Jeremy Stolow’s Orthodox by Design: Judaism, Print Politics and the ArtScroll Revolution will be published next month by University of California Press. (Stolow is Assistant Professor of Communications Studies at Concordia University.) The blurbs so far are impressive:

“With stunning clarity, wit and originality, Jeremy Stolow takes us into the deeply influential but largely unexplored world of ArtScroll, a company that has cornered the market on the publishing of Orthodox religious prayer books, as well as a host of related works from cookbooks to self-help texts. With ethnographic and scholarly skill, and his characteristic attention to both detail and the big picture, Stolow reveals a social universe that is astonishingly complex, political and profitable. This inviting and groundbreaking book is a remarkable contribution to the fields of religion, media studies, and Judaic studies.”—Faye Ginsburg, New York University

“This carefully crafted, imaginative study of Artscroll offers a theoretically powerful perspective on the limitations of textual approaches of ‘book religions.’ Its relevance far exceeds the field of Jewish studies. I am thrilled by Stolow’s deployment of ‘design’ as a key theoretical concept that leads beyond usual oppositions of spirit/matter, content/form or message/medium. Located at the intersection of religious studies, media studies and social sciences, Orthodox by Design is an outstanding, path-breaking intervention in broader debates about religion, media and materiality.”—Birgit Meyer, author of Aesthetic Formations: Media, Religion and the Senses

Read more about Orthodox by Design here, or visit Jeremy Stolow’s website here.