Posts
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The Suspicious Revolution
What does it do to people, and to a society, to suddenly become revolutionary? I recently had the chance to speak with Talal Asad, one of the leading anthropologists alive today, about the experience of being in Cairo earlier this year as the revolution unfolded around him. Our conversation appears this week at The Immanent…
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An Eden Full of Dudes
The end is the beginning is the end (that’s a Smashing Pumpkins line), and all are in Eden. Today at Religion Dispatches, Brook Wilensky-Lanford and I talk about her brand new book, Paradise Lust, out this week. It tells the stories of some bold explorers from the past few centuries who have tried to figure…
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You Have Searched Me and Known Me
Over at The Daily—my latest commentary on consumer technology gets theological: Apple CEO Steve Jobs returned to the stage earlier this month to announce a long-awaited new product: iCloud. “We’re going to demote the PC and the Mac to just be a device,” he said. “We’re going to move your hub, the center of your digital…
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What’s at Stake in The Tree of Life?
If you’re into getting worked up about semi-artsy movies, the one you’re supposed to get worked up about lately is Terrence Malick’s new The Tree of Life. It won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year. And got booed. You’re especially supposed to get worked up, it seems, if you’re into religion. At Killing the…
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Lull Me Into Rapture
Today at The Daily, the new tablet-only newspaper-ish publication, I have a short essay on the latest forthcoming apocalypse: About a decade ago, during a period of late-adolescent, almost apocalyptic urgency, with a sudden conversion to Roman Catholicism only a short time away, I discovered an unusual way to relax. At home, in my basement…
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Levitating Alien Mind Gods
After months of delays and excuses, I finally got around to doing an interview with Jeffrey Kripal, a religion professor at Rice University. It’s now up at The Immanent Frame. He’s one of the great oddballs in the study of religion today, about whom grad students whisper to each other, “It’s like he actually believes…
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How to Instigate a God Debate
Last week I had the chance to catch what was probably the biggest God debate of the year, in this genre of blockbuster, YouTubed, college-campus bouts. The topic was “Is Good from God?”—is religion necessary for objective morality? The debaters were William Lane Craig, the evangelical philosopher, and Sam Harris, who launched the New Atheism…
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Judith Butler on the Blurry Line of Violence
A year since my first interview with her appeared in Guernica, The Immanent Frame asked me to have another exchange with the feminist philosopher Judith Butler. Once again, we talked about violence, nonviolent resistance, power, and the problem of Israel-Palestine. This time, though, the backdrop was different: the Arab Spring, or the Middle East uprisings,…
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Martyrdom Makeover
New from me at Religion Dispatches: The idea of martyrdom hasn’t been in very good shape lately. One common usage of it—“I’ll not be made a martyr!”—refers to the prospect of somewhat tragic but mostly useless suffering, perhaps in the service of a delusional cause, religious or otherwise. Another appears regularly in the news with…
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Text Messages Live from Madison
My fellow Killing the Buddha editor Quince Mountain is, as we blog-speak, in the occupied Capitol building of Madison, Wisconsin. Over the course of yesterday, he and I had an extended text-message exchange, which tells the dramatic story of a rumored crackdown, a victory, celebrations, and preparations for the next crisis. The full account of yesterday…