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In this episode, Dr. Méadhbh McIvor joins Savannah Finver to discuss her recent book Representing God: Christian Legal Activism in Contemporary England. Dr. McIvor provides our listeners with the background for her project; the method of ethnography, as well as its challenges and implications for the study of religion; and how the belief in a certain kind of afterlife impacts the kinds of legal and political activism that her interlocutors are willing to engage in.

This month's episode of Discourse! covers issues of misinformation as it pertains to the upcoming Philippine presidential elections in May 2022 and to debates in the Orthodox church following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Be sure to tune in with Paul-François Tremlett, Daniel Gorman Jr., and Andie Alexander to find out more!

Watch the video episode here

Podcast Information Correction:

• The Ukrainian Catholic Church is in full communion with Rome. Learn more here.

Related Articles

• "A Church (Further) Divided: Putin's Patriarch Now Faces a Rebellion from within the Russian Orthodox Church" Religion Dispatches
• "The bride wore fatigues. The wedding party carried rifles and RPGs." The Washington Post
• Russian Orthodox Church in America
• "Head of US Ukrainian Catholic Church urges Americans to 'call out people like Tucker Carlson'" Insider
• "Why white evangelical Christians are Putin's biggest American fan base" MSNBC
• "Putin is ‘making it a religious war’ — Head of U.S. Ukrainian Orthodox Church slams Russian leader, Moscow Patriarch Kirill" The Salt Lake Tribune
• "Pope Francis criticizes the war while Orthodox Patriarch Kirill echoes Putin’s rationale for fighting" The Washington Post
• "Pat Robertson Insists Putin ‘Compelled by God’ to Invade Ukraine and Kick Off ‘End Times’" The Daily Beast
• "‘Baka matanso kayo’: Moreno warns Muslim youth of ancestors’ sacrifices during martial law" Inquirer News
• "Duterte said kill the bishops – and his word became flesh" Rappler

The construction of the introductory textbook in the academic study of religion is an incredibly fraught enterprise. What will you include? What will you exclude? What organizing rubrics will you have in mind? Which voices will you highlight and who will be excluded? And particularly in our contemporary world, where attention spans are short and so many resources are online, what would even be the purpose of producing a textbook? This week, RSP co-founder Chris Cotter is joined by Paul Hedges, who has taken on that monumental task in his recently published Understanding Religion: Theories and Methods for Studying Religiously Diverse Societies.

During the interview, they discuss the role of the positionality of the author/scholar, the use of case studies, the selection of topics and themes, what the term ‘critical’ might mean in such an endeavour, and what decolonization mean in the context of textbook production.

J. Brent Crosson joins the RSP to discuss his most recent award-winning book, Experiments with Power: Obeah and the Remaking of Religion in Trinidad (Chicago, 2020). Based on more than a decade of fieldwork during and after Trinidad declared a state of emergency in 2011, Crosson explores how religion in Trinidad took to the streets to demand justice in the face of brutal governmental crackdowns against protestors crying out against rampant police brutality. Many marching the streets believed that if the legal justice system could not deliver justice for those wrongfully killed by the police, then perhaps obeah could. Using Trinidadian spiritual workers’ own descriptions of their religious practice—obeah—as “science” and “experiments with power,” Crosson examines how these spiritual workers unsettle the moral and racial foundations of Western categories of religion.

In this episode, Dan Gorman and Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm follow up on their 2018 conversation for the RSP. The topic is Storm's book Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (University of Chicago Press, 2021). Storm shifts away from the deconstructive and genealogical approach to religion that he pursued in his earlier books The Invention of Religion in Japan and The Myth of Disenchantment. Although Storm finds great value in the critical theories known in the United States as "postmodernism," he is concerned that postmodernism has led to an intellectual dead end. Humanities scholars can get caught in an infinite cycle of questioning the assumptions of their academic fields. Knowing anything with any degree of certainty seems impossible. Storm argues that scholars should engage in self-reflection and critique, but they must not give up on the pursuit of knowledge. We can learn about the world, even if our subjectivity and the limits of language prevent us from achieving truly objective knowledge. This metamodern mentality balances critique with investigation, emphasizes the process of knowledge-making over static categories or terms, encourages a healthy but moderate skepticism (Zeteticism), and situates human-made signs as part of the larger natural world (hylosemiotics). Join the RSP on a journey down the philosophical rabbit hole.

The musical excerpt at the beginning of the episode is from Stephen Sondheim's Sunday in the Park with George. The song, "Move On", is performed by Annaleigh Ashford and Jake Gyllenhaal (2017 Broadway Cast Recording). ℗ 2017 Arts Music.

In this month’s Discourse!, Sidney Castillo is joined by Chris Cotter and Sierra Lawson to discuss the contemporary localized manifestations of Easter and Passover celebrations, a current US Supreme Court Case relating to the First Amendment, and the entanglement of Catholicism and national identity in television’s “Derry Girls”.

Watch the video episode here

Articles Discussed

• "Semana Santa en América Latina: religión y tradición"
• "Easter Celebrations Peruvian Style"
• "Catholic Traditions of Holy Week and Easter in Latin America"
• "'Blackness Deserves a Seat at the Seder'"
• "Black Jews Get a Spotlight at the Seder"
• "U.S. Supreme Court taking on case of high school football coach fighting for right to pray on 50-yard line"
• "Language in Derry Girls was atrocious yet we just accept it as comedy"
• "Derry Girls creator explains why Spice Girls Union Jack dress was missing from latest episode"

What is curanderismo and where is it practiced? How does it connect to the borderlands? Is it a "folk" religion, and what exactly does that mean? For our first episode on curanderismo, RSP co-editor Andie Alexander is joined by Brett Hendrickson, Jennifer Koshatka Seman, and RSP Features editor, Israel Domínguez. In this discussion, we explore issues of power, identity, historical narrative, cultural contact, race, and much more. Be sure to tune in!

This week, we dive back into the RSP archives to explore conversations about cults and new religious movements. This video aims to disrupt the assumptions about “cults” that students bring to the average 100-level religious studies class. In Part I of Cults & NRMs: An RSP Remix, we address questions like: What is a cult? What is a New Religious Movement? Are cults inherently violent? Be sure to tune in!

• Studying “Cults”, with Eileen Barker (2012)
• Minority Religions and the Law, with Susan J. Palmer and David G. Robertson (2015)
• Millennialism and Violence?, featuring excerpts from Tristan Sturm, Joseph Webster, and Eileen Barker (2017)
• New Directions in the Study of Scientology, with Stephen Gregg (2018)

Watch the video episode here!

Whose beliefs get to count and in what contexts? Join Carmen Becker, Susannah Crockford, and Savannah Finver in this month’s episode of Discourse! for their discussion about the leaked US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson which may overturn Roe v. Wade, the UK’s response to particular kinds of “disruptive” climate protests, and international coverage of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine. Which beliefs are rendered sayable or unsayable? What kinds of comparisons between views are we allowed to make? Tune in to find out!

Watch the video episode here:

Our June episode of Discourse!, featuring episode host Benjamin P. Marcus, Jade Hui, and Lauren Horn Griffin, covers religion and the news in the United States and Hong Kong. Kicking off the discussion with current issues of religion and the U.S. Supreme Court, they explore notions of religion, history, tradition, and authority in Justice Alito's leaked draft decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, and consider what the Court's recent decision in Carson v. Makin might reveal to us about American assumptions vis-à-vis religion, the secular, and religious freedom. They conclude by discussing grieving rituals and performance art that occurred on the streets of Hong Kong on June 4th, 2022. Their discussion of religion in Hong Kong surfaces many of the same questions about history, tradition, authority, and the value of placing discussions about religion in one country in an international context. Be sure to tune in!!

This episode was recorded before the 24 June 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision.

Watch the video episode here:

Related Articles

• Carson v. Makin
• "Alito’s Leaked Draft Fully Overruling Roe Is Jaw-Dropping and Unprecedented"
• "McConaughey urges gun measures in surprise White House appearance"
• "Tentative Thoughts On The Jewish Claim To A "Religious Abortion"