{"podcast":{"title":"New Books in Sociology","slug":"new-books-in-sociology-671620","podcast_index_feed_id":671620,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/LIT3382719913","website_url":"https://newbooksnetwork.com","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/f7161e82-f346-11e8-a8a3-a3d2f039e6d2/image/b6e67e348fe6c83f677a9dc9bd7ac1fe.png?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"New Books Network","episode_count":1000,"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/sociology","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-sociology-671620"},"episode":{"title":"Russell McCutcheon, \"Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia, second edition\" (Oxford UP, 2026)","slug":"russell-mccutcheon-manufacturing-religion-the-discourse-on-sui-generis-religion-and-the-politics-of-nostalgia-second-edition-oxford-up-2026","published_at":"2026-05-04T08:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-sociology-671620/russell-mccutcheon-manufacturing-religion-the-discourse-on-sui-generis-religion-and-the-politics-of-nostalgia-second-edition-oxford-up-2026","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/new-books-in-sociology-671620","url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4344499780.mp3?updated=1777831622","audio_url":"https://traffic.megaphone.fm/NBNK4344499780.mp3?updated=1777831622","summary":"First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that religion is utterly unique, inexplicable, and therefore able only to be interpreted by privileged scholars. Claiming religion to be sui generis (or self-caused), this approach has undisclosed practical effects--institutional and geo-political--at a variety of sites, from the types of textbooks commonly used in introductory classes to the way that political events are often represented in the mass media. Russell McCutcheon documented the ubiquity of this approach and showed how harmful it was Updating its wide-ranging evidence and adding new chapters, this new edition demonstrates the impact of this critique while showing how little the field has generally moved in the past thirty years. Russell T. McCutcheon earned his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and is now an honorary life member of the International Association for the History of Religions. Beginning in 2001, he was the Department Chair at the University of Alabama, a role that he played for 18 years. His many publications on the history of the field and the practical effects of the category religion in liberal democracies, along with a number of resources created specifically for teachers and students, are widely used in the field today. This episode’s host, Jacob Barrett, is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Religion and Culture track. For more information, visit his website thereluctantamericanist.com00:00 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/sociology","meta_description":"First published in 1997, Manufacturing Religion was a controversial book because it critiqued a widely adopted style of scholarship that presumes that rel…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2810,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/new-books-in-sociology-671620/episodes/russell-mccutcheon-manufacturing-religion-the-discourse-on-sui-generis-religion-and-the-politics-of-nostalgia-second-edition-oxford-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-sociology-671620/russell-mccutcheon-manufacturing-religion-the-discourse-on-sui-generis-religion-and-the-politics-of-nostalgia-second-edition-oxford-up-2026.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}