Social Science Research Council

In an interview with Nathan Schneider, historian of ideas Mark Lilla explains how he ended up writing a book about political theology, what blogging on The Immanent Frame did for the book, and why he’s reading very selectively these days.

Saskia Sassen at openDemocracy.

Monte Bute reviews Reinhold Niebuhr’s The Irony of American History.

Michelle Goldberg, in a piece posted today at Religion Dispatches.

Andrew Sullivan responds to a post by Rod Dreher.

In a recent post at The Immanent Frame, Jason Bivins wondered in closing whether our present moment might become what Robert Orsi has called an “abundant event,” “characterized by aspects of the human imagination that cannot be completely accounted for by social and cultural codes.” Randall J. Stephens reports on a recent forum on “abundant history” in Historically Speaking, and has posted Robert Orsi’s lead essay and Jane Shaw’s response here.

Earlier this week, Charles Taylor was presented with the Kyoto Prize, often referred to as the “Japanese Nobel.” Next week, Taylor will be at Columbia University to deliver two talks co-sponsored by the Heyman Center for the Humanities, the Committee on Global Thought and the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life.

David Van Biema in Time.

Jason Bivins at Religion Dispatches. And read Bivins’s recent post at The Immanent Frame, “The cooling embers.”

From an article by Craig Calhoun in the fall 2008 issue of The Hedgehog Review.