In this major new work, philosopher of religion Nancy Levene examines the elemental character of religion and modernity. Deep in their operating systems, she argues, are dualisms of opposition and identity that cannot be reconciled with the forms of...

"Across the Shaman's River" is the story of one of Alaska's last Native American strongholds, a Tlingit community closed off for a century until a fateful encounter between a shaman, a preacher, and John Muir. Tucked in the corner of Southeast Alas...

In 2014, the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago received a generous gift from collectors Lester and Betty Guttman: 830 photographs, created by a total of 414 artists, that cover a time period stretching all the way from the early 1800s...

"The Great William" is the first book to explore how seven renowned writers – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Virginia Woolf, Charles Olson, John Berryman, Allen Ginsberg, and Ted Hughes – wrestled with Shakespeare in the very moments when they...

In recent years, emotions have become a major, vibrant topic of research not merely in the biological and psychological sciences but throughout a wide swath of the humanities and social sciences as well. Yet, surprisingly, there is still no consensus...

The Roman statesman and philosopher Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) recorded his moral philosophy and reflections on life as a highly original kind of correspondence".Letters on Ethics" includes vivid descriptions of town and country life in Nero's Italy, discu...

For decades, James Joyce's modernism has overshadowed his Irishness, as his self-imposed exile and association with the high modernism of Europe's urban centers has led critics to see him almost exclusively as a cosmopolitan figure. In "Joyce's Ghost...

What are you drawn to like, to watch, or even to binge? What are you free to consume, and what do you become through consumption? These questions of desire and value, Kathryn Lofton argues, are questions for the study of religion. In eleven essays ex...

The past decade has been characterized by remarkable advances in meteorological observation, computing techniques, and data-visualization technology. However, the benefit of these advances can only be fully realized with the introduction of a systema...

Leaves are all around us – in backyards, cascading from window boxes, even emerging from small cracks in city sidewalks given the slightest glint of sunlight. Perhaps because they are everywhere, it's easy to overlook the humble leaf, but a close loo...