Press News

This week’s book giveaway is Modern Things on Trial: Islam’s Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida, 1865–1935, by Leor Halevi.  Check our blog on Wednesday to read an exclusive interview with the author, and on Thursday to read an excerpt from the introduction to the book.

The fall conference season is in full swing. Look for us at the:

Modernist Studies Association meeting, October 17-20

Society for Neuroscience meeting, October 19-23

Council on Social Work Education meeting, October 24-27

Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy meeting, October 31-Nov. 2

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Book Excerpt! Modern Things on Trial (prologue) (Oct 17, 2019)
“By tracing the evolution of ‘laissez-faire Salafism’ in response to consumer concerns about the religious status of new commodities and technologies, Halevi positions Islam’s modern reformation as driven more by materialist than ideational forces. This is a highly original rethinking of the old question of religion and modernity by looking at the material transformations—the ‘modern things’—that
Q&A: Leor Halevi on Modern Things on Trial (Oct 16, 2019)
“This nuanced, meticulously researched, yet accessible study illuminates how significant early-twentieth-century debates on Islamic law often revolved around some surprisingly ordinary objects and how local anxieties and input shaped a reformist Islam with transregional appeal. Halevi’s focus on the material dimensions of modern Islamic thought adds a very welcome and promising dimension to the scholarship
New From Our Distributed Presses! Gao Village Revisited and Signal. Image. Architecture. (Oct 16, 2019)
Our weekly list of new books is now available! The Chinese University Press Gao Village Revisited The Life of Rural People in Contemporary China Mobo C. F. Gao Gao Village Revisited is a close study of Gao village twenty years after the author, an anthropologist and native of Gao village, wrote his original ethnography Gao Village.
New Book Tuesday! Educating Harlem, The Art of Ideas, and More! (Oct 15, 2019)
Our weekly list of new books is now available! Educating Harlem A Century of Schooling and Resistance in a Black Community Edited by Ansley T. Erickson and Ernest Morrell Educating Harlem brings together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider the history of schooling in perhaps the nation’s most iconic black community. The volume traces the
Announcing Our 2019-2020 Science Catalog (Oct 14, 2019)
 Letter from the editor: Please allow me to introduce myself as the new acquiring editor for the physical and life sciences at Columbia University Press. I’m excited to present the latest science catalog, our first since I joined the press in late 2018. The science list at Columbia spans a wide range of disciplines that teach us

New Titles from Distributed Presses

The Revolution Will Be Stopped Halfway
Driving Change
Signal. Image. Architecture.
When the Future Came
Gerhard Friedl
Gao Village Revisited