Marvels like enchanted rings and sorcerers’ stones were topics of fascination in the Middle Ages, not only in romance and travel literature but also in the period’s philosophical writing. Rather than constructions of belief accepted only by simple-minded people, Michelle Karnes shows that these spectacular wonders were near impossibilities that demanded scru ... Show More
Feb 27
Margaret S. Graves, "Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics" (Princeton UP, 2026)
In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the international antiquities market. Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics (Princeton University Press, 2026) t ... Show More
57m 40s
Feb 23
Todd H. Weir and Lieke Wijnia, eds., "The Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe" (Bloomsbury, 2025)
The open access Bloomsbury Handbook of Religion and Heritage in Contemporary Europe (Bloomsbury, 2025) offers readers a state-of-the-art guide to the public debates and scholarship on religious heritage in contemporary Europe. It contains articles by scholars, policy makers and h ... Show More
1h 22m
Feb 22
David S. Powers and Eric Tagliacozzo, "Islamic Ecumene: Comparing Muslim Societies" (Cornell UP, 2023)
The essays in Islamic Ecumene: Comparing Muslim Societies (Cornell UP, 2023) address the ways in which Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia and from sub-Saharan Africa to the steppes of Uzbekistan are members of a broad cultural unit. Although the Muslim inhabitants of these lands s ... Show More
31m 28s
Jun 2020
Lara Harb, "Arabic Poetics: Aesthetic Experience in Classical Arabic Literature" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
Lara Harb’s Arabic Poetics: Aesthetic Experience in Classical Arabic Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2020) is a delightful and formidable study on the details and development of poetics and aesthetics in medieval Arabic literature. The central theme of this splendid book ... Show More
1h 3m
Jul 2021
Germán Campos Muñoz, "The Classics in South America: Five Case Studies" (Bloomsbury, 2021)
Germán Campos Muñoz, The Classics in South America: Five Case Studies (Bloomsbury, 2021) examines the long and complex history of the Greco-Roman tradition in South America, arguing that the Classics have played a crucial, though often overlooked, role in the self-definition in t ... Show More
1h 34m
Nov 2021
Katarzyna Bartoszyńska, "Estranging the Novel: Poland, Ireland, and Theories of World Literature" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
Katarzyna (Kasia) Bartoszyńska is an assistant professor of English and Women’s and Gender Studies at Ithaca College. Her research and teaching focuses on the novel form and the theories connected to it, combining a formalist investigation of textual mechanics with an interest in ... Show More
31m 39s
May 2021
Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, "The Translator of Desires: Poems" (Princeton UP, 2021)
In this ground-breaking work, Michael Sells (the Barrows Professor Emeritus of the History and Literature of Islam and Professor emeritus of comparative literature at the University of Chicago) translates sixty-one poems that form the Tarjuman al-ashwaq or The Translator of Desir ... Show More
1h 4m
Jul 2023
Vivian Nun Halloran, "Caribbean American Narratives of Belonging" (Ohio State UP, 2023)
In Caribbean American Narratives of Belonging (Ohio State University Press, 2023), Vivian Nun Halloran analyzes memoirs, picture books, comic books, young adult novels, musicals, and television shows through which Caribbean Americans recount and celebrate their contributions to c ... Show More
1h 20m