Theological Librarianship actively seeks scholars of diverse backgrounds, experiences, and career stages to review new works of interest to theology and/or religious studies subject specialists.

Below are titles for which we are currently soliciting reviews. Please click the title link for the volume that interests you to email the reviews editor. The  reviews editor will then respond with further instructions.

If you are aware of a new title not appearing here that would be relevant for our readers, please email the editorial board.

 

Titles for Review (Updated May 2022)

 

Books at the Intersection of Librarianship and Theology/Religious Studies

Best Practice Guidelines for Theological Libraries Serving Doctoral Programs
Edited by Katharina Penner
Langham

Libraries and librarians are indispensable to student learning and the formation of researchers at the doctoral level. This book identifies five areas and sixteen principles that need to be considered by theological schools when optimizing library operations to serve doctoral programs. As an illustration of these principles, the book provides narratives from four theological libraries – in Nairobi, Hong Kong, Bangalore, and Amsterdam – that have successfully transitioned to serve doctoral programs. The contributors present tested best practice alongside their successful experiences pioneering libraries that serve doctoral programs in challenging situations. An invaluable training resource for Majority World librarians, this book also offers insight into quality guidelines for accreditation agencies supporting theological institutions in developing robust and flourishing programs.

Digital Theology: A Computer Science Perspective
by Erkki Sutinen and Anthony-Paul Cooper
Emerald Publishing

Digital Theology is a rapidly emerging field of academic research and gaining traction with scholars of Computer Science, Theology, Sociology of Religion and the wider Humanities. This book explores Digital Theology from a Computer Science perspective, providing a comprehensive definition of the subject and setting the agenda for future work in the field for both academics and practitioners. A range of Digital Theology case studies highlight the challenges, and successes, and the lessons learned which can be applied to future situations. The book also includes a timely analysis of the role that digital technology has played in the response of the global church to specific world events; clarifying a number of turning points which have driven dramatic and rapid change in church operating models.

Aesthetics of Universal Knowledge
edited by Simon Schaffer, John Tresch, and Pasquale Gagliardi
Palgrave Macmillan

Born out of a major international dialogue held at the Fondazione Giorgio Cini in Venice, Italy, this collection of essays presents innovative and provocative arguments about the claims of universal knowledge schemes and the different aesthetic and material forms in which such claims have been made and executed. Contributors take a close look at everything from religious pilgrimages, museums, and maps of the world, to search engines and automated GPS. Current obsessions in information technology, communications theory, and digital culture often concern the value and possibility of a grand accumulation of universally accessible forms of knowledge: total libraries, open data bases, ubiquitous computing, and ‘smart’ technologies. These obsessions have important social and philosophical origins, and they raise profound questions about the very nature of knowledge and its organization. This volume’s contributors draw on the histories of maps and of encyclopedias, worldviews and visionary collections, to make sense of the crucial relation between the way the world is known and how it might be displayed and transformed.

Libraries Serving Dialogue
edited by Odile Dupont
De Gruyter

The IFLA Religious Libraries in Dialogue Special Interest Group is dedicated to libraries serving as places of dialogue between cultures through a better knowledge of religions. This book based on experiences of libraries serving interreligious dialogue, presents themes like library tools serving dialogue between cultures, collections dialoguing, children and young adults dialoguing beyond borders, story telling as dialog, librarians serving interreligious dialogue.

 

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Reference Works in Theology/Religious Studies

The Routledge Handbook of Early Christian Philosophy
edited by M.J. Edwards
Routledge

This volume offers the most comprehensive survey available of the philosophical background to the works of early Christian writers and the development of early Christian doctrine. It examines how the same philosophical questions were approached by Christian and pagan thinkers; the philosophical element in Christian doctrines; the interaction of particular philosophies with Christian thought; and the constructive use of existing philosophies by all Christian thinkers of late antiquity. While most studies of ancient Christian writers and the development of early Christian doctrine make some reference to the philosophic background, this is often of an anecdotal character, and does not enable the reader to determine whether the likenesses are deep or superficial, or how pervasively one particular philosopher may have influenced Christian thought. This volume is designed to provide not only a body of facts more compendious than can be found elsewhere, but the contextual information which will enable readers to judge or clarify the statements that they encounter in works of more limited scope. With contributions by an international group of experts in both philosophy and Christian thought, this is an invaluable resource for scholars of early Christianity, Late Antiquity and ancient philosophy alike.

Peshitta English New Testament: The Antioch Bible English Translation
edited by George A. Kiraz
Gorgias Press

After the success of the Antioch Bible, this publication is a new translation of the Peshitta English New Testament in a single volume. The English translations of the New Testament Syriac Peshitta were carried out by an international team of scholars.

Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions
edited by Henry Gooren
Springer

This encyclopedia provides an overview of the main religions of Latin America and the Caribbean--both their centralized transnational expressions and their local variants and schisms. These main religions include (but are not limited to) the major expressions of Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, Pentecostalism, Mormonism, and Jehovah’s Witnesses), indigenous religions (Native American, Maya religion), syncretic Christianity (including Afro-Brazilian religions like Umbanda and Candomblé and Afro-Caribbean religions like Vodun and Santería), other world religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam), transnational New Religious Movements (Scientology, Unification Church, Hare Krishna, New Age, etc.), and new local religions (Brazil’s Igreja Universal, La Luz del Mundo from Mexico, etc.).

Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Korea
edited by Won W. Lee
Oxford

The phenomenon of South Korean Christianity is, in a word, remarkable. In less than 250 years, 29% of South Korea's population adheres to Christianity, a staggering 71% of Korean Americans identify as Christian, and the powerful zeal of Korean Christians to spread the Gospel's influence in South Korea already overshadows other established religious groups (i.e. Buddhism, Confucianism). This phenomenon-particularly the rapid growth and unique interpretation of Christianity among Koreans around the world-is intimately and inextricably tied to how Koreans appropriated the Bible in their religio-cultural and socio-political milieu from the 18th century onward. Less noted and understood, however, is the tapestry of Korean biblical interpretation that emerged from being missionized, colonized, divided, and globalized. These influences reflect a distinctive Korean-ness of biblical interpretation that relates closely to Korean perceptions of divine liberating intervention, and the Korean diaspora that seeks to move beyond oppression. This Handbook offers a comprehensive overview on how the Bible has been used by faith communities in Korea and the Korean diaspora over two centuries. In this volume, noted theologically diverse scholars present representative thinking on creative inculturations of the Bible in Korea. Some conservatively align with received western orthodoxy. Others have a sense of complementarity that informs distinctive accents of Korean Christianity, the long-standing religious traditions of Korea, the diversity of Korea's global diaspora, and the learning of non-Koreans attentive to the impact of the Bible in Korea. Together, this volume presents an exquisite tapestry of Korean biblical interpretation in the making.