisis and expediency justify violence at the expense of democratic processes. By Russell C. Powell
Speaking “Sex” into Living Languages
A Q&A with Mark D. Jordan on his new book, Queer Callings: Untimely Notes on Names and Desires. By Faye Bodley-Dangelo
Reframing Forgiveness
A Q&A with Matthew Ichihashi Potts on his latest book, Forgiveness: An Alternative Account. By Suzie Greco
Rooting in Relationality
Recent publications on plant consciousness invite us to rethink our entanglements with plant life and our understanding of ourselves among other species. By Natalia Schwien Scott
Paths of Coincidence in Thomas Hardy
The melodramatic aspects of Thomas Hardy’s novels lend themselves to an examination of the ordinary uncertainty of life—the landscape of Michael Jackson’s Coincidences: Synchronicity, Verisimilitude, and Storytelling. By Maria Cecilia Holt
Indigenous Practices in Contemporary Art
The thematic presence of ecological spiritualities in artworks found at four art exhibitions. By Daniela Cordovil
The Trouble with Oneness
Three recent books offer helpful frameworks for considering temperament and conversion in experiences of “oneness with nature.” By Shane Baker
Climate Grief and the Secular Spirituality of Earth-Mourning
We need to approach earth-mourning as a necessary spiritual practice that reckons with the disorienting power of grief and the potential for meaningful change. By Dorothy Dean
Ecotheology
A selected reading list from Dan McKanan’s course.
Contemporary Art as a Spiritual Tool for Facing Eco-Crisis
The Harvard Natural History Museum exhibition Next of Kin: Seeing Extinction through the Artist’s Lens used a series of design elements to create a space for mourning and discovery. By Christina Seely
