The word “magisterial” in publishers’ blurbs usually means little more than “too long,” and indeed Religion in Human Evolution is…
Axial axioms
India
Multiple secularities and their normativity as an empirical subject
It is difficult to come to an agreement when normative issues are concerned. Are the “moderate” forms of European secularisms…
Beyond secularisms of all sorts
Is there a crisis of secularism in Western Europe? Is Tariq Modood’s “moderate secularism” the solution, or should we go…
“Traditionalist” Islamic activism
At the time of the 9/11 attacks, commentators trying to analyze Afghan support for Al-Qaeda put a great deal of…
Religion in the call center
When I set out to examine the lifestyle changes of employees working night shifts in India’s call centers, I was…
Hinduism, prosperity, and India’s rising middle class
The tendency in recent years of some U.S. evangelical and Pentecostal Christian preachers to celebrate immense wealth, rather than critique…
Skyping secularism: Religion and multiple modernities
Since our previous dispatch from the IWM Summer School in Cortona, we have settled back into our real lives in…
“Who is a Jew?”
A controversial bill passed the Israeli Knesset's (Parliament) law committee this week. The Rotem Bill, as it is known (named…
“The Lady Twilight”
Over at Killing the Buddha, William Dalrymple is excerpting his new book, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in…
Rajmohan Gandhi on faith, reconciliation, and peace
In conversation with Katherine Marshall, Rajmohan Gandhi, President of Initiatives of Change International (formerly Moral Rearmament) and the grandson of…