The Faith Conundrum: Further Reading, Watching and Sources

Start here

• Tweed, Thomas A. (2020), Religion: A Very Short Introduction (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Go deeper

• Geertz, Clifford (1973), ‘Religion as a Cultural System’ (opens in a new tab), in The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books.
• Smith, Wilfred Cantwell (1979), Faith and Belief (opens in a new tab). Princeton University Press.

Also recommended

• Armstrong, Karen (2005), A Short History of Myth (opens in a new tab). Canongate.
• Woodhead, Linda and Brown, Andrew (2016), That Was the Church That Was: How the Church of England Lost the English People (opens in a new tab). Bloomsbury Continuum.

Watch

Linda Woodhead (opens in a new tab) (Gresham College) — sociologist of religion whose talks explore how religion, spirituality and non-religion are changing in contemporary societies.

Start here

• Harvey, Graham (2006), Animism: Respecting the Living World (opens in a new tab). Columbia University Press.Other edition: Hurst, 2005.

Go deeper

• Cajete, Gregory (2000), Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence (opens in a new tab). Clear Light Publishers.
• Yunkaporta, Tyson (2019), Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (opens in a new tab). Text Publishing.

Watch

Nurit Bird-David (opens in a new tab) (University of Haifa) — anthropologist known for work on animism and relational understandings of relationships between humans and non-human beings.

Start here

• Katz, Richard (1982), Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung (opens in a new tab). Harvard University Press.

Go deeper

• Lewis-Williams, J. David (2002), The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art (opens in a new tab). Thames & Hudson.

Watch

Megan Biesele — anthropologist who has worked extensively with Ju/'hoansi communities in southern Africa, including oral tradition, healing and cultural continuity.

Start here

• Yunkaporta, Tyson (2019), Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (opens in a new tab). Text Publishing.

Go deeper

• Rose, Deborah Bird (1996), Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views of Landscape and Wilderness (opens in a new tab). Australian Heritage Commission.
• Berndt, Ronald M. and Berndt, Catherine H. (1989), The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in Aboriginal Australia (opens in a new tab). Inner Traditions.

Watch

Marcia Langton (opens in a new tab) (University of Melbourne) — Yiman and Bidjara scholar whose talks address Indigenous relationships with land, culture, environmental management and Australian society.

Also recommended

• Beard, Mary (2015), SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (opens in a new tab). Profile Books.
• Graeber, David and Wengrow, David (2021), The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (opens in a new tab). Allen Lane.
• Scott, James C. (2017), Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States (opens in a new tab). Yale University Press.

Start here

• Finkel, Irving (2014), The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood (opens in a new tab). Hodder & Stoughton.

Go deeper

• Nissen, Hans J. (1988), The Early History of the Ancient Near East, 9000–2000 B.C. (opens in a new tab) University of Chicago Press.

Watch

Amanda Podany (opens in a new tab) (Cal Poly Pomona) — historian of the ancient Near East whose accessible talks explore everyday life, states, writing and social organisation in Mesopotamia.

Start here

• Pinch, Geraldine (2002), Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Go deeper

• Assmann, Jan (2002), The Mind of Egypt: History and Meaning in the Time of the Pharaohs (opens in a new tab). Harvard University Press.

Also recommended

• Ikram, Salima (2010), Ancient Egypt: An Introduction (opens in a new tab). Cambridge University Press.

Watch

Kara Cooney (opens in a new tab) (UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology) — Egyptologist whose talks examine Egyptian kingship, death, gender, wealth and the political uses of religion.

Start here

• Kumar, P. Pratap (ed.) (2013), Contemporary Hinduism (opens in a new tab). Routledge.

Go deeper

• Flood, Gavin (ed.) (2020), The Oxford History of Hinduism: Hindu Practice (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.
• Doniger, Wendy and Smith, Brian K. (trans.) (1991), The Laws of Manu (opens in a new tab). Penguin.
• Doniger, Wendy (trans.) (2002), The Kamasutra: A New Translation (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Original sources

• Rigveda
• Manusmriti
• Mahabharata

Watch

Vasudha Narayanan (opens in a new tab) (University of Florida) — scholar of Hinduism whose talks explore Hindu traditions, ritual, sacred landscapes and their contemporary transformations.

Start here

• Omvedt, Gail (2008), Seeking Begumpura: The Social Vision of Anticaste Intellectuals (opens in a new tab). Navayana.

Go deeper

• Ramanujan, A. K. (1973), Speaking of Śiva (opens in a new tab). Penguin.

Also recommended

• Ambedkar, B. R. (2016), Annihilation of Caste: The Annotated Critical Edition (opens in a new tab). Verso.

Watch

Suraj Yengde — Dalit scholar and public intellectual who discusses caste, inequality, identity and the continuing social consequences of caste systems.

Start here

• Wright, Dale S. (2020), Buddhism: What Everyone Needs to Know (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Go deeper

• Jerryson, Michael (ed.) (2017), The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Buddhism (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.
• Foltz, Richard (2010), Religions of the Silk Road: Premodern Patterns of Globalization (opens in a new tab). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Liu, Xinru (1988), Ancient India and Ancient China: Trade and Religious Exchanges, AD 1–600 (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Also recommended

• Haemin Sunim (2017), The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to Be Calm in a Busy World (opens in a new tab). Penguin Life.
• Suzuki, D. T. (1934), An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (opens in a new tab). Eastern Buddhist Society.
• Thich Nhat Hanh (1998), The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching: Transforming Suffering into Peace, Joy, and Liberation (opens in a new tab). Parallax Press.

Watch

Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo (opens in a new tab) (official website) — Buddhist nun and teacher whose talks provide a practitioner's perspective on Buddhist practice, monasticism and the position of women.

Start here

• Johnson, Ian (2017), The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao (opens in a new tab). Pantheon.

Go deeper

• Yao, Xinzhong (2000), An Introduction to Confucianism (opens in a new tab). Cambridge University Press.
• Kohn, Livia (2009), Introducing Daoism (opens in a new tab). Routledge.
• Keightley, David N. (1978), Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China (opens in a new tab). University of California Press.

Also recommended

• Yu Dan (2009), Confucius from the Heart: Ancient Wisdom for Today's World (opens in a new tab). Pan Macmillan.

Watch

Yang Huilin — Chinese scholar whose talks explore religion, ethics and the place of religious ideas in contemporary Chinese intellectual life.

Start here

• Solomon, Norman (2026), Judaism: A Very Short Introduction (opens in a new tab). 3rd edn. Oxford University Press.

Go deeper

• Boyarin, Daniel (1994), A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (opens in a new tab). University of California Press.

Original sources

• The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh.
• Rabbinic literature.

Watch

Amy-Jill Levine (opens in a new tab) (Vanderbilt University) — Jewish scholar of biblical studies whose talks illuminate Jewish texts, interpretation and the historical world from which Christianity emerged.

Start here

• MacCulloch, Diarmaid (2009), A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (opens in a new tab). Allen Lane.

Go deeper

• Brown, Peter (2003), The Rise of Western Christendom: Triumph and Diversity, A.D. 200–1000 (opens in a new tab). Blackwell.
• Cone, James H. (1984), For My People: Black Theology and the Black Church (opens in a new tab). Orbis Books.

Also recommended

• Gutiérrez, Gustavo (1973), A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (opens in a new tab). Orbis Books.
• Heyrman, Christine Leigh (1997), Southern Cross: The Beginnings of the Bible Belt (opens in a new tab). University of North Carolina Press.
• Phan, Peter C. (2003), Christianity with an Asian Face: Asian American Theology in the Making (opens in a new tab). Orbis Books.

Watch

Kate Bowler (opens in a new tab) (official website) — historian of Christianity whose work examines contemporary Christian belief, prosperity theology, suffering and the promises religious cultures make about human life.

Go deeper

• Ivanov, Sergey A. (2006), Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Watch

Nadieszda Kizenko (opens in a new tab) (University at Albany) — historian of Russian Orthodox Christianity whose work examines religious practice, confession, sanctity and Russian religious culture.

Start here

• Formichi, Chiara (2020), Islam and Asia: A History (opens in a new tab). Cambridge University Press.

Go deeper

• Sanyal, Usha (2020), Scholars of Faith: South Asian Muslim Women and the Embodiment of Religious Knowledge (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.
• Lapidus, Ira M. (2014), A History of Islamic Societies (opens in a new tab). 3rd edn. Cambridge University Press.

Also recommended

• Aslan, Reza (2005), No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam (opens in a new tab). Random House.

Watch

Leila Ahmed (opens in a new tab) (Harvard Divinity School) — scholar of Islam whose talks explore women, gender, Islamic history and changing interpretations of Muslim identity.

Start here

• Olupona, Jacob K. (2014), African Religions: A Very Short Introduction (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Go deeper

• Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́ (1997), The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (opens in a new tab). University of Minnesota Press.
• Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́ (2015), What Gender Is Motherhood? Changing Yorùbá Ideals of Power, Procreation, and Identity in the Age of Modernity (opens in a new tab). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Drewal, Margaret Thompson (1992), Yoruba Ritual: Performative Semiotics, Acting, and Coherence (opens in a new tab). Indiana University Press.

Also recommended

• Mbiti, John S. (1969), African Religions and Philosophy (opens in a new tab). Heinemann.
• Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (1986), Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (opens in a new tab). James Currey.

Watch

Abimbola Adelakun — Nigerian scholar whose work examines religion, performance, power and contemporary African society.

Start here

• Nwokocha, Eziaku Atuama (2023), Vodou en Vogue: Fashioning Black Divinities in Haiti and the United States (opens in a new tab). University of North Carolina Press.

Watch

Mambo Chita Tann — Haitian Vodou priestess and educator who provides a practitioner perspective on Vodou belief and practice.

Start here

• Mandair, Arvind-Pal Singh (2022), Sikh Philosophy: Exploring Gurmat Concepts in a Decolonizing World (opens in a new tab). Bloomsbury Academic.

Go deeper

• Nesbitt, Eleanor (2016), Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction (opens in a new tab). 2nd edn. Oxford University Press.

Watch

Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh — scholar of Sikhism whose talks explore Sikh scripture, gender, spirituality and understandings of the divine.

Start here

• Deloria Jr., Vine (2003), God Is Red: A Native View of Religion (opens in a new tab). 3rd edn. Fulcrum Publishing.Other edition: Grosset & Dunlap, 1973.

Go deeper

• Cajete, Gregory (2000), Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence (opens in a new tab). Clear Light Publishers.
• Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2013), Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (opens in a new tab). Milkweed Editions.

Watch

Kyle Whyte — Potawatomi scholar whose talks connect Indigenous knowledge, environmental justice, climate change and relationships between communities and land.

Start here

• Estes, Nick (2019), Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance (opens in a new tab). Verso.

Watch

LaDonna Brave Bull Allard — Standing Rock Sioux historian and activist who helped establish the Sacred Stone Camp and spoke about the cultural and spiritual significance of protecting water.

Start here

• Salmond, Anne (2017), Tears of Rangi: Experiments Across Worlds (opens in a new tab). Auckland University Press.

Original sources

• Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Act 2017 (opens in a new tab). (PDF, New Zealand Legislation)
• Whanganui iwi accounts and statements provide an essential source for understanding Te Awa Tupua within its own cultural context.

Watch

Gerrard Albert — Whanganui iwi leader involved in Te Awa Tupua, offering a perspective on the relationship between people, ancestors and river from within the Whanganui context.

Start here

• Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́ (1997), The Invention of Women: Making an African Sense of Western Gender Discourses (opens in a new tab). University of Minnesota Press.

Go deeper

• Oyěwùmí, Oyèrónkẹ́ (2015), What Gender Is Motherhood? Changing Yorùbá Ideals of Power, Procreation, and Identity in the Age of Modernity (opens in a new tab). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Ebrey, Patricia Buckley (1993), The Inner Quarters: Marriage and the Lives of Chinese Women in the Sung Period (opens in a new tab). University of California Press.

Also recommended

• Criado Perez, Caroline (2019), Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men (opens in a new tab). Chatto & Windus.
• Saini, Angela (2017), Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Research That's Rewriting the Story (opens in a new tab). Fourth Estate.

Watch

Amina Mama (opens in a new tab) (UC Davis) — Nigerian-British feminist scholar whose talks explore gender, colonialism and the problems created when analytical categories developed in one context are imposed on another.

Start here

• Davies, Sharyn Graham (2010), Gender Diversity in Indonesia: Sexuality, Islam and Queer Selves (opens in a new tab). Routledge.

Watch

Dédé Oetomo — Indonesian scholar and activist whose work provides broader cultural context for gender and sexuality in Indonesia.

Start here

• Eddo-Lodge, Reni (2017), Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (opens in a new tab). Bloomsbury.

Go deeper

• Hall, Stuart (1996), ‘Who Needs Identity?’ (opens in a new tab), in Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay (eds.), Questions of Cultural Identity. Sage.

Watch

Kimberlé Crenshaw (opens in a new tab) (Columbia Law School) — legal scholar whose talks explore race, structural inequality and intersectionality.

Start here

• Gravett, Emily O. (2026), Studying Religion and Disability. Routledge.

Go deeper

• Soon, Isaac T. (2023), A Disabled Apostle: Impairment and Disability in the Letters of Paul (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.
• Schumm, Darla Y. and Stoltzfus, Michael (eds.), Disability and World Religions: An Introduction (opens in a new tab). Baylor University Press.

Watch

Candida Moss (opens in a new tab) (University of Birmingham) — scholar of Christianity whose public work explores bodies, illness, disability and the ways religious texts and traditions shape understandings of bodily difference.

Start here

• Vanita, Ruth (ed.) (2002), Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society (opens in a new tab). Routledge.

Go deeper

• Vanita, Ruth and Kidwai, Saleem (eds.) (2000), Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History (opens in a new tab). Palgrave Macmillan.

Watch

Amara Das Wilhelm — writer and researcher whose work examines gender and sexual diversity within Hindu traditions and texts.

Start here

• Lee, Lois (2015), Recognizing the Non-religious: Reimagining the Secular (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Go deeper

• Zwilling, Anne-Laure and Årsheim, Helge (eds.) (2022), Nonreligion in Late Modern Societies (opens in a new tab). Springer.

Watch

Abby Day — anthropologist whose research asks what people who describe themselves as non-religious believe, value and belong to.

Start here

• Kimmerer, Robin Wall (2013), Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (opens in a new tab). Milkweed Editions.

Go deeper

• Cajete, Gregory (2000), Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence (opens in a new tab). Clear Light Publishers.
• Yunkaporta, Tyson (2019), Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World (opens in a new tab). Text Publishing.

Watch

Jessica Hernandez — Maya Ch'orti' and Zapotec environmental scientist whose work brings Indigenous knowledge into discussions of conservation and ecological restoration.

Start here

• Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt (2005), Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection (opens in a new tab). Princeton University Press.

Go deeper

• Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt (2015), The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins (opens in a new tab). Princeton University Press.

Watch

Farwiza Farhan (opens in a new tab) (HAkA) — Indonesian conservationist whose work protecting the Leuser Ecosystem provides a contemporary perspective on the tensions between forests, communities, development and global environmentalism.

Start here

• Shiva, Vandana (1988), Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (opens in a new tab). Zed Books.

Watch

Sunita Narain (opens in a new tab) (Centre for Science and Environment) — Indian environmentalist whose talks connect environmental protection with development, inequality, resources and climate justice.

Start here

• Hopkins, Rob (2019), From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagination to Create the Future We Want (opens in a new tab). Chelsea Green.

Go deeper

• Hopkins, Rob (2008), The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (opens in a new tab). Green Books.

Also recommended

• Raworth, Kate (2017), Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist (opens in a new tab). Random House Business.

Watch

Kate Raworth (opens in a new tab) (official website) — economist whose work on Doughnut Economics explores how economies might operate within social needs and planetary boundaries.

Start here

• Tree, Isabella and Burrell, Charlie (2023), The Book of Wilding: A Practical Guide to Rewilding, Big and Small (opens in a new tab). Bloomsbury.

Go deeper

• Tree, Isabella (2018), Wilding: The Return of Nature to a British Farm (opens in a new tab). Picador.

Watch

Alastair Driver — conservationist and rewilding specialist whose talks explain rewilding as ecological restoration and landscape-scale change.

Original sources

• The Avon Bioregional Charter (opens in a new tab). We Are Avon.

Watch

Isabel Carlisle (opens in a new tab) (Bioregional Learning Centre) — bioregionalist and community organiser whose work explores how communities and economies can be organised around ecological places rather than conventional administrative boundaries.

Original sources

• Republic of Korea, Act on Research, Development and Promotion of Healing Agriculture (opens in a new tab). (English translation, Korea Legislation Research Institute)
• Rural Development Administration, Republic of Korea — research and guidance on healing agriculture.
• Korean research on European care-farming models provides useful context for the development of the Korean system.

Watch

Park Shin-ae (opens in a new tab) (Konkuk University, in Korean) — South Korean researcher working on horticultural therapy and human interactions with plants, providing scientific context for Korean healing agriculture.

Original sources

• European Union, Nature Restoration Regulation (opens in a new tab). (Regulation (EU) 2024/1991, EUR-Lex)
• European Commission, EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 (opens in a new tab).
• European Commission, One Health (opens in a new tab) framework.

Watch

Florika Fink-Hooijer (opens in a new tab) (European Commission) — European environmental-policy official whose talks address biodiversity, environmental protection and the development of EU nature policy.

Start here

• Womack, Ytasha L. (2013), Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture (opens in a new tab). Lawrence Hill Books.

Go deeper

• Butler, Octavia E. (1993), Parable of the Sower (opens in a new tab). Four Walls Eight Windows.

Watch

Nnedi Okorafor (opens in a new tab) (official website) — Nigerian-American speculative-fiction writer whose talks explore Africanfuturism, technology, culture and who gets to imagine possible futures.

Start here

• Ulibarri, Sarena (ed.) (2020), Glass and Gardens: Solarpunk Summers. World Weaver Press.

Go deeper

• Williams, Rhys (2019), ‘“This Shining Confluence of Magic and Technology”: Solarpunk, Energy Imaginaries, and the Infrastructures of Solarity’ (opens in a new tab), Open Library of Humanities, 5(1): 60. doi:10.16995/olh.329.

Watch

Andrew Dana Hudson (opens in a new tab) (newsletter) — speculative-fiction writer and sustainability researcher whose work explores hopeful ecological futures while retaining questions of politics, technology and material constraints.

Start here

• Campbell, Heidi A. and Cheong, Pauline Hope (eds.) (2024), The Oxford Handbook of Digital Religion (opens in a new tab). Oxford University Press.

Go deeper

• Lane, Justin E. (2021), Understanding Religion Through Artificial Intelligence: Bonding and Belief (opens in a new tab). Bloomsbury Academic.
• Mercer, Calvin and Trothen, Tracy J. (2021), Religion and the Technological Future: An Introduction to Biohacking, Artificial Intelligence, and Transhumanism (opens in a new tab). Palgrave Macmillan.
• Coeckelbergh, Mark (2026), Artificial Religion: On AI, Myth, and Power (opens in a new tab). MIT Press.

Also recommended

• Benjamin, Ruha (2019), Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (opens in a new tab). Polity.
• Han, Byung-Chul (2015), The Burnout Society (opens in a new tab). Stanford University Press.
• Kurzweil, Ray (2005), The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (opens in a new tab). Viking.
• Singler, Beth (2024), Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction (opens in a new tab). Routledge.
• Zuboff, Shoshana (2019), The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power (opens in a new tab). Profile Books.

Watch

Noreen Herzfeld — theologian and computer scientist whose work examines artificial intelligence, human identity, relationships and religious understandings of what it means to be human.