On Tuesday, May 2, PLT Contributor Sarah Azaransky will deliver a guest lecture at UVA on her forthcoming book, This Worldwide Struggle: Religion and the International Roots of the Civil Rights Movement (Oxford University Press, 2017). The publication identifies a network of black Christian intellectuals and activists who looked abroad, even in other religious traditions, for ideas and practices that could transform American democracy. Read More

This news series, Can I Get a Witness? The Interviews, features conversations with the Witness participants to highlight how each author is being changed and challenged by the historical figure they are working to illumine. This week’s headliner is Carlene Bauer, who is writing on social justice champion Dorothy Day. Read More

The civil rights movement is popularly remembered through the initiative of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the tumultuous era of 1954-1965. In The Human Tradition in the Civil Rights Movement, seventeen writers breakaway from this traditional approach to commemorate the lesser-known, though equally important, change-makers that propelled efforts at the grassroots level. Read More

PLT Contributor Jennifer McBride released her newest book, Radical Discipleship: A Liturgical Politics of the Gospel, on March 1st. Christian Century is currently featuring an excerpt from the publication. Read More

This news series, Can I Get a Witness? The Interviews, features conversations with the Witness participants to highlight how each author is being changed and challenged by the historical figure they are working to illumine. This week’s headliner is Daniel Rhodes, whose figure is Union leader and labor organizer Cesar Chavez. Read More

In 2013, Pope Francis famously said, “I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity. I see the church as a field hospital after battle.” William Cavanaugh’s publication, Field Hospital, expands on this metaphor to explore the ways in which the church can meet the spiritual and material needs of the world. Read More

On February 28, Larycia Hawkins delivered a guest lecture entitled “The Mountaintop as the Valley of the Shadow: Martin Luther King, Jr. and Prophetic Visions from Below.” Aiming to complicate theology from above and the vision of the beloved community, also known as the Kingdom of God in America, the presentation considered our contemporary selves through the lenses of history, namely Martin Luther King, Jr. Read More

This news series, Can I Get a Witness? The Interviews, features conversations with the Witness participants to highlight how each author is being changed and challenged by the historical figure they are working to illumine. This week’s headliner is Grace Yia-Hei Kao, whose figure is Yuri Kochiyama, a life-long activist at the forefront of issues in the black, Latino, Native American and Asian American communities. Read More

Conforming to cultural norms and resisting them have created a long-standing tension among religious traditions in America. In this book, author Cathleen Kaveny offers an alternative approach through “a culture of engagement,” in which institutions embrace both a respect for tradition and a civic role that involves reviewing social and political issues. Read More

On March 13, Prof. Ankhi Mukherjee will visit the University of Virginia to lecture on the subject of her forthcoming book, The Psychic Life of the Poor: A City Unseen in Mumbai, London, and New York. The presentation will consider the relationship between psychoanalysis, race, and poverty in the context of global cities with a specific focus on Indian metropolises. Read More