New Books in Catholic Studies

By: New Books Network
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  • Summary

  • Interviews with scholars of Catholicism about their new books
    New Books Network
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Art Literary History & Criticism Ministry & Evangelism Spirituality
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Episodes
  • Amélie Barras, "Faith in Rights: Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work in the United Nations" (Stanford UP, 2024)

    Amélie Barras, "Faith in Rights: Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work in the United Nations" (Stanford UP, 2024)
    Dec 24 2024
    Faith in Rights: Christian-Inspired NGOs at Work in the United Nations (Stanford University Press, 2024) by Dr. Amélie Barras explores why and how Christian nongovernmental organizations conduct human rights work at the United Nations. The book interrogates the idea that the secular and the religious are distinct categories, and more specifically that human rights, understood as secular, can be neatly distinguished from religion. It argues that Christianity is deeply entangled in the texture of the United Nations and shapes the methods and areas of work of Christian NGOs. To capture these entanglements, Dr. Barras analyzes—through interviews, ethnography, and document and archive analysis—the everyday human rights work of Christian NGOs at the United Nations Human Rights Council. She documents how these NGOs are involved in a constant work of double translation: they translate their human rights work into a religious language to make it relevant to their on-the-ground membership, but they also reframe the concerns of their membership in human rights terms to make them audible to UN actors. Faith in Rights is a crucial new evaluation of how religion informs Christian nongovernmental organizations' understandings of human rights and their methods of work, as well as how being engaged in human rights work influences these organizations' own religious identity and practice. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 mins
  • Paula Fredriksen, "Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years" (Princeton UP, 2024)

    Paula Fredriksen, "Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years" (Princeton UP, 2024)
    Dec 23 2024
    The ancient Mediterranean teemed with gods. For centuries, a practical religious pluralism prevailed. How, then, did one particular god come to dominate the politics and piety of the late Roman Empire? In Ancient Christianities: The First Five Hundred Years (Princeton University Press, 2024), Dr. Paula Fredriksen traces the evolution of early Christianity—or rather, of early Christianities—through five centuries of Empire, mapping its pathways from the hills of Judea to the halls of Rome and Constantinople. It is a story with a sprawling cast of characters: not only theologians, bishops, and emperors, but also gods and demons, angels and magicians, astrologers and ascetics, saints and heretics, aristocratic patrons and millenarian enthusiasts. All played their part in the development of what became and remains an energetically diverse biblical religion. The New Testament, as we know it, represents only a small selection of the many gospels, letters, acts of apostles, and revelations that circulated before the establishment of the imperial church. It tells how the gospel passed from Jesus, to the apostles, thence to Paul. But by using our peripheral vision, by looking to noncanonical and paracanonical texts, by availing ourselves of information derived from papyri, inscriptions, and archaeology, we can see a different, richer, much less linear story emerging. Dr. Fredriksen brings together these many sources to reconstruct the lively interactions of pagans, Jews, and Christians, tracing the conversions of Christianity from an energetic form of Jewish messianism to an arm of the late Roman state. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    55 mins
  • Jan Machielsen, "The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History" (Bloomsbury, 2024)

    Jan Machielsen, "The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
    Dec 20 2024
    In June 1609, two judges left Bordeaux for a territory at the very edge of their jurisdiction, a Basque-speaking province on the Atlantic coast called the Pays de Labourd. In four months, they executed up to 80 women and men for the crime of witchcraft, causing a wave of suspects to flee into Spain and sparking terror there. Witnesses, many of them children, described lurid tales of cannibalism, vampirism, and demonic sex. One of the judges, Pierre de Lancre, published a sensationalist account of this diabolical netherworld. With other accounts seemingly destroyed, this witch-hunt – France's largest – has always been seen through de Lancre's eyes. The narrative, re-told over the centuries, is that of a witch-hunt caused by a bigoted outsider. Newly discovered evidence paints a very different, still darker picture, revealing a secret history underneath de Lancre's well-known tale. Far from an outside imposition, witchcraft was a home-grown problem. Panic had been building up over a number of years and the region was fractured by factionalism and a struggle over scarce resources. The Basque Witch-Hunt: A Secret History (Bloomsbury, 2024) by Dr. Jan Machielsen reveals that de Lancre was no outsider; he was a local partisan, married into the Basque nobility. Living at the Franco-Spanish border, the Basques were victims of geography. Geo-politics caused a local conflict which made the witch-hunt inevitable. The same forces eventually sent thousands of religious refugees from Spain to France where they, in turn, became new objects of popular fear and anger. The Basque witch-hunt is justly infamous. This book shows that almost everything historians thought they knew about it is wrong. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    50 mins

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