Illustration of two women facing each other and talking, one with her robes made of Islamic calligraphy

Mother’s Tales, God’s Stories

The silent and implicit aspects of Qur’anic narratives elicit emotional responses from the reader that facilitate the reconstruction of the story world. By Zahra Moballegh

Spring/Summer 2024

Featured

Classroom scene with teacher and two students

How to Teach about Antisemitism

The five W’s—Who, What, Where, When, and Why—guide this teacher’s thinking about crucial questions to consider when educating about historical and contemporary antisemitism. By Joshua Krug

Portrait drawings of Courtney Sender and Kevin Madigan

On Waiting, Tending Life, and Comedy at God’s Scale

A conversation with Courtney Sender, MTS ’18, on her first novel, a braided story collection titled In Other Lifetimes: All I’ve Lost Comes Back to Me. By Kevin Madigan

Young adult walking down train tracks, seen from behind

The Spiritual Infrastructure of the Future

Many traditional religious denominations are withering, but there can be liberation if we embrace refitting the old systems in new ways. By Sue Phillips

Dialogue

Paradise and the White Sky

Finding home with the Buddhist monastic tertöns and the Irish green martyrs. By Jordan L. Borgman

Photo of Tibetan stupa with prayer flags, the Himalayas in the background
Persian miniature painting: fingures sleeping in a cave while the cave is surrounded by those seeking them.

Love and the Cosmos

Rumi perceived love as nature’s animating force. By Munjed M. Murad.

Photo of a minister offering a rabbi support as they stand between church pews

‘A Culture of Preparedness’

Jewish synagogues adopt new security strategies as antisemitic threats increase. By Robert Israel

Historic photo of a croup of 14 women and children

Unlike Sheep to the Slaughter

To a remarkable extent, Jews refused to let themselves slide into hopeless apathy during the Holocaust. By Melinda Mandelbaum Stein

In Review

Illustration of an abstract figure draped over a prism, reaching up towards multicolored swirls

Books

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

Illustration of a head shape with a many-layered hole in the center

Shelf Life

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

Queer Callings book cover

Books

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

Film still image of five youths around their van while a fire burns in the distance

Film

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

Poetry

Hymn to Skanda

By Amit Majmudar

The Judas-Tree

By Gilad Jaffe

Perspective

Spring Summer 2024 issue cover

Places of Refuge from Hate

Scholars pay careful attention to language and how it intersects with power, a skill that is dearly needed in a “post-truth” climate. By Wendy McDowell

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