The Religious Studies Project Master Archive

Our June episode of Discourse! is the final episode of Season 10! Wow! It’s been a fantastic season, and we are so grateful for your support. For our final episode, Andie Alexander, Ishanika Sharma, and K. Merinda Simmons decided to dive into the current discourses on Critical Race Theory! After defining Critical Race Theory (CRT) and outlining a brief history of its emergence, they dive into some recent examples of how popular conceptions of CRT (contrary to the intersectional aims of CRT discourses) reify the dichotomy between individualism and structuralism. They discuss the recent Georgia and Alabama education resolutions, discourses around India’s caste system, the emergence and role of the Religious Right in America, and conclude with controversy around The 1619 Project. There’s far more to say but only so much time in an episode!

We have another video episode for you—take a look!

Join Savannah H. Finver and Dr. S. Jonathon O’Donnell for a timely conversation about the role of demonology in American political rhetoric. Savannah chats with Dr. O’Donnell about their interest in rhetoric around demons and how that interest translated into their first monograph, Passing Orders: Demonology and Sovereignty in American Spiritual Warfare (Fordham University Press, 2021). The two also discuss Dr. O’Donnell’s methodology, the importance of including interdisciplinary perspectives in religious studies projects, and discourse analysis as a theoretical framework. We wrap up our conversation with a discussion about what it means to engage in the “critical study of religion” from multiple perspectives and how Dr. O’Donnell sees their work fitting in—or not—to this larger project. What’s next for Dr. O’Donnell? Tune in and find out!

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Indigenous peoples have history. Though this fact might not pervade the collective imaginary in different countries, recognizing it is crucial for understanding the social processes that have shaped the current struggles indigenous peoples face in South America. In this direction, the sub-field that has contributed the most is ethnohistory, through the register of ritual practices, life cycle events, and the general way of life of an indigenous group in a given time in history.

In this episode, Boris Briones talks to RSP interviewer Sidney Castillo about his comparative research on the Mapuche and Selk’nam people of austral South America. His work delves into the indigenous religions of both groups, located in the southern regions of Chile and Argentina, where he did extensive archival research to reconstruct their history, beliefs, and practices, some of which are still present to this day.

An important point raised through the conversation is that these indigenous peoples have become systematically ostracized and exterminated by the state in both countries, resulting in the ethnocide of the Selk’nam, and the continuous marginalization of the Mapuche. Given this context, scholarly inquiry of this kind is of greater importance due to its potential for cultural, social, and political vindication in their respective countries. But this impact does not limit itself to academia, as Briones himself has carried out several initiatives for reaching to the general public in an effort to provide basic literacy on these matters. Such endeavor highlights the importance of moving beyond the ivory tower for supporting current struggles related to religion and indigenous peoples, a responsibility that we owe to the very people that aid us in our research in the first place.

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Sudan currently ranks in the top ten most at risk countries on the Fragile State Index. Yet despite decades of political instability and conflicts destabilizing the country, the aspirations for an Islamic state proved to be resilient, and an Islamist government of the Sudanese state continues to function. How are we to explain the resilience of this Islamic state when conventional wisdom seems to suggest it should have been an impossible project from its outset? Noah Salomon’s ethnography of the Islamic state in Sudan provides a window into the making of a modern Islamic state by focusing our attention on the Sudanese people that not only constitute it, but bring it to life through their poetry, spiritual devotions, and everyday lives.

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It’s a bumper episode of Discourse this month, as four (count them, four!) RSP editors sit down to discuss how the media are talking about religion this month. First, Breann Fallon, David G. Robertson, and Dave McConeghy introduce Andie Alexander as the RSP’s new Managing Editor, before we discuss mass COVID cremations in India, a new synagogue at the site of a Nazi massacre in the Ukraine, protests over a new telescope in Hawaiʻi, and the scandal over the remains of the victims of the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia. It’s not our most lighthearted episode.

Watch the video of the episode:

Relevant Links for the Discussion

• “‘This is huge’: black liberationist speaks out after her 40 years in prison,” The Guardian
• “About MOVE,” On a Move
• Documentary on the MOVE Bombing, Let the Fire Burn
• “City of Philadelphia should thoroughly investigate the MOVE remains’ broken chain of custody | Opinion,” The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Babyn Yar Synagogue
• “Why the world must witness pictures of India’s mass Covid-19 cremations,” Vox
• “Why Native Hawaiians are fighting to protect Maunakea from a telescope,” Vox
• “Why Are Native Hawaiians Protesting Against a Telescope?” New York Times

What are the body languages Catholics use to express masculine devotion? In this interview with Prof. Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada about her recent book, Lifeblood of the Parish, the subject is Brooklyn, New York and its Italian Catholic parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Yearly the community celebrates San Paolino di Nola with a festival that culminates with the carrying of the giglio — a seventy-foot (21m) tall, four-ton tower. In her analysis, masculinity, devotion, and even Catholicism itself are made through labor and the process of “doing the work” from counting money to painting statues, getting tattoos, or lifting the giglio. By refocusing our attention on the embodied labor of masculinization and devotion, Prof. Maldonado-Estrada challenges what kinds of discourses and practices are most revealing for discussions of gender and piety.

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What are conspiracy theories? How do we distinguish the conspiracy theories from religion? And what are the effects of this categorization? In this episode, Andie Alexander chats with RSP co-founder David G. Robertson about the roles and effects of conspiracy theory discourses in the academy and more broadly. Robertson outlines the primary academic approaches to conspiracy theories and argues that we, as scholars, should be deconstructing these categories and taking seriously their implications in our social worlds. Ranging from early studies and current psychological studies on mental illness to the role of conspiracy theories in social governance, media, and ‘fake news’, Robertson demonstrates just how intertwined these discourses are in our modes of knowledge production.

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In this roundtable from the Department of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney, we get a variety of religious studies approaches to subject of manifestos and their creators. Join Carole Cusack, Alana Louise Bowden, Ray Radford, Sophie Roe, and Anna Lutkajtis as they unpack the discourses surrounding manifestos and topics ranging from the consumerization of religion and Anders Breivik to the Unabomber manifesto and Artaud’s theatre of cruelty. It’s a fascinating conversation from a great group of scholars, so have a listen!

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How were 4th century Christian martyr shrines locations for the negotiation of power and diversity? In this interview, Nathaniel Morehouse explains the contested nature of these shrines. With an eye to the context of the diverse Mediterranean world and its complex configuration of political and religious identities, Morehouse sees shrines as an excellent interface for understanding not only the theological issues that were paramount for Church Fathers of this era, but also the lives of worshippers. An excellent starting place for beginners looking to understand more about the world of early Christianity, this interview concludes with suggestions for further reading beyond Morehouse’s own work, Death’s Dominion and its emphasis on power, identity, and memory.

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As politics moves rightwards across Europe and the US, are we entering a period of pushback from conservative religious institutions against minority religions and secularism?

Join this month’s host Dan Gorman and guests Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulos and Sidney Castillo to find out what connects Lil’ Nas X, Alabama’s yoga ban and Polish black metal. As with every month’s current events Discourse! episode, we take our material straight from the headlines. If you’d like to read along, here’s this month’s suggested reading list:

• Opinion | How Lil Nas X’s “Satan Shoes” brilliantly baited conservative Christians from NBC News
• Do Catholic responses to stem cell derived COVID-19 vaccines open a door to a new era in health care for LGBTQ and others? from Religion Dispatches
• Yoga can leave you injured, psychotic and a Hindu, Christian groups claim from The Guardian
• Nergal: the extreme metal musician fighting Poland’s blasphemy laws from The Guardian
• Gay and Lesbian Christians: Homosexual and Religious Identity Integration in the Members and Participants of a Gay‐Positive Church by Eric M. Rodriguez and Suzanne C. Ouellette in the JSSR
• Hinduphobia_and_Hinduphilia in U.S. Culture by Stephen Prothero from Stranger’s Religion: Fascination and Fear

What happens when scholars take seriously the human-focused study of religious practices? How might we study “sacred texts” while acknowledging that they are also human artifacts? Dr. Willi Braun, Professor Emeritus at the University of Alberta, joins Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book Jesus and Addiction to Origins: Toward and Anthropocentric Study of Religion (Equinox, 2020) where he demonstrates that “religious” behaviors and practices are exceptionally ordinary and human and argues for a critical, human-focused approach to the study of religion.

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Listeners might also enjoy “Ancient Christian Origins: A Heterogeneous History” with William Arnal, another closely related episode on this topic by Sidney Castillo.

It has long been assumed the Evangelical opposition to climate activism was rooted in apathy caused by pre-millennialism. Robin Veldman‘s research says otherwise and locates climate skepticism within the broader trope of “embattlement.” Rooted in religious discourses that began in the 1970s and in America’s Culture Wars, Evangelical discourse has worked long and hard to present Climate Change as an elite, anti-Christian hoax. Facing mounting climate crises around the globe, how can those religious persons concerned about the environment understand and begin to change public opinion on climate change and generate a productive path forward? Listen and find out about The Gospel of Climate Skepticism.

What is tantra? Why are some practices classified as tantric while others are not? How might we rethink this term and its application? To begin answer these questions, Dr. Ellen Gough (Emory University) joins Andie Alexander to discuss her forthcoming book, Making a Mantra: Tantric Ritual and Renunciation on the Jain Path to Liberation (University of Chicago Press 2021), where she examines how the category of tantra has been understood historically in Indian religious traditions and explores the “tantricization” of Jain ascetic practices.

In this March 2021 episode of Discourse! we have a University of Sydney reunion with Professor Carole Cusack, Dr. Breann Fallon, and Ray Radford. Covering current affairs in Australia the Usyd team discuss three recent news items. The first item is framed around civil religion and nationalism: it’s the controversial upgrade of Australian Tennis Player Margaret Court AC MBE’s honours on Australia Day. What happens when we honor individuals whose views on sexuality, marriage equality, and gender are deeply controversial? Moving to the motorways, the second news item involves the demolishing of sacred Indigenous trees to accommodate a freeway expansion. This ongoing story reveals deep divides between stakeholders over the environment and Australia’s cultural heritage laws. Finally, in the most recent news piece, the group discusses legislation banning gay-conversion therapies in the Australian state of Victoria. In this instance, the bill explicitly names and bans religiously-informed conversion practices. Bringing the three items together, the episode turns to the notion of human rights as a significant thread running between all stories.

Dr. Ronit Y. Stahl is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California Berkeley. As a historian of modern America, Dr. Stahl focuses on pluralism in American society by examining how politics, law, and religion interact in spaces such as the military and medicine. Her first book, Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America (Harvard University Press, 2017), traces the uneven processes through which the military struggled with, encouraged, and regulated religious pluralism over the twentieth century. Just as the state relied on religion to sanction war and sanctify death, so too did religious groups seek recognition and legitimacy as American faiths. The chaplaincy incorporated new religious groups slowly, especially because blurred religious and racial categories confounded a military invested in racial segregation. Indeed, opening the chaplaincy to more faiths was neither accidental nor fully envisioned; rather, it emerged over decades of war through a combination of incremental decisions made by government officials and agitation from civilians. Hence war and military service placed chaplains at the center of debates that defined modern American life: questions about religious pluralism and sectarianism to be sure, but also racial justice and gender equality, imperial ambitions and global obligations, state-perpetrated violence and death, sexuality and family life, and, finally, legal rights and educational opportunities.

What do Muslims, Mormons, and Satanists have in common? They’ve all been minoritized in America through accusations of sexual abuse says Megan Goodwin. Focusing on the idea of “contraceptive nationalism,” Goodwin argues that allegations and instances of sex abuse have been used as markers of religious difference to present some groups as a threat to America. The projection of purity is a way we divide religions into “good,” safe traditions that align with normalized American understanding of sex and “bad,” dangerous traditions whose ideas about sex fall outside the mainstream. Though we know sex abuse is a real problem endemic to all societies, Goodwin’s work reminds us that sex scandals have serious rhetorical and discursive power in the U.S. and have played important roles in American cultural narratives that contribute to the marginalization of already vulnerable religious communities.

For more we heartily recommend Goodwin’s Book, Abusing Religion.

In this episode, Richard McGregor discusses his new book, Islam and the Devotional Object: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria with Candace Mixon. Why do scholars of religion have such a variety of incomplete and messy tools to “follow the objects”? Find out with the curious stories of devotional objects from Cairo and Damascus.

Two rationales inspired the book, McGregor notes. First, while there are “many impressive objects in the living practice of Islam,” the popular narrative is that Islam “is mistrustful and even hostile to images, representation, and sensory indulgences.” What can we do to resolve this difference? Second, our “imperfect tools for making sense of… objects of devotion” led him to consider the role of aesthetics and the complex histories of devotional materials, especially before and after the impact of colonialism.

Listen in to their conversation as they consider the limits of theological or religious agendas that encourage scholars to ask who controls our understanding of objects like the mahmal (a ceremonial palanquin used in the Hajj) when they resist neat models of signification?

At the height of the Jim Crow era in Chicago, Noble Drew Ali founded the Moorish Science Temple of America. Using the language of Islam, he articulated a new religio-racial identity that subverted the racially oppressive lens of “negro” that had been used for decades as a powerful legal tool to subvert the rights of people of color after the Civil War. Ali and his followers fought the legacy of Dredd Scott and other cases with their own legal premise: those descended from Africans would be better served by self-identifying as “Moorish.” In this interview with Spencer Dew about his book The Aliites: Race and Law in the Religions of Noble Drew Ali, Dew presents such identity formation as the part of larger strategies of legal maneuvering that worked to give Black persons the full rights that had been denied to them as American citizens on the basis of race. “Citizenship as salvation” was the movement’s motto, and the union of the legal and racial was an opportunity to reimagine themselves through new frameworks that worked to change the circumstances and the categories that had been thrust upon them.

Environmental issues take center stage in this month’s episode of Discourse!, hosted by Michael Munnik with guests Suzanne Owen and Daniel Gorman Jr. How is the media covering the intersection of religion and the latest environmental issues? Listen and find out!

First the groups speaks on some of the differences in major news publications and their coverage of environmental issues. Opening with the broader issue of how such stories appear (or do not) in major news outlets, Suzanne Owen offers some discourse analysis. Who is covering environmental issues so regularly their masthead categories reflect that attention? This is a moment to acknowledge how some political affiliations on both the left and the right can make it harder to sell stories about both religion and the environment.

Despite those challenges, one issue pushing that intersection of politics, religion, and the environment into the front pages is the election of the United States’ second Catholic President, Joe Biden. Dan Gorman cites Elizabeth Dias’ article in the New York Times, “In Catholic Faith, an Ascendant Liberal Christianity,” as one place we’re seeing coverage of the role of Catholic environmentalism being discussed openly.

Such issues of identity and politics lead the group to talk about the ongoing Farmers’ Protests in India (and the twitterstorm involving Rihanna and Greta Thunberg). Noting that the location of the striking workers is predominantly Sikh, the group looks to larger issues of religious and national identity under President Narendra Modi.

Finally, Dan suggests that the Big Bold Jewish Climate Fest is one place where we can see significant attention being drawn to the union of environmental and religious activism. Is climate concern religious practice for progressive Jews in the U.S?

Religious studies approaches to the environment have long privileged Western ecological frameworks. Anna Gade’s work, Muslim Environmentalisms reframes this area, both critiquing and building upon the tools of religious studies (RS) and environmental humanities (EH). Religious studies, for its part, has privileged Jewish and Christian understandings of key ideas such as nature and wilderness. This bias has left the field less capable of responding to the rising need for studies about efforts globally by many religious groups to address climate crises. EH has also suffered from this overreliance, and Gade’s work identifying the different approaches toward the environment of her Indonesian Muslim interlocutors is a critical step forward. Interviewed by Lauren Osborne and David McConeghy, this episode discusses the challenges this interdisciplinary work faces and shares some of the reasons why the inclusion of Muslim perspectives into the broader conversation about religion and the environment is so desperately needed today.

What is a myth? What might we mean by myth-making? What can an approach to how people make myths and tell stories in their everyday lives bring to the study of ‘religion’ and ‘non-religion’? And what might Gandalf and Captain Picard have to do with any of this? Joining Chris to discuss myth-making and its role among non-religious people, and climate and environmental activists is Dr. Tim Stacey of Leiden University.

Don’t miss our earlier episode with Dr. Stacey about Myth and post-liberalism or his book.

In this episode, RSP co-editor Breann Fallon sat down with long-time friend of the podcast, Professor Carole Cusack of the University of Sydney to discuss sacred trees. Cusack has published widely on the topic including her 2011 monograph The Sacred Tree: Ancient and Medieval Manifestations (Cambridge Scholars Publishing) and a recent special volume of the Journal of Religion and Nature edited by Cusack. Beginning with Cusack’s journey to studying the sacred tree, the conversation turns to specific examples of the Fortingall Yew and Glastonbury Thorn, both of which connect to Christianity. Turning to contemporary examples, Fallon and Cusack discuss the 2020 destruction of the Djab Wurrung tree in Australia.

Back in 2011, Charlotte Ward and David Voas published an article addressing the synthesis of New Age spirituality with conspiracy thinking as “conspirituality.” A decade later, their analysis seems critical for understanding figures like the QAnon Shaman, widespread anti-vaccine and COVID-19 disinformation campagins, and, more broadly, the rapid spread of America of America’s “paranoid politics” as much of the media’s dominant form of dialogue about issues ranging from vaccines to climate change.

In this January episode of our current events podcast, Discourse!, Savannah Finver speaks with Candace Mixon and Suzanne Newcombe as the team wrestles with the QAnon Shaman and the January 6th attack on the U.S. Presidential election certification, pandemic anti-vaccine misinformation campaigns, and growing evidence of the “conspirituality.”

Be sure to take a look at the at-home links below. Don’t forget! If you see a current events article or story you think we should include in our monthly Discourse! episodes, please send it to editors@religousstudieproject.com or tweet it to us @projectrs.

This month’s links include:

• Chris Cuomo interviews Q Anon Shaman
• Senator Susan Collins admits she believed “Iranians” were attacking the White House
• Litchfield Cathedral turned into a vaccination center.
• RSPH struggles with low South Asian vaccine rates
• Religion Dispatches piece on the New Age blending with the radical right

Original Source for “Conspirituality” by Ward and Voas:

Charlotte Ward & Prof. David Voas (2011). “The Emergence of Conspirituality,” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 26:1, 103-121, DOI: 10.1080/13537903.2011.539846

Professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr.’s new book, Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, pulls few punches. It begins with and dwells deeply on what Baldwin, a towering mid-20th century American literary figure, called the “lie at the heart of America.” The lie is the value gap — the ways America has elevated the worth of white lives over those of people in other racialized groups. Baldwin’s unfettered honesty about this lie, explains Dr. Glaude, means that we have a chance to imagine a world that is otherwise. Just as Baldwin went abroad as an “elsewhere” from which to renew and sustain his critique of American identity, today Dr. Glaude urges us to begin again. We can, he argues, “choose to be better. We need only build a world where that choice can be made with relative ease.” The choice to see things differently confronts the hard truths America hides from itself, especially those which are bound up in the origin stories Americans tell ourselves about who we are and where we have come from. To see those truths as Baldwin did means the opportunity to begin again, starting with recognizing past hurts and ongoing harms without letting go of the promise of redemption or even salvation that follows. On this 2020 Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, please enjoy this timely and critical discussion about race and religion in the U.S.

Can you believe it has been 10 years? After more than 350 episodes, over 600 contributors, and the rapidly approaching milestone of a million downloads, we’re still here doing the weekly work of sharing research in the critical study of religion.

In this special episode of the Religious Studies Project podcast, the RSP team reflects on the legacy of the project and the future of our work. Co-hosts Breann Fallon and David McConeghy solicited reflections from current and former team members, and this episode features some of the highlights including comments by founders Chris Cotter and David Robertson; interviewers Candace Mixon, Sidney Castillo, and Dan Gorman; board members Russell McCutcheon and Carole Cusack, and editors Thomas Coleman and Lauren Osborne. With extreme gratitude for the many, many contributors and listeners to the Religious Studies Project for a decade of scholarship, we’re proud to say, “Thanks for listening!”