The Immanent Frame

The German translation, by Michael Adrian, of The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere will be published by Suhrkamp Verlag in October.

Courtney Bender discusses the controversial ballot measure to prohibit circumcision of males under eighteen years of age, which will  be up for a vote in San Francisco in November.

Pitzer College having announced that it will offer a major in “secular studies,” the Harvard University Press Blog compiles a list of titles essential to the subject.

Der Spiegel reports that Chancellor Angela Merkel is under fire for her allegedly unduly celebratory comments about the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

The Guardian reports that some Islamic scholars and clerics are claiming that Osama bin Laden’s burial at sea was in violation of shari’a law and may provoke calls for retaliation against the United States.

David Kyuman Kim’s conversation with Jean Comaroff for the “Rites and Responsibilities” dialogue series, which originally appeared on this website last January, has been republished in the May 2011 issue of the journal Cultural Anthropology.

The CBC Radio program Ideas recently ran a five-part series on the life and work of Charles Taylor, “The Malaise of Modernity: Charles Taylor in Conversation,” which is now available to stream or to download as a podcast.

Listen here.

At Killing the Buddha:

“Muslims, Christians, and Buddhists broke matzo with Jewish Israelis in a Tel Aviv basketball court before this year’s Passover began. The “Out of Egypt” seder, a thousand-strong gathering in a seedy park near the central bus station, was four days early; many of the guests—African refugees and Asian migrant workers—are busy cleaning Israeli homes during Passover proper. The Sudanese and Eritrean guests have literal Out-of-Egypt stories to tell: Most lived in Cairo for months or years before crossing the Sinai by foot to get to Israel. But there’s no Moses in their exodus stories. There are Bedouin smugglers who charge thousands of dollars to lead them through the desert. There are Egyptian border guards who shoot. There are barbed-wire fences to run and jump—if they make it, into another people’s Zion.”

A new grants program for journalists, sponsored by the Knight Program at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism:

Knight Grants for Reporting on Religion and American Public Life, sponsored by the Knight Program at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism, provides funding for projects that explore how religion — morals, values, spirituality and the search for meaning — shapes responses to social issues, including housing, health care, poverty, sexuality, immigration, economic equity, and civil rights in the US.

In Foreign Policy, Elizabeth McAlister—a member of the SSRC Working Group on Spirituality, Political Engagement, and Public Life—writes on recent electoral victory of Haitian pop star Michel Martelly and how music shapes politics in Haiti.