{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Religion","slug":"new-books-in-religion-42803","podcast_index_feed_id":42803,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT9789987066","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/cfd5d93c-dddb-11e8-b346-7779d85ce4c2/image/b4c82d0e99e73663f8e58e455f382564.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":2719,"summary":"This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: ⁠newbooksnetwork.com⁠ Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: ⁠https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/⁠ Follow us on Instagram and Bluesky to learn about more our latest interviews: @newbooksnetwork Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/religion","last_synced_at":"2026-07-01T18:21:23.231818+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803"},"episode":{"title":"Carola E. Lorea, \"Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal\" (Wesleyan UP, 2026)","slug":"carola-e-lorea-communities-of-sound-religion-displacement-and-caste-in-the-bay-of-bengal-wesleyan-up-2026","published_at":"2026-06-25T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803/carola-e-lorea-communities-of-sound-religion-displacement-and-caste-in-the-bay-of-bengal-wesleyan-up-2026","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4687458286.mp3","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4687458286.mp3","summary":"Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal (Wesleyan University Press, 2026) brings together insights from religion, anthropology, sound, and migration studies to explore the sonic traces of untouchability and forced migration across the Bay of Bengal. Based on an immersive, multi-sited ethnography with Matua devotees—a low-caste, Bengali-speaking Dalit religious community fragmented by Partition, war, and postcolonial displacement—the book explores how sound sustains identity across fractured geographies. Using richly detailed descriptions, the book follows traveling archives of song, story, and ritual performance through West Bengal, Bangladesh, and the Andaman Islands. These sonic practices—congregational singing, drumming, and itinerant storytelling—forge belonging beyond nation-states, connecting the Matua's fifty million members across borders and seas. In a world dominated by visual culture, Communities of Sound centers listening as a mode of knowledge and care, revealing how sound shapes our sense of self and cosmos. More than scriptures or doctrine, it is sound—entangled with authority and power—that binds this transregional Dalit movement and animates its collective action. The book is generously illustrated and references an online companion with video and audio examples. Author bio: Carola E. Lorea is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology University of Tübingen, at the University of Tübingen, Germany, where she leads the ERC-funded project MANTRAMS: Mantras in Religion, Media, and Society in Global Southern Asia. She is the author of Folklore, Religion and the Songs of a Bengali Madman (2016), and editor with Rosalind Hackett of Religious Sounds Beyond the Global North: Senses, Media and Power (2024). Learn more a…","meta_description":"Communities of Sound: Religion, Displacement, and Caste in the Bay of Bengal (Wesleyan University Press, 2026) brings together insights from religion, an…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2154,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-religion-42803/episodes/carola-e-lorea-communities-of-sound-religion-displacement-and-caste-in-the-bay-of-bengal-wesleyan-up-2026/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-religion-42803/carola-e-lorea-communities-of-sound-religion-displacement-and-caste-in-the-bay-of-bengal-wesleyan-up-2026.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}