Roland Elliot Brown, "Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda" (FUEL, 2019)

Roland Elliot Brown, "Godless Utopia: Soviet ...

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Reginald Jackson, “Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Mortality, and The Tale of Genji Scrolls” (U Michigan Press, 2018)

Reginald Jackson’s inspiring new book takes a transdisciplinary approach to rethinking how we read, how we pay attention, and why that matters deeply in shaping how we understand the past, live in the present, and imagine possible futures. Textures of Mourning: Calligraphy, Morta ...  Show more

Margaret S. Graves, "Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics" (Princeton UP, 2026)

In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the international antiquities market. Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics (Princeton University Press, 2026) t ...  Show more

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Roland Elliot Brown, "Godless Utopia: Soviet Anti-Religious Propaganda" (FUEL, 2019)
New Books in Art

In the arc of Soviet history, few government programs were as tenacious as the anti-religious campaign, which systematically set out to debunk organized religion as "the opium of the people." This political storm of heaven lasted from the earliest days of Bolshevik power up until ...  Show more

Eleonor Gilburd, "To See Paris and Die: The Soviet Lives of Western Culture" (Harvard UP, 2018)
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Josef Stalin’s death in 1953 marked a noticeable shift in Soviet attitudes towards the West.  A nation weary of war and terror welcomed with relief the new regime of Nikita Khrushchev and its focus on peaceful cooperation with foreign powers.  A year after Stalin’s death, author ...  Show more

Putin's Religious War
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Days before Russian troops entered Ukraine in late February, President Vladimir Putin gave an impassioned address to the Russian people attempting to justify what he was about to carry out. He referred to Ukraine as 'an inalienable part' of Russia's 'spiritual space'. It's one of ...  Show more

Michael O’Sullivan, "Disruptive Power: Catholic Women, Miracles, and Politics in Modern Germany, 1918-1965" (U Toronto Press, 2018)
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How did Catholic mysticism shape politics and religion in 20th-century Germany? What do seers, stigmatics, and Marian apparitions reveal about broader cultural trends? Michael O’Sullivan’s award winning new book examines how longing for the divine paradoxically drove secularism. ...  Show more