It's as hot as you-know-where, so we thought it would be a good time to talk about the history of hell. Our guests are Utah scholars Margaret Toscano and Isabel Moreira, co-editors of a book that looks at historic and modern views of the underworld. They say that hell is all but disappearing in mainstream religions, but it still permeates our books, films and even cartoons. Tuesday, we'll talk about how the idea of hell developed in religion and philosophy, and why we still seem to need it today.

Isabel Moreira and Margaret Toscano co-edited Hell and its Afterlife [Amazon].

Moreira is a Professor of History at the University of Utah. She's author of Heaven's Purge, Purgatory in Late Antiquity [Amazon|Indiebound]

Toscano is an Associate Professor in the University of Utah's Department of Languages and Literature. Her work focuses on religion, gender, and myth.

See also Alice Turner's The History of Hell [Amazon|Indiebound].