Author Interviews

Below are recent interviews with CUP authors. View a complete list of past interviews.

Read an interview with John T. E. Richardson, author of Howard Andrew Knox: Pioneer of Intelligence Testing at Ellis Island.

Cloth, $55.00 / £38.00 352 pages , November 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-14168-0

Listen to an interview with Abdulkader Tayob on New Books in Religion.

Cloth, $50.00 256 pages , February 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-15432-1

Listen to an interview with Carool Kersten on New Books in Reilgion.

Cloth, $35.00 288 pages , September 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-70239-3

Read an interview with Barbara Will.

Cloth, $35.00 / £24.00 320 pages , September 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15262-4

Read an interview with Diana Lobel.

Paper, $26.50 / £18.50 312 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-15315-7

Cloth, $82.50 / £57.00 312 pages , July 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15314-0

Read an interview with Lingzhen Wang.

Paper, $27.50 / £19.00 448 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-15675-2

Cloth, $82.50 / £57.00 448 pages , August 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15674-5

Read an interview with Brent Stockwell.

Cloth, $27.95 / £19.95 284 pages , June 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15212-9

Read an interview with Anat Pick, author of Creaturely Poetics: Animality and Vulnerability in Literature and Film.

Paper, $26.50 / £18.50 264 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14787-3

Cloth, $79.50 / £55.00 264 pages , March 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-14786-6

Read an interview with Adam McKeown.

Paper, $26.50 / £18.50 472 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14077-5

Cloth, $40.00 / £27.50 472 pages , December 2008
ISBN: 978-0-231-14076-8

Read an interview with Deepak Sarma, author of Classical Indian Philosophy.

Paper, $29.50 / £20.50 288 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-13399-9

Cloth, $89.50 / £62.00 288 pages , April 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-13398-2

Read an interview with Michael Z. Newman, author of Indie: An American Film Culture.

Paper, $26.50 / £18.50 304 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14465-0

Cloth, $79.50 / £55.00 304 pages , March 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-14464-3

Read an interview with Alan Montefiore, author of Philosophical Retrospective: Facts, Values, and Jewish Identity.

Cloth, $29.50 / £20.50 216 pages , March 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15300-3

Read an interview with Sheldon Krimsky and Tania Simoncelli, authors of Genetic Justice: DNA Data Banks, Criminal Investigations, and Civil Liberties:

Paper, $22.50 / £15.50 448 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14521-3

Cloth, $29.50 / £19.95 448 pages , November 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-14520-6

Read an interview with Grzegorz W. Kolodko, author of Truth, Errors, and Lies: Politics and Economics in a Volatile World.

Cloth, $39.95 / £27.50 464 pages , January 2011
ISBN: 978-0-231-15068-2

Read an interview with Alexander Huang, author of Chinese Shakespeares: Two Centuries of Cultural Exchange.

Paper, $26.50 / £18.50 368 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14849-8

Cloth, $84.50 / £58.50 368 pages , June 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14848-1

Read an interview with Robert W. Hanning.

Cloth, $45.00 / £31.00 312 pages , September 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-15210-5

Read an interview with Seth Stein, author of Disaster Deferred: How New Science Is Changing our View of Earthquake Hazards in the Midwest

Paper, $22.00 / £15.00 296 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-15139-9

Cloth, $27.50 / £19.95 296 pages , October 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-15138-2

Andrew Smith discusses breakfast cereal on "The Leonard Lopate Show."

Paper, $19.95 / £13.95 392 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14093-5

Cloth, $29.95 / £19.95 392 pages , September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14092-8

Read iinterviews with James Fleming from SciCom, ABC Radio National, and New Books in History.

Paper, $19.95 / £14.00 344 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14413-1

Cloth, $27.95 / £19.95 344 pages , August 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-14412-4

Read an interview with David Gentilcore in the Boston Globe.

Cloth, $26.95 / £18.95 272 pages , June 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-15206-8

Read an interview with Douglas Alan Walrath.

Cloth, $55.00 / £38.00 400 pages , April 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-15106-1

Read an interview with Stanley Ornstein and Mark Egland.

Cloth, $34.95 / £23.95 256 pages , March 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-15182-5

Read an interview with Donna V. Jones.

Paper, $25.00 / £17.50 240 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14549-7

Cloth, $40.00 / £27.50 240 pages , February 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-14548-0

Listen to an interview with Farzana Shakikh on Huffington Post

Cloth, $24.95 288 pages , July 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14962-4

Read an interview with Edward Hess.

Cloth, $27.95 / £18.95 248 pages , February 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-15050-7

Paper, $19.95 360 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-70149-5

Cloth, $29.95 360 pages , January 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-70148-8

Listen to an interview with the authors on Joy Keys.

Paper, $35.00 / £24.00 336 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-13453-8

Cloth, $89.50 / £62.00 336 pages , April 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-13452-1

Read an interview with Sophie Richardson.

Cloth, $50.00 / £34.50 344 pages , December 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14386-8

Read an interview with the editors of Soul & Form, Jack Sanders and Kate Terezakis.

Paper, $27.50 / £19.00 264 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14981-5

Cloth, $84.50 / £58.50 264 pages , January 2010
ISBN: 978-0-231-14980-8

Read an interview with Jane I. Smith on Religion in American History.

Paper, $24.50 / £17.00 256 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14711-8

Cloth, $79.50 / £55.00 256 pages , November 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14710-1

Read an interview with Dorothy N. Gamble and Marie Weil.

Paper, $45.00 / £31.00 496 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-11003-7

Cloth, $125.00 / £86.50 496 pages , November 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-11002-0

Read an interview with Hans-Georg Moeller on Religion Dispatches (December 10, 2009)

Paper, $24.50 / £17.00 224 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14509-1

Cloth, $79.50 / £55.00 224 pages , July 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14508-4

How do you define Jewish mysticism and Jewish philosophy? What’s the relationship between them?

Both Jewish mysticism and Jewish philosophy are complex and multifaceted phenomena that cannot be easily defined. In general terms, however, we could demarcate mysticism as an intensified path (encompassing both ritual and knowledge) that facilitates the individual’s communion with or direct experience of what is considered in a particular cultural context to be ultimate reality, whereas philosophy is the pursuit of knowledge and truth about the world and the human through the mediated exercise of reason and logical argument (even irrationality is examined philosophically through the prism of the rational).

Moses of Burgos, a kabbalist active in the second half of the 13th century, famously said that the kabbalists stand on the head of the philosophers. This statement underscores the intricate relationship between the two worldviews, marking the point of their convergence and divergence. In my own scholarly practice, I have elicited mystical elements from philosophical works and philosophical insights from mystical sources.

This is an excerpt from an interview with Elliott Wolfson that was published on Mixed Multitudes. To read the full interview.

Paper, $26.50 / £18.50 472 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14631-9

Cloth, $35.00 / £24.00 472 pages , October 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14630-2

Mark Taylor: The issues about which I teach and write are often very abstract but are significant because of the ways in which they illuminate specific experiences we all undergo. I knew that this kind of writing would be different from anything I had done before and realized that the only possible research is life itself.

Read the rest of the interview with Mark Taylor.

Cloth, $26.95 / £17.95 288 pages , September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14780-4

Joyce Mendelsohn: Aggressive development has changed the character and streetscape of the Lower East Side since the first edition of this book was published eight years ago. In the new edition I examine the dynamics of the neighborhood reinventing itself. As a culture of youth and affluence emerges, it is becoming a place of stark contrasts between locals and newcomers.

Read the full interview with Joyce Mendelsohn.

Paper, $18.95 / £13.00 328 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-14761-3

Cloth, $65.00 / £45.00 328 pages , September 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14760-6

Beverly Black: Between 9 and 30 percent of high school students have been victims of teen dating violence and sexual assault.... A recent survey, commissioned by Liz Claiborne Inc. and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, found that 67 percent of teens whose families have experienced economic problems in the past year have experienced abuse in their own relationships.

Read the full interview with the authors.

Paper, $35.00 / £24.00 336 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-13453-8

Cloth, $89.50 / £62.00 336 pages , April 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-13452-1

Q: What is the Aid Trap?

R. Glenn Hubbard: The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The vast majority of aid is well intentioned, but it works against the prosperity of poor countries. Conventional aid sounds worthy, but it’s a trap; it crowds out, suppresses, or corrupts the local business sector, which is the source of mass prosperity everywhere in the world.

Read the full interview with R. Glenn Hubbard.

Cloth, $22.95 / £15.95 216 pages , August 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14562-6

Seth Kunin: Crypto-Judaism presents us with a unique form of Judaism, different from any other form found in the world. It thus provides a new view of what Judaism can be and what it can mean....

Read the full interview.

Cloth, $50.00 / £34.50 288 pages , July 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-14218-2

Q: Why do you call the book “A Tragedy of Democracy”?

GR: It is my way of reminding people what is important about the wartime treatment of Japanese in North America. What these people went through is not in a class with the great crimes of the war years. There were no real atrocities: no mass murders, no deliberate torture, and some provision for schools and health care. Rather, what is most troubling about their confinement is the failure of democracy under pressure....

Read the full interview.

Paper, $22.50 / £15.50 408 pages
ISBN: 978-0-231-12923-7

Cloth, $29.95 / £19.95 408 pages , June 2009
ISBN: 978-0-231-12922-0