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Becoming God: Pure Reason in Early Greek Philosophy (Continuum Studies in Ancient Philosophy)
by Patrick Lee MillerBecoming god was an ideal of many ancient Greek philosophers, as was the life of reason, which they equated with divinity. This book argues that their rival accounts of this equation depended on their divergent attitudes toward time. Affirming it, Heraclitus developed a paradoxical style of reasoning-chiasmus-that was the activity of his becoming god. Denying it as contradictory, Parmenides sought to purify thinking of all contradiction, offering eternity to those who would follow him. Plato did, fusing this pure style of reasoning-consistency-with a Pythagorean program of purification and divinization that would then influence philosophers from Aristotle to Kant. Those interested in Greek philosophical and religious thought will find fresh interpretations of its early figures, as well as a lucid presentation of the first and most influential attempts to link together divinity, rationality, and selfhood.
Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process
by M. D. FaberM. D. Faber presents a meticulous, unremitting inquiry into the psychological direction from which Christianity derives its power to attract and hold its followers.Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process was written, its author says, to alert readers to the role of infantilization in the Judeo-Christian tradition generally and in Christian rite and doctrine particularly. Because religion plays such an important role in so may lives, it is essential to understand the underlying appeal and significance of religious doctrines.To that end, Becoming God's Children offers the reader an in-depth account of human neuropsychological development, while unearthing the Judeo-Christian tradition's explicitly infantilizing doctrines and rites. This compelling perspective on the nature and meaning of religious behavior explores issues such as: to what extent religious faith is grounded in the mnemonic recesses of the worshipper's brain, whether believers are predisposed by both genetic makeup and environmental prompting to adhere to their religious convictions, and why some individuals are powerfully drawn to religious faith while others reject it. A final chapter explores the implications of religion's infantilizing process vis-a-vis the role of reason and scientific thought in the contemporary world.
Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process
by M. D. FaberM. D. Faber presents a meticulous, unremitting inquiry into the psychological direction from which Christianity derives its power to attract and hold its followers.Becoming God's Children: Religion's Infantilizing Process was written, its author says, to alert readers to the role of infantilization in the Judeo-Christian tradition generally and in Christian rite and doctrine particularly. Because religion plays such an important role in so may lives, it is essential to understand the underlying appeal and significance of religious doctrines.To that end, Becoming God's Children offers the reader an in-depth account of human neuropsychological development, while unearthing the Judeo-Christian tradition's explicitly infantilizing doctrines and rites. This compelling perspective on the nature and meaning of religious behavior explores issues such as: to what extent religious faith is grounded in the mnemonic recesses of the worshipper's brain, whether believers are predisposed by both genetic makeup and environmental prompting to adhere to their religious convictions, and why some individuals are powerfully drawn to religious faith while others reject it. A final chapter explores the implications of religion's infantilizing process vis-a-vis the role of reason and scientific thought in the contemporary world.
Becoming ‘Good Muslim’: The Tablighi Jamaat in the UK and Bangladesh
by Bulbul SiddiqiThe book uses an ethnographic approach to explore why the Tablighi Jamaat movement remains so successful in contemporary times. It shows that this success results from the positive image that it cultivates, and the systematic preaching activities of Tablighi Jamaat followers, and that the organisation’s apolitical image, the public profile of the ijtema, the humbleness of Tablighi followers, and the attraction of belonging to the global Tablighi community all help to create a positive image of the Tablighi Jamaat among ordinary Muslims. The book also argues that the Tablighi Jamaat remains successful because of its ability to hold its followers within a Tablighi-guided life, which is perceived as protection against the Western lifestyle. Many elements of contemporary Western lifestyle are considered non-Islamic, and so by clearly defining what is Islamic and non-Islamic in modern society, the Tablighi Jamaat provides a way in which Muslims can live in the contemporary world, but remain good Muslims.
Becoming Habsburg: The Jews of Habsburg Bukovina, 1774-1918 (The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
by David RechterHabsburg Bukovina no longer exists, save in the realms of historiography, nostalgia, and collective memory. Remembered for its remarkable multinational, multi-faith character, Bukovina and its capital city Czernowitz have long been presented as exemplars of inter-ethnic co-operation, political moderation, and cultural dynamism, with Jews regarded as indispensable to the region’s character and vitality. This is not mere rhetoric: the Jews of Bukovina were integral to, and at home in, local society. David Rechter’s important new history conveys the special nature of Bukovina Jewry while embedding it in the broader historical and intellectual frameworks of Galician, imperial Austrian, and east central European Jewries. Carefully tracing the evolution of the tangled relationship of state and society with the Jews, from the Josephinian Enlightenment through absolutism to emancipation, he brings to light the untold story of the Jewish minority in the monarchy's easternmost province, often a byword for economic backwardness and cultural provincialism. Here, at the edge of the Habsburg monarchy, Jews forged a new society from familiar elements, a unique hybrid of eastern and western European Jewries. Bukovina Jewry was both and neither: understanding its history can help us grasp the east/west fault lines within European Jewry, a key element in the Jewish experience in Europe.
Becoming Half Hidden: Shamanism and Initiation Among the Inuit
by Daniel MerkurFirst Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Becoming Half Hidden: Shamanism and Initiation Among the Inuit
by Daniel MerkurFirst Published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Becoming Jewish, Believing in Jesus: Judaizing Evangelicals in Brazil
by Manoela CarpenedoAn unexpected fusion of two major western religious traditions, Judaism and Christianity, has been developing in many parts of the world. Contemporary Christian movements are not only adopting Jewish symbols and aesthetics but also promoting Jewish practices, rituals, and lifestyles. Becoming Jewish, Believing in Jesus is the first in-depth ethnography to investigate this growing worldwide religious tendency in the global South. Focusing on an austere "Judaizing Evangelical" variant in Brazil, Carpenedo explores the surprising identification with Jews and Judaism by people with exclusively Charismatic Evangelical backgrounds. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork and socio-cultural analysis, the book analyses the historical, religious, and subjective reasons behind this growing trend in Charismatic Evangelicalism. The emergence of groups that simultaneously embrace Orthodox Jewish rituals and lifestyles and preserve Charismatic Evangelical religious symbols and practices raises serious questions about what it means to be "Jewish" or "Christian" in today's religious landscape. This case study reveals how religious, ethnic, and cultural markers are being mobilized in unpredictable ways within the Charismatic Evangelical movement in much of the global South. The book also considers broader questions regarding contemporary women's attraction to gender-traditional religions. This comprehensive account of how former Charismatic Evangelicals in Brazil are gradually becoming austerely observant "Jews," while continuing to believe in Jesus, represents a significant contribution to the study of religious conversion, cultural change, and debates about religious hybridization processes.
Becoming Jewish, Believing in Jesus: Judaizing Evangelicals in Brazil
by Manoela CarpenedoAn unexpected fusion of two major western religious traditions, Judaism and Christianity, has been developing in many parts of the world. Contemporary Christian movements are not only adopting Jewish symbols and aesthetics but also promoting Jewish practices, rituals, and lifestyles. Becoming Jewish, Believing in Jesus is the first in-depth ethnography to investigate this growing worldwide religious tendency in the global South. Focusing on an austere "Judaizing Evangelical" variant in Brazil, Carpenedo explores the surprising identification with Jews and Judaism by people with exclusively Charismatic Evangelical backgrounds. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork and socio-cultural analysis, the book analyses the historical, religious, and subjective reasons behind this growing trend in Charismatic Evangelicalism. The emergence of groups that simultaneously embrace Orthodox Jewish rituals and lifestyles and preserve Charismatic Evangelical religious symbols and practices raises serious questions about what it means to be "Jewish" or "Christian" in today's religious landscape. This case study reveals how religious, ethnic, and cultural markers are being mobilized in unpredictable ways within the Charismatic Evangelical movement in much of the global South. The book also considers broader questions regarding contemporary women's attraction to gender-traditional religions. This comprehensive account of how former Charismatic Evangelicals in Brazil are gradually becoming austerely observant "Jews," while continuing to believe in Jesus, represents a significant contribution to the study of religious conversion, cultural change, and debates about religious hybridization processes.
Becoming John: The Making of a Passion Gospel (The Library of New Testament Studies)
by Kari SyreeniIn this new analysis of the Gospel of John, Kari Syreeni argues that the gospel is a heavily reworked edition of earlier Johannine work, and that the original did not include Jesus' passion. Syreeni theorizes that the original gospel ended at Chapter 12, with the notion of Jesus' disappearance from the world, and that the passion narrative was incorporated by a later editor freely using the existing gospels of Mark and Matthew.Syreeni suggests that the letters of John - written after the predecessor gospels but before the final edition - reveal a schism in the Johannine community that was caused by the majority faction's acceptance of Jesus' death and resurrection, as it was then recorded in the new gospel. By exploring the gospel's different means of legitimizing the passion story, such as the creation of the 'beloved disciple' to witness Jesus' passion, and the foreshadowing of the resurrection of Jesus in the miracle of Lazarus, Syreeni provides a bold and provocative case for a new understanding of John.
Becoming John: The Making of a Passion Gospel (The Library of New Testament Studies)
by Kari SyreeniIn this new analysis of the Gospel of John, Kari Syreeni argues that the gospel is a heavily reworked edition of an earlier Johannine work, and that the original did not include Jesus' passion. Syreeni theorizes that the original gospel ended at Chapter 12, with the notion of Jesus' disappearance from the world, and that the passion narrative was incorporated by a later editor freely using the existing gospels of Mark and Matthew.Syreeni suggests that the letters of John - written after the predecessor gospels but before the final edition - reveal a schism in the Johannine community that was caused by the majority faction's acceptance of Jesus' death and resurrection, as it was then recorded in the new gospel. By exploring the gospel's different means of legitimizing the passion story, such as the creation of the 'Beloved Disciple' to witness Jesus' passion, and the foreshadowing of the resurrection of Jesus in the miracle of Lazarus, Syreeni provides a bold and provocative case for a new understanding of John.
Becoming Muslim: Western Women's Conversions to Islam (Culture, Mind, and Society)
by A. Mansson McGintyWhile Islam has become a controversial topic in the West, a growing number of Westerners find powerful meaning in Islam. Becoming Muslim is an ethnographic study based on in-depth interviews with Swedish and American women who have converted to Islam.
Becoming Muslim in Imperial Russia: Conversion, Apostasy, and Literacy
by Agnès Nilüfer KefeliIn the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire’s Middle Volga region (today’s Tatarstan) was the site of a prolonged struggle between Russian Orthodoxy and Islam, each of which sought to solidify its influence among the frontier’s mix of Turkic, Finno-Ugric, and Slavic peoples. The immediate catalyst of the events that Agnès Nilüfer Kefeli chronicles in Becoming Muslim in Imperial Russia was the collective turn to Islam by many of the region’s Kräshens, the Muslim and animist Tatars who converted to Russian Orthodoxy between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The traditional view holds that the apostates had really been Muslim all along or that their conversions had been forced by the state or undertaken voluntarily as a matter of convenience. In Kefeli’s view, this argument vastly oversimplifies the complexity of a region where many participated in the religious cultures of both Islam and Orthodox Christianity and where a vibrant Kräshen community has survived to the present. By analyzing Russian, Eurasian, and Central Asian ethnographic, administrative, literary, and missionary sources, Kefeli shows how traditional education, with Sufi mystical components, helped to Islamize Finno-Ugric and Turkic peoples in the Kama-Volga countryside and set the stage for the development of modernist Islam in Russia. Of particular interest is Kefeli’s emphasis on the role that Tatar women (both Kräshen and Muslim) played as holders and transmitters of Sufi knowledge. Today, she notes, intellectuals and mullahs in Tatarstan seek to revive both Sufi and modernist traditions to counteract new expressions of Islam and promote a purely Tatar Islam aware of its specificity in a post-Christian and secular environment.
Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era
by Julia Phillips CohenThe Ottoman-Jewish story has long been told as a romance between Jews and the empire. The prevailing view is that Ottoman Jews were protected and privileged by imperial policies and in return offered their unflagging devotion to the imperial government over many centuries. In this book, Julia Phillips Cohen offers a corrective, arguing that Jewish leaders who promoted this vision were doing so in response to a series of reforms enacted by the nineteenth-century Ottoman state: the new equality they gained came with a new set of expectations. Ottoman subjects were suddenly to become imperial citizens, to consider their neighbors as brothers and their empire as a homeland. Becoming Ottomans is the first book to tell the story of Jewish political integration into a modern Islamic empire. It begins with the process set in motion by the imperial state reforms known as the Tanzimat, which spanned the years 1839-1876 and legally emancipated the non-Muslims of the empire. Four decades later the situation was difficult to recognize. By the close of the nineteenth century, Ottoman Muslims and Jews alike regularly referred to Jews as a model community, or millet-as a group whose leaders and members knew how to serve their state and were deeply engaged in Ottoman politics. The struggles of different Jewish individuals and groups to define the public face of their communities is underscored in their responses to a series of important historical events. Charting the dramatic reversal of Jews in the empire over a half-century, Becoming Ottomans offers new perspectives for understanding Jewish encounters with modernity and citizenship in a centralizing, modernizing Islamic state in an imperial, multi-faith landscape.
Becoming Ottomans: Sephardi Jews and Imperial Citizenship in the Modern Era
by Julia Phillips CohenThe Ottoman-Jewish story has long been told as a romance between Jews and the empire. The prevailing view is that Ottoman Jews were protected and privileged by imperial policies and in return offered their unflagging devotion to the imperial government over many centuries. In this book, Julia Phillips Cohen offers a corrective, arguing that Jewish leaders who promoted this vision were doing so in response to a series of reforms enacted by the nineteenth-century Ottoman state: the new equality they gained came with a new set of expectations. Ottoman subjects were suddenly to become imperial citizens, to consider their neighbors as brothers and their empire as a homeland. Becoming Ottomans is the first book to tell the story of Jewish political integration into a modern Islamic empire. It begins with the process set in motion by the imperial state reforms known as the Tanzimat, which spanned the years 1839-1876 and legally emancipated the non-Muslims of the empire. Four decades later the situation was difficult to recognize. By the close of the nineteenth century, Ottoman Muslims and Jews alike regularly referred to Jews as a model community, or millet-as a group whose leaders and members knew how to serve their state and were deeply engaged in Ottoman politics. The struggles of different Jewish individuals and groups to define the public face of their communities is underscored in their responses to a series of important historical events. Charting the dramatic reversal of Jews in the empire over a half-century, Becoming Ottomans offers new perspectives for understanding Jewish encounters with modernity and citizenship in a centralizing, modernizing Islamic state in an imperial, multi-faith landscape.
Becoming Post-Communist: Jews And The New Political Cultures Of Russia And Eastern Europe (STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY)
by Eli LederhendlerThe closing decade of the 20th century witnessed dramatic upheavals across landscapes that had, until 1939, housed most of the world's Jewish population: the overturning of the East European Communist governments and the fall of the USSR, accompanied by a major Jewish emigration movement. The legacy of the Jewish presence in those countries, and the ways in which it became enmeshed in the quest by people of the region--Jews and non-Jews alike--to secure their future, highlights fundamental issues about the politics of memory, national identity, and the relative stability of regimes in the region. If those questions were important even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, understanding their implications now seems even more crucial. In a field fraught with conflicting narratives, the challenges of social and political reconstruction are primary concerns for peoples and governments. The experts contributing to this volume apply interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and interpret a multiplicity of post-communist social realities and aid our understanding of recent events.
Becoming Post-Communist: Jews And The New Political Cultures Of Russia And Eastern Europe (STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY JEWRY)
by Eli LederhendlerThe closing decade of the 20th century witnessed dramatic upheavals across landscapes that had, until 1939, housed most of the world's Jewish population: the overturning of the East European Communist governments and the fall of the USSR, accompanied by a major Jewish emigration movement. The legacy of the Jewish presence in those countries, and the ways in which it became enmeshed in the quest by people of the region--Jews and non-Jews alike--to secure their future, highlights fundamental issues about the politics of memory, national identity, and the relative stability of regimes in the region. If those questions were important even before the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, understanding their implications now seems even more crucial. In a field fraught with conflicting narratives, the challenges of social and political reconstruction are primary concerns for peoples and governments. The experts contributing to this volume apply interdisciplinary approaches to analyze and interpret a multiplicity of post-communist social realities and aid our understanding of recent events.
Becoming Queer and Religious in Malaysia and Singapore (Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality)
by Sharon A. BongWhat does it mean to become religiously queer or queerly religious in one's everyday life? What narratives of becoming 'person' emerge from these lived realities? Sharon A. Bong addresses these questions by exploring the personal journeys of several GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) persons negotiating the tensions between living out their sexuality and religiosity in the context of Malaysia and Singapore. By sharing their stories, Bong presents a broad spectrum of queer strategies emerging from participants' narratives of 'becoming', which encompass becoming Asian, becoming postcolonial, becoming sexually religious and religiously sexual, and becoming 'persons'. These strategies are used in the book as counterpoints to nationhood narratives of becoming Asian or postcolonial, which are still mired in religious-sponsored and colonial-inherited sexual regulations. Finally, Bong shows how the insistence of identifying as both queer and religious is critical in challenging the conservative social-political milieu surrounding issues of gender diversity and inclusion within these south-east Asian states.
Becoming Queer and Religious in Malaysia and Singapore (Bloomsbury Studies in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality)
by Sharon A. BongWhat does it mean to become religiously queer or queerly religious in one's everyday life? What narratives of becoming 'person' emerge from these lived realities? Sharon A. Bong addresses these questions by exploring the personal journeys of several GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer) persons negotiating the tensions between living out their sexuality and religiosity in the context of Malaysia and Singapore. By sharing their stories, Bong presents a broad spectrum of queer strategies emerging from participants' narratives of 'becoming', which encompass becoming Asian, becoming postcolonial, becoming sexually religious and religiously sexual, and becoming 'persons'. These strategies are used in the book as counterpoints to nationhood narratives of becoming Asian or postcolonial, which are still mired in religious-sponsored and colonial-inherited sexual regulations. Finally, Bong shows how the insistence of identifying as both queer and religious is critical in challenging the conservative social-political milieu surrounding issues of gender diversity and inclusion within these south-east Asian states.
Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand (PDF)
by Donald K. SwearerBecoming the Buddha is the first book-length study of a key ritual of Buddhist practice in Asia: the consecration of a Buddha image or "new Buddha," a ceremony by which the Buddha becomes present or alive. Through a richly detailed, accessible exploration of this ritual in northern Thailand, an exploration that stands apart from standard text-based or anthropological approaches, Donald Swearer makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Buddha image, its role in Buddhist devotional life, and its relationship to the veneration of Buddha relics. Blending ethnography, analysis, and Buddhist texts related to this mimetic reenactment of the night of the Buddha's enlightenment, he demonstrates that the image becomes the Buddha's surrogate by being invested with the Buddha's story and charged with the extraordinary power of Buddhahood. The process by which this transformation occurs through chant, sermon, meditation, and the presence of charismatic monks is at the heart of this book. Known as "opening the eyes of the Buddha," image consecration traditions throughout Buddhist Asia share much in common. Within the cultural context of northern Thailand, Becoming the Buddha illuminates scriptural accounts of the making of the first Buddha image; looks at debates over the ritual's historical origin, at Buddhological insights achieved, and at the hermeneutics of absence and presence; and provides a thematic comparison of several Buddhist traditions.
Becoming the Buddha: The Ritual of Image Consecration in Thailand (Buddhisms: A Princeton University Press Series #13)
by Donald K. SwearerBecoming the Buddha is the first book-length study of a key ritual of Buddhist practice in Asia: the consecration of a Buddha image or "new Buddha," a ceremony by which the Buddha becomes present or alive. Through a richly detailed, accessible exploration of this ritual in northern Thailand, an exploration that stands apart from standard text-based or anthropological approaches, Donald Swearer makes a major contribution to our understanding of the Buddha image, its role in Buddhist devotional life, and its relationship to the veneration of Buddha relics. Blending ethnography, analysis, and Buddhist texts related to this mimetic reenactment of the night of the Buddha's enlightenment, he demonstrates that the image becomes the Buddha's surrogate by being invested with the Buddha's story and charged with the extraordinary power of Buddhahood. The process by which this transformation occurs through chant, sermon, meditation, and the presence of charismatic monks is at the heart of this book. Known as "opening the eyes of the Buddha," image consecration traditions throughout Buddhist Asia share much in common. Within the cultural context of northern Thailand, Becoming the Buddha illuminates scriptural accounts of the making of the first Buddha image; looks at debates over the ritual's historical origin, at Buddhological insights achieved, and at the hermeneutics of absence and presence; and provides a thematic comparison of several Buddhist traditions.
Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews
by Lynn DavidmanLeaving a religion is not merely a matter of losing or rejecting faith. For many, it involves dramatic changes of everyday routines and personal habits. Davidman bases her analysis on in-depth conversations with forty ex-Hasidic individuals. From these conversations emerge accounts of the great fear, angst, and sense of danger that come of leaving a highly bounded enclave community. Many of those interviewed spoke of feeling marginal in their own communities; of strain in their homes due to death, divorce, or their parents' profound religious differences; experienced sexual, physical, or verbal abuse; or expressed an acute awareness of gender inequality, the dissimilar lives of their secular relatives, and forbidden television shows, movies, websites, and books. Becoming Un-Orthodox draws much-needed attention to the vital role of the body and bodily behavior in religious practices. It is through physical rituals and routines that the members of a religion, particularly a highly conservative one, constantly create, perform, and reinforce the culture of the religion. Because of the many observances and daily rituals required by their faith, Hasidic defectors are an exemplary case study for exploring the centrality of the body in shaping, maintaining, and shedding religions. This book provides both a moving narrative of the struggles of Hasidic defectors and a compelling call for greater collective understanding of the complex significance of the body in society.
Becoming Un-Orthodox: Stories of Ex-Hasidic Jews
by Lynn DavidmanLeaving a religion is not merely a matter of losing or rejecting faith. For many, it involves dramatic changes of everyday routines and personal habits. Davidman bases her analysis on in-depth conversations with forty ex-Hasidic individuals. From these conversations emerge accounts of the great fear, angst, and sense of danger that come of leaving a highly bounded enclave community. Many of those interviewed spoke of feeling marginal in their own communities; of strain in their homes due to death, divorce, or their parents' profound religious differences; experienced sexual, physical, or verbal abuse; or expressed an acute awareness of gender inequality, the dissimilar lives of their secular relatives, and forbidden television shows, movies, websites, and books. Becoming Un-Orthodox draws much-needed attention to the vital role of the body and bodily behavior in religious practices. It is through physical rituals and routines that the members of a religion, particularly a highly conservative one, constantly create, perform, and reinforce the culture of the religion. Because of the many observances and daily rituals required by their faith, Hasidic defectors are an exemplary case study for exploring the centrality of the body in shaping, maintaining, and shedding religions. This book provides both a moving narrative of the struggles of Hasidic defectors and a compelling call for greater collective understanding of the complex significance of the body in society.
Becoming Vaishnava in an Ideal Vedic City (WYSE Series in Social Anthropology #9)
by John FahyBecoming Vaishnava in an Ideal Vedic City centers on a growing multinational community of ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) devotees in Mayapur, West Bengal. While ISKCON’s history is often presented in terms of an Indian guru ‘transplanting’ Indian spirituality to the West, this book focusses on the efforts to bring ISKCON back to India. Paying particular attention to devotees’ failure to consistently live up to ISKCON’s ideals and the ongoing struggle to realize the utopian vision of an ‘ideal Vedic city’, this book argues that the anthropology of ethics must account for how moral systems accommodate the problem of moral failure.
Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and the Art of Living
by Krista TippettPeabody Award-winning broadcaster and National Humanities Medalist Krista Tippett has interviewed the most extraordinary voices examining the great questions of meaning for our time. The heart of her work on her national public radio program and podcast, On Being, has been to shine a light on people whose insights kindle in us a sense of wonder and courage. Scientists in a variety of fields; theologians from an array of faiths; poets, activists, and many others have all opened themselves up to Tippett's compassionate yet searching conversation. In Becoming Wise, Tippett distills the insights she has gleaned from this luminous conversation in its many dimensions into a coherent narrative journey, over time and from mind to mind. The book is a master class in living, curated by Tippett and accompanied by a delightfully ecumenical dream team of teaching faculty. The open questions and challenges of our time are intimate and civilizational all at once, Tippett says - definitions of when life begins and when death happens, of the meaning of community and family and identity, of our relationships to technology and through technology. The wisdom we seek emerges through the raw materials of the everyday. And the enduring question of what it means to be human has now become inextricable from the question of who we are to each other. This book offers a grounded and fiercely hopeful vision of humanity for this century - of personal growth but also renewed public life and human spiritual evolution. It insists on the possibility of a common life for this century marked by resilience and redemption, with beauty as a core moral value and civility and love as muscular practice. Krista Tippett's great gift, in her work and in Becoming Wise, is to avoid reductive simplifications but still find the golden threads that weave people and ideas together into a shimmering braid. One powerful common denominator of the lessons imparted to Tippett is the gift of presence, of the exhilaration of engagement with life for its own sake, not as a means to an end. But presence does not mean passivity or acceptance of the status quo. Indeed Tippett and her teachers are people whose work meets, and often drives, powerful forces of change alive in the world today. In the end, perhaps the greatest blessing conveyed by the lessons of spiritual genius Tippett harvests in Becoming Wise is the strength to meet the world where it really is, and then to make it better.