Elaine Pagels
Elaine Pagels is a preeminent figure in the theological community whose scholarship has earned her international respect. The Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University, she was awarded the Rockefeller, Guggenheim & MacArthur Fellowships in three consecutive years.
As a young researcher at Barnard College, she changed forever the historical landscape of the Christian religion by exploding the myth of the early Christian Church as a unified movement. Her findings were published in the bestselling book, The Gnostic Gospels, an analysis of 52 early Christian manuscripts that were unearthed in Egypt. Known collectively as the Nag Hammadi Library, the manuscripts show the pluralistic nature of the early church & the role
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Sue Monk Kidd
Sue Monk Kidd was raised in the small town of Sylvester, Georgia, a place that deeply influenced the writing of her first novel The Secret Life of Bees. She graduated from Texas Christian University in 1970 and later took creative writing courses at Emory University and Anderson College, as well as studying at Sewanee, Bread Loaf, and other writers’ conferences. In 2016, TCU conferred on her an honorary doctor of letters degree. She was inducted into the South Carolina Academy of Authors in 2011 and into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame in 2022.
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Her book When the Heart Waits, published by Harper San Francisco in 1990 has become a touchstone on contemplative spirituality. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, also published by Harper in 1996, -
David M. Friedman
David M. Friedman has written for Esquire, GQ, and Rolling Stone, and was a reporter for New York Newsday and the Philadelphia Daily News. His first book, A Mind of Its Own: A Cultural History of the Penis, was published in more than a dozen countries. He is also the author of the widely acclaimed The Immortalists: Charles Lindbergh, Dr. Alexis Carrel, and Their Daring Quest to Live Forever. He lives in New York.
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Sarah Smarsh
Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has reported for The New York Times, Harper’s, the Guardian, and many other publications. Her first book, Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth, was a finalist for the National Book Award. Her second book, She Come by It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Smarsh is a frequent political commentator and speaker on socioeconomic class.
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Emmet Fox
Emmet Fox was a New Thought spiritual leader of the early 20th century, famous for his large Divine Science church services held in New York City during the Depression.
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Phil Stutz
Phil Stutz graduated from City College in New York and received his MD from New York University. He worked as a prison psychiatrist on Rikers Island and then in private practice in New York before moving his practice to Los Angeles in 1982.
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Gordon MacKenzie
Gordon MacKenzie is an artist and cartoonist. After working for Hallmark Cards, he started to give workshops and tutorials centered on maintaining creativity in the corporate world. His workshops were further developed into his book Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool's Guide to Surviving with Grace.
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Klaus Vieweg
Klaus Vieweg, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, is a German philosopher and professor of classical German philosophy at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and one of Hegel's leading international experts. He lives in Jena
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Scott Dikkers
Scott Dikkers is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of “How to Write Funny.” He's also the founder of TheOnion.com and The AV Club.
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Scott sends out a daily tip on Substack:
https://scottdikkers.substack.com/
Be sure to follow him on BookBub for insiders deals on his books!
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Cynthia Bourgeault
Modern day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader, Cynthia Bourgeault divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine, and a demanding schedule traveling globally to teach and spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and Wisdom path.
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She has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr. Cynthia has actively participated in numerous inter-spiritual dialogues and events with luminaries and leaders such as A.H. Almaas, Kabir Helminski, Swami Atmarupananda, and Rami Shapiro.
Cynthia is a member of the GPIW (Global Peace Initiative for Wom -
Alexandre Lefebvre
I teach and research in political theory, the history of political thought, modern and contemporary French philosophy, and human rights. I grew up in Vancouver, Canada, studied in the United States (PhD, The Johns Hopkins University, Humanities Center 2007), and now call Sydney home.
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Tim Weiner
Tim Weiner reported for The New York Times for many years as a foreign correspondent and as a national security correspondent in Washington, DC. He has won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and the National Book Award for LEGACY OF ASHES: The History of the CIA. His new book, out in July, is ONE MAN AGAINST THE WORLD: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon.
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T.M. Luhrmann
Tanya Marie Luhrmann is currently the Watkins University Professor in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University. She has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been the recipient of a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.
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Tanya Marie Luhrmann (born 1959) is an American psychological anthropologist best known for her studies of modern-day witches, charismatic Christians, and psychiatrists. She received her AB summa cum laude in Folklore and Mythology from Harvard-Radcliffe in 1981, working with Stanley Tambiah. She then studied Social Anthropology at Cambridge University, working with Jack Goody and Ernest Gellner. In 1986 she received her PhD for work on modern-day witches in England, later published as Pers -
Dale C. Allison Jr.
Dr. Dale C. Allison Jr., an Errett M. Grable professor of New Testament exegesis and early Christianity, has been on the faculty of Pittsburgh Theological Seminary since 1997. Before then he served on the faculties of Texas Christian University (Fort Worth, Texas) and Friends University (Wichita, Kan.).
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His areas of expertise include Second Temple Judaism, and he is the author of books on early Christian eschatology, the Gospel of Matthew, the so-called Sayings Source or Q, and the historical Jesus.
He has also written The Luminous Dusk, a book on religious experience in the modern world, and a full-length commentary on the Testament of Abraham. His most recently published works are The Love There That’s Sleeping: The Art and Spirituality of -
Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa
Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa (also known as "Dr. Q") is a physician, author, and researcher. He practices neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital and runs a basic science research lab out of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Quiñones is Director of the Brain Tumor Surgery Program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, Director of the Pituitary Surgery Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Director of the Brain Tumor Stem Cell Laboratory at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. In addition to being a professor of neurosurgery, neuroscience, oncology, and cellular and molecular medicine, Quiñones is also the author of the newly released book, Becoming Dr Q. The photograph of Dr.Quinones has been taken by Luis Delfín /Quo magazine/ Mexico.
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Sarah Sentilles
Sarah Sentilles is the author of A Church of Her Own and Taught by America. She is a scholar of religion and earned a bachelor's degree in literature from Yale and a master's of divinity and a doctorate in theology from Harvard. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Marvin W. Meyer
Marvin Meyer is a scholar of religion and a tenured professor at Chapman University, in Orange, California.
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He is the Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies at Chapman University and Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute. He is also Director of the Coptic Magical Texts Project of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity. Dr. Meyer is the author of numerous books and articles on Greco-Roman and Christian religions in antiquity and late antiquity, and on Albert Schweitzer's ethic of reverence for life. He has been interviewed on television programs that have aired on ABC, BBC, CNN, PBS, A&E, the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and the National Geographic Channel.
Professor Meyer is best known for his translations of t -
Bart D. Ehrman
Bart Denton Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Catherine Nixey
Catherine Nixey is a journalist and a classicist. Her mother was a nun, her father was a monk, and she was brought up Catholic. She studied classics at Cambridge and taught the subject for several years before becoming a journalist on the arts desk at the Times (UK), where she still works. The Darkening Age, winner of a Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Award, is her first book. She lives in London.
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Jon Grinspan
Jon Grinspan is a historian of American democracy, youth, and popular culture. He is a curator of political history at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and a frequent contributor to the New York Times.
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James D. Tabor
Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte where he has taught since 1989. He previously held positions at Ambassador College (1968-70 while a student), the University of Notre Dame (1979–85), and the College of William and Mary (1985–89).
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Kathleen Raine
Kathleen Jessie Raine CBE was an English poet, critic and scholar, writing in particular on William Blake, W.B. Yeats and Thomas Taylor. Known for her interest in various forms of spirituality, most prominently Platonism and Neoplatonism, she was a founding member of the Temenos Academy.
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Douglas Keister
Photographer-writer Douglas Keister, has authored and co-authored thirty-six critically acclaimed books. He also writes and illustrates magazine articles and contributes photographs and essays to dozens of magazines, newspapers, books, calendars, posters and greeting cards worldwide.
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Hans Jonas
Hans Jonas was a German-born philosopher who was, from 1955 to 1976, Alvin Johnson Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
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Jonas' writings were very influential in different spheres. For example, The Gnostic Religion, first published in 1958, was for many years the standard work in English on the subject of Gnosticism.
The Imperative of Responsibility (German 1979, English 1984) centers on social and ethical problems created by technology. Jonas insists that human survival depends on our efforts to care for our planet and its future. He formulated a new and distinctive supreme principle of morality: "Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life".
While -
Colin M. Turnbull
Colin Macmillan Turnbull (November 23, 1924 – July 28, 1994) was a British-American anthropologist who came to public attention with the popular books The Forest People (on the Mbuti Pygmies of Zaire) and The Mountain People (on the Ik people of Uganda), and one of the first anthropologists to work in the field of ethnomusicology.
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Bart D. Ehrman
Bart Denton Ehrman is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including three college textbooks. He has also authored six New York Times bestsellers. He is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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Akira Toriyama
Akira Toriyama (鳥山明) was a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump, before going on to create Dragon Ball (his most famous work) and acting as a character designer for several popular video games such as the Dragon Quest series, Chrono Trigger, and Blue Dragon. Toriyama came to be regarded as one of the most important authors in the history of manga with his works highly influential and popular, particularly Dragon Ball, which many manga artists cite as a source of inspiration.
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He earned the 1981 Shogakukan Manga Award for best shōnen/shōjo manga with Dr. Slump, and it went on to sell over 35 million copies in Japan. It was adapted into a successfu -
Eric Hoffer
Eric Hoffer was an American social writer and philosopher. He produced ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983 by President of the United States Ronald Reagan. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic, receiving critical acclaim from both scholars and laymen, although Hoffer believed that his book The Ordeal of Change was his finest work. In 2001, the Eric Hoffer Award was established in his honor with permission granted by the Eric Hoffer Estate in 2005.
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Early life
Hoffer was born in the Bronx, New York City in 1902 (or possibly 1898), the son of Knut and Elsa Hoffer, immigrants from Alsace. By the age of five, he could read in both German and English. When -
George Carlin
George Denis Patrick Carlin was a Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor, author and philosopher.
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Carlin was especially noted for his political and black humor and his observations on language, psychology, and religion along with many taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5-4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's right to regulate Carlin's act on the public airwaves.
Carlin's mid-2000s stand-up routines focused on the flaws in modern-day America. He often took on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture.
A disciple of Lenny Bruce, he placed -
Richard Overy
Richard James Overy is a British historian who has published extensively on the history of World War II and the Third Reich.
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Educated at Caius College, Cambridge and awarded a research fellowship at Churchill College, Professor Overy taught history at Cambridge from 1972 to 1979, as a fellow of Queens' College and from 1976 as a university assistant lecturer. In 1980 he moved to King's College London, where he became professor of modern history in 1994. He was appointed to a professorship at the University of Exeter in 2004.
His work on World War II has been praised as "highly effective in the ruthless dispelling of myths" (A. J. P. Taylor), "original and important" (New York Review of Books) and "at the cutting edge" (Times Literary Suppleme -
Cynthia Bourgeault
Modern day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader, Cynthia Bourgeault divides her time between solitude at her seaside hermitage in Maine, and a demanding schedule traveling globally to teach and spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and Wisdom path.
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She has been a long-time advocate of the meditative practice of Centering Prayer and has worked closely with fellow teachers and colleagues including Thomas Keating, Bruno Barnhart, and Richard Rohr. Cynthia has actively participated in numerous inter-spiritual dialogues and events with luminaries and leaders such as A.H. Almaas, Kabir Helminski, Swami Atmarupananda, and Rami Shapiro.
Cynthia is a member of the GPIW (Global Peace Initiative for Wom -
Kentaro Miura
Kentarou Miura (三浦建太郎) was born in Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, in 1966. He is left-handed. In 1976, at the early age of 10, Miura made his first Manga, entitled "Miuranger", that was published for his classmates in a school publication; the manga ended up spanning 40 volumes. In 1977, Miura created his second manga called Ken e no michi (剣への道 The Way to the Sword), using Indian ink for the first time. When he was in middle school in 1979, Miura's drawing techniques improved greatly as he started using professional drawing techniques. His first dōjinshi was published, with the help of friends, in a magazine in 1982.
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That same year, in 1982, Miura enrolled in an artistic curriculum in high school, where he and his classmates started p -
Richard Elliott Friedman
RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN is one of the premier bible scholars in the country. He earned his doctorate at Harvard and was a visiting fellow at Oxford and Cambridge, a Senior Fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Haifa. He is the Ann & Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego.
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He is the author of Commentary on the Torah, The Disappearance of God, The Hidden Book in the Bible, The Bible with Sources Revealed, The Bible Now, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, the bestselling Who Wrote the Bible?, and his newest book, The Exodus.
He was an American C -
Esther J. Hamori
Professor Esther J. Hamori earned her B.A. at Sarah Lawrence College with a major in Violin Performance in 1994. She received the M.Div. at Yale Divinity School in 1997, and her Ph.D. from the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University in 2004. Before joining the Union faculty she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, and visiting faculty at Sarah Lawrence College.
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Oscar Hijuelos
Oscar Hijuelos (born August 24, 1951) was an American novelist. He is the first Hispanic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
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Hijuelos was born in New York City, in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, to Cuban immigrant parents. He attended the Corpus Christi School, public schools, and later attended Bronx Community College, Lehman College, and Manhattan Community College before matriculating into and studying writing at the City College of New York (B.A., 1975; M.A. in Creative Writing, 1976). He then practiced various professions before taking up writing full time. His first novel, Our House in the Last World, was published in 1983 and received the 1985 Rome Prize, awarded by the American Academy in Rome. His second novel, The Mambo Kings Pla -
Rudolf Steiner
Author also wrote under the name Rudolph Steiner.
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https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century as a literary critic and published works including The Philosophy of Freedom. At the beginning of the twentieth century he founded an esoteric spiritual movement, anthroposophy, with roots in German idealist philosophy and theosophy. His teachings are influenced by Christian Gnosticism or neognosticism. Many of his ideas are pseudoscientific. He was also prone to pseudohistory.
In the first, more philosophically oriented phase of this movement, Steiner attempted -
Russell Shorto
Russell Shorto is the author, most recently, of Revolution Song, a new narrative of the American Revolution, which the New York Times called a "remarkable" achievement and the Chicago Tribune described as "an engaging piece of historical detective work and narrative craft." He is also the author of The Island at the Center of the World, a national bestseller about the Dutch founding of New York. Shorto is senior scholar at the New Netherland Institute and was formerly the director of the John Adams Institute in Amsterdam.
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Daniel Boyarin
Daniel Boyarin, Taubman Professor of Talmudic Culture and rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley, is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. His books include A Radical Jew, Border Lines, and Socrates and the Fat Rabbis. He lives in Berkeley, California.
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John S. Kloppenborg
John S. Kloppenborg is university professor and chair of the Department for the Study of Religion at the University of Toronto. A specialist in Christian origins, he has written extensively on the Synoptic Sayings Gospel (Q) and the parables of Jesus.
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Joel S. Baden
Joel S. Baden is professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale Divinity School. He is the coauthor, with Candida R. Moss, of Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby and Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness (both Princeton). He lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
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Jacob L. Wright
Dr. Jacob L. Wright is a professor of Hebrew Bible / Old Testament at Emory University, which boasts one of the world's leading doctoral programs in biblical studies. Before coming to Emory, he taught at the University of Heidelberg in Germany.
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As an American with a European education, he is widely known for his ability to blend a wide range of historical, religious, and geographical perspectives on the Bible. His writing and teaching are thoroughly interdisciplinary, demonstrating how the ideas of the Bible and other ancient writings bear directly on central problems that face our societies in modern times. He brings to his work first-hand acquaintance with archeological finds and primary sources from ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Greece. -
Anthony DeStefano
Anthony DeStefano is the bestselling author of 20 Christian books for children and adults, including: A Travel Guide to Heaven, Ten Prayers God Always Says Yes To, Angels All Around Us, Little Star, and The Donkey that No One Could Ride. He has received many prestigious awards from religious organizations worldwide for his efforts to advance Christian beliefs in modern culture.
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Andrew Solomon
Andrew Solomon writes about politics, culture, and health. He lives in New York and London. He has written for many publications--such as the New York Times, The New Yorker and Artforum--on topics including depression, Soviet artists, the cultural rebirth of Afghanistan, Libyan politics, and deaf culture. He is also a Contributing Writer for Travel and Leisure. In 2008, he was awarded the Humanitarian Award of the Society of Biological Psychiatry for his contributions to the field of mental health. He has a staff appointment as a Lecturer in Psychiatry at Cornell Medical School (Weill-Cornell Medical College).
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Eric A. Johnson
Eric Johnson joined the CMU faculty in 1976 after studying at Brown and Stockholm Universities and receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania. Over the years he has taught a wide array of courses, primarily focused on modern Europe, Germany, the Holocaust, and social science methods and approaches to historical study. He has held several visiting professorships of various lengths. As part of the CMU exchange with Strathclyde University he spent the 1988-1989 academic year teaching in Glasgow, Scotland. Between 1989 and 1995 he was a visiting professor at the Center for Historical Social Research at the University of Cologne, mostly leading a small research team working on terror in Nazi Germany. From 1995-1996 he was in residence
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Howard Norman
Howard A. Norman (born 1949), is an American award-winning writer and educator. Most of his short stories and novels are set in Canada's Maritime Provinces. He has written several translations of Algonquin, Cree, Eskimo, and Inuit folklore. His books have been translated into 12 languages.
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Elizabeth Minchilli
Elizabeth Minchilli is the author of nine books on the joys of Italian life. Her latest book,The Italian Table, was published in 2019 by Rizzoli. She is also the author of Eating My Way Through Italy, (St. Martins May 2018) and Eating Rome: Living the Good Life in the Eternal City (St Martins2015). Minchilli's passion for Italy led her from her native United States, where she studied architectural history, to Italy in 1987. She writes on food, travel and culture on her blog, Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome, as well as her best-selling app, Eat Italy.
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Elizabeth also leads delicious food tours in Rome and the rest of Italy. -
Lyall Watson
Lyall Watson was a South African botanist, zoologist, biologist, anthropologist, ethologist, and author of many new age books, among the most popular of which is the best seller Supernature. Lyall Watson tried to make sense of natural and supernatural phenomena in biological terms. He is credited with the first published use of the term "hundredth monkey" in his 1979 book, Lifetide. It is a hypothesis that aroused both interest and ire in the scientific community and continues to be a topic of discussion over a quarter century later.
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He was born in Johannesburg as Malcolm Lyall-Watson. He had an early fascination for nature in the surrounding bush, learning from Zulu and !Kung bushmen. Watson attended boarding school at Rondebosch Boys' High -
Robert Wright
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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ROBERT WRIGHT is the author of The Moral Animal, Nonzero, and Three Scientists and Their Gods. The New York Times selected The Moral Animal as one of the ten best books of the year and the other two as notable books of the year.
Wright is a recipient of the National Magazine Award for Essay and Criticism and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A contributing editor at The New Republic, he has also written for Time, Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, and The New Yorker.
Wright has taught in the philosophy department at Princeton and the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, and is now a senior fellow at the New Ame -
Nancy L. Etcoff
Nancy Etcoff serves as Practicing Psychologist at the Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Psychiatry. At the Massachusetts General Hospital, Ms. Etcoff served as Director of the Program in Aesthetics and Well Being. She has conducted research on the perception of beauty, emotion, well-being and the brain for more than 20 years, culminating in numerous awards and research papers in professional journals including Nature, Cognition and Neuron. She also maintains a private practice in clinical psychology, and serves as a consultant to corporations and organizations on the subjects of both well-being and beauty. She serves as a Member of Advisory Board of The First Thirty Days Inc. She serves as Faculty Member of the Harvard Medical Sc
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Reza Aslan
Dr. Reza Aslan, an internationally acclaimed writer and scholar of religions, is author most recently of Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth.
He is the founder of AslanMedia.com, an online journal for news and entertainment about the Middle East and the world, and co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of BoomGen Studios, the premier entertainment brand for creative content from and about the Greater Middle East.
His books include No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (published 2005) and How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization and the End of the War on Terror (published 2009).
Read Reza Aslan's biography on RezaAslan.com,
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David Wallace Adams
A specialist in Indigenous and borderlands history, David Wallace Adams was professor emeritus at Cleveland State University.
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Ross Douthat
Ross Gregory Douthat is a conservative American author, blogger and New York Times columnist. He was a senior editor at The Atlantic and is author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (Hyperion, 2005) and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party (Doubleday, 2008), which David Brooks called the "best single roadmap of where the Republican Party should and is likely to head." He is a film critic for National Review and has also contributed to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, the Claremont Review of Books, GQ, Slate, and other publications. In addition, he frequently appears on the video debate site Bloggingheads.tv. In April 2009, he became an online and op-ed columnist for The New York Times
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Marcus J. Borg
Borg was born into a Lutheran family of Swedish and Norwegian descent, the youngest of four children. He grew up in the 1940s in North Dakota and attended Concordia College, Moorhead, a small liberal arts school in Moorhead, Minnesota. While at Moorhead he was a columnist for the school paper and held forth as a conservative. After a close reading of the Book of Amos and its overt message of social equality he immediately began writing with an increasingly liberal stance and was eventually invited to discontinue writing his articles due to his new-found liberalism. He did graduate work at Union Theological Seminary and obtained masters and DPhil degrees at Oxford under G. B. Caird. Anglican bishop N.T. Wright had studied under the same prof
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Burton L. Mack
John Wesley Professor of the New Testament at the school of Theology at Claremont
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Luke Timothy Johnson
Luke Timothy Johnson is an American New Testament scholar and historian of early Christianity. He is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Candler School of Theology and a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University.
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Johnson's research interests encompass the Jewish and Greco-Roman contexts of early Christianity (particularly moral discourse), Luke-Acts, the Pastoral Epistles, and the Epistle of James. -
Amy-Jill Levine
Amy-Jill Levine is University Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies and Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies at Vanderbilt Divinity School and Department of Jewish Studies. Her books include The Misunderstood Jew: The Church and the Scandal of the Jewish Jesus; Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi; four children's books (with Sandy Sasso); The Gospel of Luke (with Ben Witherington III); and The Jewish Annotated New Testament (co-edited with Marc Z. Brettler). Her most recent books are The Bible With and Without Jesus: How Jews and Christians Read the Same Stories Differently (co-authored with Marc Z. Brettler), Sermon on the Mount: A Beginner's Guide to the Kingdom of Heaven; and The Kingd
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Agnes Callard
Agnes Callard is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her primary areas of specialization are ancient philosophy and ethics. She is also noted for her popular writings and work on public philosophy.
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Jeffrey Burton Russell
Jeffrey Burton Russell was an American historian of medieval Europe and religious studies scholar.
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R. Gordon Wasson
Robert Gordon Wasson was an American author, ethnomycologist, and a Vice President for Public Relations at J.P. Morgan & Co.
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Wasson spent most of his career is banking in his position at J.P. Morgan. Later in his life, despite having little formal training in the field, he turned his interests to the study of hallucinogenic mushrooms, religion, and ethnomycology, publishing papers that received attention and acclaim. In the course of work funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Wasson made contributions to the fields of ethnobotany, botany, and anthropology. He is perhaps most famous for the problem of the botanical identity of soma–haoma in the ancient Aryan religion. Wasson suggested that "soma" described in the Rigveda was the fl -
Richard C. Carrier
Richard Cevantis Carrier is an American historian, published philosopher, and prominent defender of the American freethought movement. He is well known for his writings on Internet Infidels, otherwise known as the Secular Web, where he served as Editor-in-Chief for several years. As an advocate of atheism and metaphysical naturalism, he has published articles in books, journals and magazines, and also features on the documentary film The God Who Wasn't There, where he is interviewed about his doubts on the historicity of Jesus. He currently contributes to The God Contention, a web site comparing and contrasting various worldviews.
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Jerry B. Brown
I am an anthropologist, author and activist. From 1972-2014, I served as founding professor of anthropology at Florida International University in Miami, where I designed and taught a course on “Hallucinogens and Culture.” This course examines the use of entheogenic (God-generated-within) plants by tribal and classical cultures, including Ancient India and Greece, and by the modern mind-explorers, the psychonauts of the twentieth century.
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My current book, The Psychedelic Gospels, grew out of a discovery I made at Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, while doing research for this course.
In addition to coauthoring The Psychedelic Gospels, I am also co-author of “Sacred Plants and the Gnostic Church: Speculations on Entheogen-Use in Early Christian Rit -
Joseph Laycock
Joseph P. Laycock is an associate professor of religious studies at Texas State University. He teaches courses on world religions, religion in America, new religious movements, and the intersection of religion and popular culture.
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He is the author of several books including The Penguin Book of Exorcisms, Speak of the Devil: How The Satanic Temple is Changing the Way We Talk About Religion, Dangerous Games: What the Moral Panic Over Role-Playing Games Says About Play, Religion, and Imagined Worlds and The Seer of Bayside: Veronica Lueken and the Struggle to Define Catholicism. -
La Carmina
La Carmina (http://www.lacarmina.com/blog) is the author of 4 books including THE LITTLE BOOK OF SATANISM, out now from Simon & Schuster!
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She is a leading underground culture & travel blogger, TV host and coordinator (Travel Channel, Food Network, CNN), author of 4 books (Simon & Schuster, Penguin USA and Random House), and award-winning journalist. She’s well-known for her coverage of Jpop culture, Satanism worldwide, alt Gothic fashion / lifestyle, and bizarre body modifications, especially Japanese bagel heads.
TV HOST: La Carmina appeared on “The Today Show” and CBS “The Doctors,” and co-hosted an episode of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern for Travel Channel. NHK Japan filmed two documentaries about her work. Recent TV hosting and arran -
Huston Smith
Smith was born in Suzhou, China to Methodist missionaries and spent his first 17 years there. He taught at the Universities of Colorado and Denver from 1944–1947, moving to Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri for the next ten years, and then Professor of Philosophy at MIT from 1958–1973. While at MIT he participated in some of the experiments with entheogens that professor Timothy Leary conducted at Harvard University. He then moved to Syracuse University where he was Thomas J. Watson Professor of Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy until his retirement in 1983 and current emeritus status. He now lives in the Berkeley, CA area where he is Visiting Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California
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Zachary Thomas Dodson
Zach Dodson co-founded Zach Dodson is the author of the illuminated novel Bats of the Republic (Doubleday, 2015) and former publisher at featherproof books where he designed many innovative and award-winning hybrid books. He co-founded the Visual Narrative Lab at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand, and runs a secret studio called Interactive Tragedy, Limited. There he’s recently released the game Sub-Verge along with companion novella Subtle Mind, and is working on KUU. A random selection of experiments can be seen at zachdodson.com.
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Soraya Chemaly
Soraya Chemaly is a writer and activist whose work focuses on the role of gender in politics, religion, education, tech, and media. A 2016 Mirror Award Winner, her work appears in a wide range of publications including TIME, The Guardian, The Nation, Huffington Post, Verge, Quartz, The Atlantic and The New Statesman. Chemaly is also involved with multiple anti-violence and media equity organizations dedicated to expanding women’s freedom of expression and public parity. She has been named by Elle Magazine, The Telegraph, and Fast Company as among the most inspiring women to follow in social media and the co-winner of a 2017 Newhouse Mirror Award for Best Single Story. You can find her on Instagram @sorayachemaly and @ragebecomesher as well
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Helen Tworkov
Helen Tworkov is founding editor of Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the first and only independent Buddhist magazine, and author of Zen in America: Profiles of Five Teachers (North Point Press; 1989). She first encountered Buddhism in Asia in the 1960s and has studied in both the Zen and Tibetan traditions. Since 2006 she has been a student of the Kagyu and Nyingma Tibetan master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, and has assisted him in the writing of In Love with the World: A Monk's Journey Through the Bardos of Living and Dying (Spiegel and Grau; 2019) and Turning Confusion into Clarity: A Guide to the Foundation Practices of Tibetan Buddhism (Shambhala Publications; 2014).
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Cortland Dahl
Cortland Dahl, Ph.D. is a leading expert on mindfulness, meditation, and the science of wellbeing. His eclectic background includes long periods of solitary retreat in the Himalayan foothills of Nepal and the translation of ancient Tibetan meditation manuals, as well as cutting-edge research on the science of wellbeing and the creation of an acclaimed meditation app. He is a scientist, author, translator, entrepreneur, and meditation teacher, but his true passion is using ancient wisdom and modern science to help people flourish.
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Kim Fay
Kim Fay is the author of the USA Today-bestselling Kate & Frida, the instant National Bestseller Love & Saffron, and The Map of Lost Memories, an Edgar Award Finalist for Best First Novel. She has also written a food memoir, Communion: A Culinary Journey Through Vietnam. She created and served as the series editor for the innovative To Asia With Love guidebooks, and was a Hotel and Travel Editor for the travel, food, and lifestyle website, Gayot.com, for thirteen years. She is currently the Managing Editor for The Animation Guild's Keyframe magazine and website.
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Meggan Watterson
MEGGAN WATTERSON is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling Mary Magdalene Revealed, and The Mary Magdalene Oracle, among others. She is a feminist theologian with a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School and a Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary. She created The House of Mary Magdalene– a spiritual community that studies sacred texts left out of the traditional canon and practices the soul-voice meditation. Her work has appeared in media outlets such as The New York Times, The Huffington Post, TEDxWomen, and Marie Claire.
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Lizzie Wade
Lizzie Wade is the author of APOCALYPSE: How Catastrophe Transformed Our World and Can Forge New Futures. She's also an award-winning journalist and correspondent for Science, covering archaeology, anthropology, and Latin America. Her work has also appeared in Wired, The Atlantic, Slate, the New York Times, Aeon, Smithsonian, and Archaeology, among other publications. She lives in Mexico City.
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Karen Armstrong
Karen Armstrong is a British author and commentator of Irish Catholic descent known for her books on comparative religion. A former Roman Catholic religious sister, she went from a conservative to a more liberal and mystical Christian faith. She attended St Anne's College, Oxford, while in the convent and graduated in English. She left the convent in 1969. Her work focuses on commonalities of the major religions, such as the importance of compassion and the Golden Rule.
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Armstrong received the US$100,000 TED Prize in February 2008. She used that occasion to call for the creation of a Charter for Compassion, which was unveiled the following year. -
Christine Valters Paintner
Christine Valters Paintner, PhD is the online Abbess at AbbeyoftheArts.com, a virtual monastery and global community. She is the author of over 20 books on contemplative practice and creative expression including three collections of poetry. She lives in Galway, Ireland where she leads online retreats with her husband John. Christine is a Benedictine oblate, living out her commitment as a monk in the world.
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Esther J. Hamori
Professor Esther J. Hamori earned her B.A. at Sarah Lawrence College with a major in Violin Performance in 1994. She received the M.Div. at Yale Divinity School in 1997, and her Ph.D. from the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University in 2004. Before joining the Union faculty she was a Visiting Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, and visiting faculty at Sarah Lawrence College.
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Richard Elliott Friedman
RICHARD ELLIOTT FRIEDMAN is one of the premier bible scholars in the country. He earned his doctorate at Harvard and was a visiting fellow at Oxford and Cambridge, a Senior Fellow of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Haifa. He is the Ann & Jay Davis Professor of Jewish Studies at the University of Georgia and the Katzin Professor of Jewish Civilization Emeritus of the University of California, San Diego.
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He is the author of Commentary on the Torah, The Disappearance of God, The Hidden Book in the Bible, The Bible with Sources Revealed, The Bible Now, The Exile and Biblical Narrative, the bestselling Who Wrote the Bible?, and his newest book, The Exodus.
He was an American C -
Israel Finkelstein
Israel Finkelstein is a professor of archaeology at Tel Aviv University. He is a leading figure in the archaeology of the Levant and the laureate of the 2005 Dan David Prize in the Past Dimension -- Archaeology. Finkelstein served for many years as the Director of the Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University and is the co-Director of the Megiddo Expedition. He is the co-author, with Neil Silberman, of The Bible Unearthed (Free Press, 2001) and the author of many field reports and scholarly articles.
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Denise A. Spellberg
Denise A. Spellberg (born c. 1958) is an American scholar of Islamic history. She is an associate professor of history and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Spellberg holds a BA from Smith College (1980) and a PhD (1989) from Columbia University.
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Rebecca Fraser
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Rebecca Fraser has worked as a researcher, an editor, and a journalist, and has written for many publications, including Tatler, Vogue, The Times, and The Spectator. She is a former president of the Bronte Society. She is the author of the introductions to the Everyman's Library editions of Shirley and The Professor. She is the author of Charlotte Brontë and lives in England. -
Benjamin D. Sommer
Benjamin D. Sommer is professor of Bible at the Jewish Theological Seminary. He lives in Teaneck, NJ.
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Jean-Yves Leloup
Jean-Yves Leloup, an Orthodox theologian, is well known in Europe, North and South America as a popular author on spirituality and psychology. He is the founder of the Institute of Other Civilization Studies and the International College of Therapists. He has written more than fifty books and has also translated and commented the gospels of Thomas, Miriam of Magdala, Philip and John.
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Victoria Moran
Victoria Moran is an inspirational speaker, a certified life coach, and the author of ten books, including Lit from Within; Fat, Broke & Lonely No More; and the international bestseller Creating a Charmed Life. Her articles have appeared in numerous publications, including Body + Soul, Natural Health, and Yoga Journal. Her blog, “Your Charmed Life,” is published daily on Beliefnet. She lives a charmed life in New York City.
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Joseph Atwill
Joseph Atwill began his religious studies as a youth in Japan at the only English-speaking school in the country, the Jesuit-run St. Mary's Military Academy.
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The results of Atwill's research are set out in his book Caesar's Messiah. The second edition of Caesar's Messiah (Ulysses Press, 2006) became the best selling work of religious history in the US in 2007, and its German translation Das Messias Ratsel (Ulstein, 2008), achieved #1 Best Seller status. The Flavian Signature edition of Caesar's Messiah (CreateSpace, 2011) adds the most detailed presentation of the parallels Atwill discovered between the works of Josephus and the Book of Luke. His upcoming book, The Single Strand, is also slated to be published by Ulstein, and a documentary -
David Madison
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Paula Fredriksen
Paula Fredriksen, the Aurelio Professor of Scripture emerita at Boston University, since 2009 has been Distinguished Visiting Professor of Comparative Religion at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, she also holds two honorary doctorates in theology and religious studies. She has published widely on the social and intellectual history of ancient Christianity, and on pagan-Jewish-Christian relations in the Roman Empire. Author of Augustine on Romans (1982) and From Jesus to Christ (1988; 2000), her Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, won a 1999 National Jewish Book Award. More recently, she has explored the development of Christian anti-Judaism, and Augustine’s singular response to it, in
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Nel Noddings
Nel Noddings is an American feminist, educationalist, and philosopher best known for her work in philosophy of education, educational theory, and ethics of care.
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Noddings received a bachelors degree in mathematics and physical science from Montclair State College in New Jersey, a masters degree in mathematics from Rutgers University, and a Ph.D. in education from the Stanford University School of Education.
Nel Noddings worked in many areas of the education system. She spent seventeen years as an elementary and high school mathematics teacher and school administrator, before earning her PhD and beginning work as an academic in the fields of philosophy of education, theory of education and ethics, specifically moral education and ethics of car -
Paul F. Knitter
Paul F. Knitter is the Paul Tillich Professor Emeritus of Theology, World Religions and Culture at the Union Theological Seminary in New York and a leading theologian of religious pluralism. He is professor emeritus of Theology at Xavier University, Cincinnati, Ohio, where he taught for 28 years before moving to Union. His research and publications primarily address religious pluralism and interreligious dialogue, including No Other Name? A Critical Survey of Christian Attitudes toward World Religions (1985), One Earth Many Religions: Multifaith Dialogue and Global Responsibility (1995), Jesus and the Other Names: Christian Mission and Global Responsibility (1996), Introducing Theologies of Religions (2002), and Without Buddha I Could Not B
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Jon M. Sweeney
Jon M. Sweeney is an independent scholar and writer of popular history. He is married, the father of three, and lives in Montpelier, Vermont. He has worked in book publishing for 25 years: after co-founding SkyLight Paths Publishing, he was the editor in chief and publisher at Paraclete Press, and in August 2015 became editorial director at Franciscan Media Books.
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He has written more than 20 books, seven about Francis of Assisi, including "When Saint Francis Saved the Church" and "The Complete Francis of Assisi." HBO has optioned the film rights to "The Pope Who Quit."
Jon's first 20 years were spent as an involved evangelical (a story told in the memoir "Born Again and Again"); he then spent 22 years as an active Episcopalian (see "Almost Ca -
Adrian Tinniswood
Adrian Tinniswood has worked as an author, broadcaster, lecturer and educational consultant for nearly 30 years in both Britain and the United States. Tinniswood studied English and Philosophy at Southampton University and was awarded an MPhil at Leicester University.
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John Fire Lame Deer
John Fire Lame Deer was a Mineconju-Lakota Sioux born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. His father was Silas Fire Let-Them-Have-Enough. His mother was Sally Red Blanket. He lived and learned with his grandparents until he was 6 or 7, after which he was placed in a day school near the family until age fourteen. He was then sent to a boarding school, one of many run by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs for Indian youth. These schools were designed to “civilize” the Native Americans after their forced settling on reservations.
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Lame Deer's life as a young man was rough and wild; he traveled and rode the rodeo circuit as a rider and later as a rodeo clown. According to his personal account, he drank, gambled, womanized, and once went on a severa -
Richard Lloyd
Richard Lloyd is a writer and researcher with a focus on Italian art and architecture.
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Annette Yoshiko Reed
Annette Yoshiko Reed joined the Penn faculty in 2007. She is also a member of the Jewish Studies Program and the Graduate Group in Ancient History, and serves as a Faculty Fellow in Stouffer College House. Prof. Reed’s research spans Second Temple Judaism, early Christianity, and Jewish/Christian relations in Late Antiquity. Publications include Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity (Cambridge 2005), Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (ed. with Ra'anan Boustan; Cambridge 2004), and The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (ed. with Adam H. Becker; Mohr Siebeck 2003; Fortress 2007). She is currently working on two monographs: one on the origin
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Mary Johnson
As a teenager, Mary Johnson thought she was on her way to a career as a thinker and communicator, when she spotted Mother Teresa's eyes on the cover of Time Magazine. After reading her story, Mary felt God calling her. For twenty years, as Sister Donata, Mary Johnson was a Missionary of Charity, a nun in Mother Teresa's order, until she left in 1997. Mother Teresa professed that she had "promised to give Saints to Mother Church", but a life pursuing humility, poverty, love and obedience wasn't easy. Mary Johnson's book, "An Unquenchable Thirst", is the memoir of her life as a Missionary of Charity, and a story of her search for love, service, and an authentic life.
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Today Mary is a respected teacher and public speaker. She has been named a F -
Jennifer Wright Knust
Jennifer Wright Knust is Assistant Professor of New Testament and Christian Origins at Boston University. She came to BU from the College of the Holy Cross, where she taught Religious Studies for five years. At BU, she is appointed to the faculties of the School of Theology and the College of Arts and Sciences and is affiliated with the Religion Department, Judaic Studies, and the Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.
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A graduate of the University of Illinois, Urbana, she earned her Master of Divinity from Union Theological Seminary (New York) and then served as an American Baptist pastor before returning to New York City to earn her Master of Philosophy and Doctorate of Religion from Columbia University. She has published widely on -
Brian P. Levack
Brian Levack is John E. Green Regents Professor in History and Distinguished Teaching Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. The winner of several teaching awards, Levack offers a wide variety of courses on early modern British and European history, legal history, and the history of witchcraft. For eight years he served as the chair of his department. His books include The Civil Lawyers in England, 1603-1641: A Political Study(1973), The Formation of the British State: England, Scotland and the Union, 1603-1707(1987); The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (3rd edition, 2006), which has been translated into eight languages; and Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics, and Religion(2008). His newest book is The Devil Within: Possess
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Richard E. Rubenstein
Richard E. Rubenstein is an author and University Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason University, holding degrees from Harvard College, Oxford University, and Harvard Law School.
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