From January 2026 onward, including books and articles, as well as podcasts and media coverage of faculty research. For the summary of entries from June to December 2025, see our 2025 December Roundup DSR Newsletter.
April 2026
Pamela Klassen's article, "Procreation Stories," appears in American Religion "Back Pages: The Present in Retrospect" series, which features essays from major scholars of American religion addressing their present relationship to a key publication from early in their career. In this piece, Klassen reflects on her second book, Blessed Events: Religion and Home Birth in America (Princeton 2001).
March 2026
An article by affiliate faculty Tracy Lemos, “Genocide in the Hebrew Bible,” was published in Ancient Near East Today, February 2026 | Vol. 14.2.
PhD student Maor Oz is a contributor to “Teaching Jewish Studies in the Nordics,” a roundtable article published in the European Journal of Jewish Studies.
PhD candidate Austin Simoes-Gomes' article, “Please Don’t Repeat This: Gossip as Ritual Criticism,” was published in HIMALAYA 44(2): 30–47.
February 2026
Suleyman Dost’s book, Before the Qur’an: Material Sources at the Advent of Muslim Scripture, was published in February 2026 by Edinburgh University Press. The question of the Qur’an’s geographical and cultural context has been hotly debated in the last few decades, and this book challenges revisionist perspectives that situate the Qur’an outside a Western Arabian milieu.
Affiliate faculty member Miray Phillips' article, “The Politicization of the 21 Libya Martyrs,” was published on the Public Orthodoxy website. In November 2025, Philips also delivered a statement at the UN Forum on Minority Issues on behalf of the REDWORD human rights organization on the challenges facing Copts in Egypt and the diaspora.
PhD candidate Anusha Rao’s book, How to Love in Sanskrit (HarperCollins India 2024) was shortlisted for the American Literary Translators Association’s National Translation Award in Poetry 2025. A US edition is scheduled for release in Fall 2026 (Liveright | W.W. Norton).
Affiliate faculty member Michael Lambek has two recent publications:
- “De la possession à la cohabitation.” In Jean-Pierre Cavaillé, Agnès Kedzierska-Manzon, eds. Possession: représentations, pratiques, intérpretations (Bibliothèque de l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Sciences Religieuses, Vo. 211). 2026. Turnhout Belgium: Brepols. Pp. 363-81.
- “Les Techniques élémentaires de la vie religieuse.” In Guillaume Carnino, Liliane Hilaire-Pérez, et Sébastien Pautet, eds. Techniques et Religions: Cultures techniques, croyances, circulations de l'Antiquité à nos jours (Techne: Global Matters, Vol. 14). 2026. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols. Pp. 21-39.
Simon Coleman is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of the Anthropology of Religion (Oxford University Press). The book includes the chapter ”The Study of Indigenous Religions in North America” by Pamela Klassen and her former PhD student (and now associate professor at the University of San Diego) Meaghan Weatherdon.
Jeremy Schipper co-authored “On the Root גאל II: ‘To Diminish’” in Vetus Testamentum 76 (2026): 133-156. (This article is an open access publication.)
January 2026
Anna Shternshis featured on CBC Radio One’s Metro Morning , talking about the mass shooting during a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, as well as rising violent attacks on Jewish communities in many places, including Canada. >> Listen
Shternshis's essay, "Yiddish," appeared in The Princeton Companion to Jewish Studies (p. 414, Eve Krakowski, Leora Batnitzky, & Steven Weitzman (Eds.), Princeton University Press, 2025).
Affiliate faculty member Stephen Scharper's piece, "Replace fear with love this Christmas," appeared in the Toronto Star and his book review of The Gospel of Jesus Green: Home for All, Not Just for Humans, by Neil J. Whitehouse, was published in the Toronto Journal of Theology, Volume 41, Issue 2 (November 2025), pp. 196–197. Scharper also participated in a CBC Radio One’s Ideas program, “'Gospel and the Landscape': Inventing Environmental Ethics,” which examined the legacy of pioneering environmental ethicist Holmes Rolston III (1932-2025).
DSR Chair & Graduate Chair Pamela Klassen is co-editor of Making Promises: Treaties, Oaths, and Covenants in Multi-Religious and Multi-Jurisdictional Societies, with Benjamin L. Berger and Monique Scheer, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2025. The book also includes chapters from three DSR alumni: Yaniv Feller (PhD 2016), Gregory Fewster (PhD 2020), and Kate Stoehr (MA 2021).