New Journal of Religion Issue Explores Susan Taubes, Kant, and the Politics of the Zhuangzi

The July 2026 issue of the Journal of Religion is now available, featuring new scholarship on modern Jewish thought, philosophy of religion, and classical Chinese political thought.

The issue opens with a feature article examining the work of writer and philosopher Susan Taubes, whose reflections on suffering, exile, and meaning continue to resonate across the study of religion. The essay traces Taubes’s refusal of theodicy, her resistance to explaining or justifying suffering, and explores her conviction that, as she once wrote, “the world cannot be justified.”

Edited by Divinity School faculty Sarah Hammerschlag, Willemien Otten, and Brook Ziporyn, the issue also includes new research on Immanuel Kant’s understanding of God and an exploration of the political dimensions of the Zhuangzi, one of the foundational texts of Chinese philosophy.

Published quarterly by the University of Chicago Press, the Journal of Religion has been a leading venue for scholarship in religious studies and theology for more than a century. Since 1921, it has published original research spanning the history, philosophy, and critical study of religion across traditions, disciplines, and historical periods.

The July issue continues that tradition, bringing together scholarship that asks enduring questions about suffering, ethics, politics, and the nature of religious thought.

The complete issue is available through the University of Chicago Press.