Episode Archive

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Harm, AI, and Religion | Discourse! June 2023

In our final #RSPdiscourse of the season, editor Andie Alexander, Craig Martin, and Paul-François Tremlett consider the concept of "harm" & religion in recent legislation, Scotland elections, and AI & Religion.

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Queens of the World | Discourse! October 2022

This month’s Discourse! welcomes back Founding Editor Chris Cotter to the host’s chair, along with guests Ting Guo and Carmen Celestini. They first discuss Queen Elizabeth II and “mourning” in Hong Kong, and then more broadly. This segues neatly into a conversation about the Filipino conspiracist who has dubbed herself the “Queen of Canada”. They talk about the Iranian protests, and “compulsory hijabs”. Finally, they have a wee rant about how religion and spirituality is presented in mental health surveys.

Secular Spaces? | Discourse! September 2022

This month’s Discourse! centres on questions of the secular and the religious in the contemporary public square. What does it mean to be a secular space? How do institutions “deal with” religious ideas and identities in such a space? We talk about religious bias in universities, how religious spokespeople affect politics, and how religious freedom sometimes trumps other forms of freedom. Tune in with host Jacob Barrett and guests Richard Irvine and Jacob Noblett to learn more!

Reflections on REF 2021

In this week’s episode, we reflect on the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 report. Gordon Lynch, the chair of the TRS panel, joins David Robertson to outline the process and tell us what it says about the situation for the discipline, and the social sciences and Arts and Humanities more broadly.

Presentism and Politics | Discourse! August 2022 (with video)

Our first #RSPdiscourse episode for the season features host Emily D. Crews, who is joined by long-time friends of the RSP, Richard Newton and Theo Wildcroft. This excellent and wide-ranging episode addresses present issues of history and identity, social activism and new religious movements, doulas and abortion rights, and much, much more! You won’t want to miss it. Be sure to tune in and check out the video episode!

Unruly Women: Neocolonialism, Race, and Discrimination

For our first episode of Season 12, Falguni A. Sheth joins RSP editor Andie Alexander to discuss issues of liberalism, racial discrimination, religious freedom, and governance with regard to Muslim women of color and Black Muslim women in the US.

Authorities and the Past | Discourse! June 2022 (with video)

Join Ben Marcus, Lauren Horn Griffin, and Jade Hui as they discuss issues of religious freedom, tradition, and authority in topics ranging from Justice Alito’s leaked draft decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to public ritual and performance art in Hong Kong. Tune in to learn more!

Curanderismo Roundtable

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? Tune in with Andie Alexander, Israel L. Domínguez, Brett Hendrickson, and Jennifer Koshatka Seman for the RSP’s first episode on curanderismo!

Sunday in the Park with Theory

Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm and Dan Gorman discuss Storm’s thoughts about the future of critical theory from his recent book Metamodernism.

Obeah and Experiments with Power

What happens when we reframing spiritual practices as an “experiment with power”? This week, J. Brent Crosson joins Ray Kim to discuss how we can challenge conventional understandings of religion and law in modern nation-states. Be sure to tune in!