# Francesca Sbardella, "Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister" (Berghahn Books, 2025) Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/francesca-sbardella-inhabiting-silence-an-anthropologist-in-the-cloister-berghahn-books-2025 Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/francesca-sbardella-inhabiting-silence-an-anthropologist-in-the-cloister-berghahn-books-2025.md Podcast: [New Books in Anthropology](https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932) Published: 2026-09-07T08:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK3856899769.mp3 Audio file: https://pdst.fm/e/traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK3856899769.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/episodes/francesca-sbardella-inhabiting-silence-an-anthropologist-in-the-cloister-berghahn-books-2025 Duration seconds: 2303 ## Resource Monasteries are typically characterized by physical and symbolic limitations on access as they are usually known through written texts and accounts by nuns who live in that world but do not allow others to have access. This has often resulted in research based on indirect sources. Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister (Berghahn Books, 2025) is the result of observant participation in which the ethnographer is a protagonist social actor in two French monasteries of Discalced Carmelite nuns. Francesca Sbardella experiences and narrates details of their everyday life that usually remain unseen but contribute to shaping community-building processes and, at the same time, construe the religious woman. Inhabiting Silence: An Anthropologist in the Cloister (Berghahn Books, 2025) was translated from Italian by Claudio Bendazzoli, with a foreword by Simon Ditchfield and an afterword by Fabio Dei. Francesca Sbardella is an anthropologist and historian of religion and a professor at the University of Bologna. * This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we’re highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/episodes/francesca-sbardella-inhabiting-silence-an-anthropologist-in-the-cloister-berghahn-books-2025/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-anthropology-901932/francesca-sbardella-inhabiting-silence-an-anthropologist-in-the-cloister-berghahn-books-2025.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.