The Religious Studies Project

Podcasts and Resources on the Contemporary Social-Scientific Study of Religion

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299 episodes
Updated Jul 4, 2023

Episodes299

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May 17, 2021 · 41 min
Conspiracy Theories, Public Rhetoric, and Power
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. Need a preview? Try this!
May 10, 2021 · 1 hr
Manifestos and the Academic Study of Religion
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! Not convinced? Try a sneak peak!
May 3, 2021 · 32 min
Power and Diversity in 4th Century Martyr Shrines
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. Need a preview? Try this!
Apr 26, 2021 · 47 min
The New Satanic Panic and the Return of Blasphemy | Discourse! April 2021
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
Apr 19, 2021 · 42 min
Comparing Methods in Christian Origins
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. Need a preview? Try this! Listeners might also enjoy “Ancient Christian Origins: A Heterogeneous History” with William Arnal, another closely related episode on this topic by Sidney Castillo.
Apr 12, 2021 · 41 min
Understanding Evangelical Opposition to Climate Action
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.
Apr 5, 2021 · 40 min
On the Tantricization of Jain Ascetic Rituals
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.
Mar 29, 2021 · 38 min
Human Rights in Australia | Discourse! March 2021
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.
Mar 22, 2021 · 44 min
The U.S. Military Chaplaincy and Twentieth-Century Society
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.
Mar 15, 2021 · 37 min
Sex Scandals and Minoritized Religions
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.
Mar 8, 2021 · 44 min
Following the Objects: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria
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?
Mar 1, 2021 · 44 min
Race and the Aliites
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.
Feb 22, 2021 · 43 min
Religious Climate Activism | Discourse! February 2021
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?
Feb 15, 2021 · 33 min
Beyond Ecological Essentialism: Critical and Constructive Muslim Environmentalisms
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.
Feb 8, 2021 · 45 min
Myth-making, Environmentalism, and Non-Religion
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.
Feb 1, 2021 · 46 min
Sacred Trees: Belief, Mythology, and Practice
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.
Jan 25, 2021 · 41 min
Politics and Conspirituality | Discourse! January 2021
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
Jan 18, 2021 · 46 min
The Lie at the Heart of America
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.
Jan 11, 2021 · 50 min
Thanks for Listening! Celebrating 10 Years of the RSP
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!”
Dec 14, 2020 · 42 min
The Weakest Link! | Mid-Year Special 2020 (with video)
Welcome to our MidYear Special 2020! It’s a COVID-style international spectacular for the ninth(!) annual RSP mid-season special. It’s time to play… the Weakest Link! Join Andie Alexander, Jonathon O’Donnel, Titus Hjelm, Naomi Goldenberg, Sidney Castillo, Russell McCutcheon, Ray Radford, and Megan Goodwin as David Robertson fires questions at them and Chris Cotter remotely operates PowerPoint! Who will win the coveted fictional research funding? Aaron Hughes – we apologise in advance! If this gets you in the festive mood, you might want to check out our back catalogue of festive specials: 2012 – Only 60 Seconds! 2013 – Nul Point! 2014 – Masterbrain! 2015 – Fourteen to One! 2016 – The Unverifiable Truth-Claim! 2017 – Scrape My Barrel! 2018 – The Deadline 2019 – Only 60 Seconds! (take 2)

The Religious Studies Project

Conspiracy Theories, Public Rhetoric, and Power

Manifestos and the Academic Study of Religion

Power and Diversity in 4th Century Martyr Shrines

The New Satanic Panic and the Return of Blasphemy | Discourse! April 2021

Comparing Methods in Christian Origins

Understanding Evangelical Opposition to Climate Action

On the Tantricization of Jain Ascetic Rituals

Human Rights in Australia | Discourse! March 2021

The U.S. Military Chaplaincy and Twentieth-Century Society

Sex Scandals and Minoritized Religions

Following the Objects: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria

Race and the Aliites

Religious Climate Activism | Discourse! February 2021

Beyond Ecological Essentialism: Critical and Constructive Muslim Environmentalisms

Myth-making, Environmentalism, and Non-Religion

Sacred Trees: Belief, Mythology, and Practice

Politics and Conspirituality | Discourse! January 2021

The Lie at the Heart of America

Thanks for Listening! Celebrating 10 Years of the RSP

The Weakest Link! | Mid-Year Special 2020 (with video)