Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

The Religious Studies Project

The Religious Studies Project (RSP) features weekly conversations with leading scholars of Religious Studies and related fields. Our aim is to provide engaging, concise, and reliable accounts of the most important concepts, traditions, scholars, and methodologies in the contemporary study of religion. Episodes are produced by The Religious Studies Project Association (SCIO), a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation (charity number SC047750). RSP material is disseminated under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License and can be distributed and utilised freely, provided full citation is given.

2021

CLEAN

1 seasons

Production: The Religious Studies Project

Episodes

Season 1

50:12

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.

40:13

Mediatizing “Evangelicalism”: Authenticity, Identity, and Power

In today's episode, Daniel Jones talks with Travis Warren Cooper about Cooper's recent book, _The Digital Evangelicals_, and they discuss how issues of authenticity, authority, and power are deeply intertwined with US "evangelicalism" and its mediatization. Be sure to tune in!

42:30

What’s Sincerity Got to Do With American Secularism?

Join Matt Sheedy and Charles McCrary as they discuss a cultural history of "sincerely held religious beliefs." McCrary explores how SCOTUS has determined who and what gets to count as 'religious' and traces the historical development of American secularism. Be sure to tune in!

44:55

What’s Happening Down Under? | Discourse! May 2023

RSP discourse heads Down Under once again as 2/3 of the usual suspects—Carole Cusack & Raymond Radford—discuss religion, politics, life and death in the Australian religious sphere. Be sure to tune in!

52:42

Charting the Playful & Proper Study of Religion

Andie Alexander is joined by Sam Gill to talk about his recent book _The Proper Study of Religion_, and they discuss questions of comparison, difference, storytracking, and playfulness in the academic study of religion. Be sure to tune in!

48:20

Supreme Court to Coulter: Negotiating Religion in the Public Sphere | Discourse! April 2023

Join Matt Sheedy, Tyler Tully, and host Candace Mixon as they discuss the ramifications of the in-progress Supreme Court case Groff vs. Dejoy, the Catholic Church’s decision to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery, and a recent controversial tweet by the conservative media pundit, Ann Coulter. In threading these discussions together, they consider religion as negotiated in the public sphere and the limits of accommodations across religious boundaries.

36:24

Keep Hope Alive: Preparing for White Christian Nationalism

Tune in this week with Raymond Radford and Bradley Onishi as they discuss white Christian nationalism, evangelicalism, the Jan. 6 insurrection, and much more!

53:00

Religion under Attack? | Discourse! March 2023

Join host Suzanne Newcombe, Carmen Becker, and Michael Munnik for this month's episode of Discourse! They discuss discrimination in a few European cases, including the SNP, protests at an abortion clinic, and more!

46:49

The Church of Saint Thomas Paine: Religion without God

Tune in for today's #RSPmonday featuring Leigh Eric Schmidt and Dan Gorman discussing religion without God and the use of Thomas Paine as a symbol of atheism.

50:29

Spitting on the Sacred: Politics and Redefining Profanation

In this episode, Jacob Noblett talks to Dr. Finbarr Curtis about his recent book, Going Low: How Profane Politics Challenges American Democracy, to help breakdown the rejuvenation of populist political narratives and movements.

41:52

Religious Literacy and Its Discontents | Discourse! February 2023

Join Benjamin P. Marcus, Paulina Gruffman, and Charles McCrary for this month's #RSPdiscourse as they discuss a recent Pew survey on religious literacy and the so-called Asbury revival. Be sure to tune in!

40:29

Navigating the Discursive Study of Religion

In today's episode, Teemu Taira and Andie Alexander discuss how social groups negotiate the category 'religion' and the relevance of the discursive methods in the study of religion.

43:52

Where was God?: Jewish Theological Responses to the Holocaust

Where was God during the Holocaust? There is no straightforward answer to this and there are different viewpoints across the different streams of Judaism. Join Dr. Breann Fallon as she speaks with Dr. Barbara Krawcowicz on her recent monograph exploring Jewish theological responses to the Holocaust.

29:08

Critical Approaches to Studying Religion in Film

Ting Guo chats with Rebekka King and Tenzan Eaghall about their new edited volume, Representing Religion in Film (Bloomsbury 2022), and they explore the “ideological blindspot” of existing studies on religion and film, have a listen!

31:23

Oversimplified Binaries | Discourse! January 2023

This month's Discourse! features our co-founder Chris Cotter, Lauren Horn Griffin, and Kristi Boone complicating and unpacking oversimplified binaries—be sure to tune in!

39:31

Interrogating the Interrogators: Managing Muslims in Germany

In this episode host Candace Mixon and guest Schirin Amir-Moazami discuss Amir-Moazami’s book, _Interrogating Muslims: The Liberal-Secular Matrix of Integration_ as a starting point in discussing topics such state categorizations of religion in the liberal state and considerations of religion and secularism. Through examples of German swimming classes and citizenship tests, Amir-Moazami suggests that in relational moments, there are places to look for state reinforcement of its own bodily needs and governing of subjects that cannot govern themselves.

1:01:18

Realities (Altered & Virtual) | Discourse! November 2022

Join host Sidney Castillo and guests Jordan Loewen-Colón and Sharday Mosurinjohn for the bumper final Discourse! episode of 2022!

36:43

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.

39:54

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!

31:41

Shifting the Focus of Graduate Education in the Study of Religion

Join Carmen Becker and Andie Alexander for the RSP's 400th episode where they discuss the new international MA program at Leibniz University, Hannover.

39:12

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.

1:02:04

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!

42:00

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.

43:52

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!

43:52

Authorities and the Past | Discourse! June 2022

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 “

2:00:43

Abortion, Climate Change Protests, & Ukraine Invasion | Discourse! May 2022 (with video)

Tune in for our new Discourse! episode with Carmen Becker, Susannah Crockford, and Savannah Finver as they discuss legal issues of rights, abortion, protests, and more!

10:50

Cults and NRMs: An RSP Remix, Part I

Tune in for Part I of our RSP Remix episodes on Cults and New Religious Movements!

51:02

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!

46:02

Semana Santa, Diversifying the Seder, Prayer in High School Football, and… Derry Girls? | Discourse! April 2022

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”.

56:12

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.

44:18

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!

37:27

How “Woke” Is Your Textbook?: Introducing Religious Studies in the 2020s

RSP co-founder Chris Cotter and Paul Hedges discuss the construction of introductory textbooks in the contemporary world, including issues of positionality, criticality, and decolonization.

36:34

Ukraine Invasion, Philippine Elections, and Misinformation | Discourse! March 2022 (with video)

Tune in for this month's Discourse! with Andie Alexander, Daniel Gorman, Jr., and Paul-François Tremlett as they discuss the upcoming elections in the Philippines and the Russian Orthodox church response to the invasion of Ukraine.

54:54

Religious Legal Activism: Abortion Rhetoric Among British Evangelicals

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.

34:04

The Wilderness of Mirrors: Nationalism, Religion, and Secret Intelligence

You've heard of the CIA, but did you know that they're just as interested in religion as we are? Join Dr. Michael Graziano and Jacob Noblett as they discuss the impact of the OSS and CIA's religion-oriented intelligence operations across the globe!

40:58

The Devil is in the Details! | Discourse! February 2022 (with video)

This month's episode of Discourse! features Candace Mixon, Craig Martin, and Suzanne Owen discussing issues of religious freedom and rhetoric—you won't want to miss it!

1:00:16

How Critical Race Theory became a Moral Panic | Discourse! June 2021 (with video)

For our final episode of Season 10, join Andie Alexander, Ishanika Sharma, and K. Merinda Simmons as they talk all things Critical Race Theory—or at least what can be covered in one episode!

15:16

The Insider/Outsider Problem: An RSP Remix

Visit our archives to explore the insider/outsider problem in the study of religion. We explore questions such as "What is an 'insider' or 'outsider'?" and "How do scholars of religion study and engage 'insiders'?" to begin unpacking what all is at stake in this process of group formation.

59:45

Spiritual Abuse Roundtable

Join host Theo Wildcroft and panelists Wendy Dossett, Dawn Llewellyn, Suzanne Newcombe, and Lisa Oakley as they discuss scholarship and academic approaches to issues of 'spiritual abuse'.

46:25

When Religion Doesn’t Behave | Discourse! January 2022 (with video)

The first Discourse! of 2022 is hosted by Michael Munnik (Cardiff), who is joined by guests Beth Singler (Cambridge) and Richard Newton (Alabama) to discuss how the media is talking about "religion" this month.

43:40

The Critical Humanist Study of Islam

What sort of discursive traps to we fall into when talking about 'Islam' or 'the West'? How might we reframe our discussions with a critical humanist approach? In this episode, Khurram Hussain joins Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book, The Muslim Speaks (Zed Books, 2020) explore the benefits of critically engaging these issues in a way that takes seriously the human-focused study of religion.

46:25

When Religion Doesn’t Behave | Discourse! January 2022

How does the media report religion when religion doesn’t “behave”? What happens when religion becomes part of discourse that promotes civil disobedience, or to promote conspiracy theories? What if someone wants to make a robot rabbi or name their child something you think is blasphemous? When religion doesn’t behave — that is, doesn’t fit the implicit idea that it should be quiet, personal, liberal and “nice” — we are given an opportunity to observe boundary-making in the public sphere in real time. The first Discourse! of 2022 is hosted by Michael Munnik (Cardiff), who is joined by guests Beth Singler (Cambridge) and Richard Newton (Alabama) to discuss how the media is talking about “religion” this month. Watch the video episode here: Further Reading “ Tim LaHaye had some choice words for Wheaton College when the evangelical school hosted a memorial service for Martin Luther King Jr. “ “ After opposition to her MLK Day speech, Nikole Hannah-Jones swapped her words for his “ Mason Mennenga on Twitter “ Presenter Maajid Nawaz is axed by LBC: Anti-extremism activist who was accused of tweeting ‘deranged rubbish’ about vaccines by host Iain Dale and faced criticism for spreading Covid conspiracy theories leaves radio station “ “ Lior Cole Is the Model Combining Artificial Intelligence With Religion “ “ Parents hit back at trolls over baby name and say ‘we are not Satanists’ “

1:02:22

Questioning the Silver Bullet: Critical Approaches for the Study of Ayahuasca

How can we approach the study of ayahuasca critically? In this RSP episode, join and hear Sidney Castillo talk with Bernd Brabec de Mori and Olivia Marcus on their research about indigenous and mestizo use of ayahuasca in the Peruvian rainforest.

38:22

The Strange Charm of Gnosticism

For our last interview of 2021 (not to worry, the Mid-Year special is coming!), our co-founder David G. Robertson is back in the interview seat discussing his new book Gnosticism and the History of Religions with our co-editor Andie Alexander. Tune in to learn more about the 'strange charm of gnosticism'!

32:51

Genealogy of the Jewish Notion

Dr. Breann Fallon sits down with Professor Daniel Boyarin to discuss the difficulty of defining Judaism and Boyarin's new book Judaism: Genealogy of a Modern Notion

47:19

Narrative and Reflexivity in the Study of Religion: A Roundtable Discussion (with video)

The idea for this roundtable was that it would follow on directly from this week's interview on religion and literature, but expand the discussion to cover a variety of points relating to narrative, autobiography and (auto)ethnography in the study of religion. Featuring Dr Wendy Dossett, Prof. Elaine Graham, Dr Dawn Llewellyn, Ethan Quillen, and Dr Alana Vincent.

25:03

The Unverifiable Truth-Claim! | Mid-Year Special 2016 (with video)

"The Unverifiable Truth-claim", recorded at BASR 2016, hosted by David Robertson, and featuring Christopher Cotter, Katie Aston, Jonathan Tuckett, and Krittika Bhattacharjee! Plus a special appearance by RSP Managing Editor, Thomas Coleman!

34:22

MasterBrain! | Mid-Year Special 2014

Here are some traditions that make this time of the year special. End-of-year listicles, the "War on Christmas" debate, animations of elves dancing with your family's heads pasted on... and of course, the RSP "Christmas" Special!

48:42

Fourteen to One! | Mid-Year Special 2015

Fourteen contestants. One tetchy quizmaster. Three microphones. Numerous cases of wine. One glamorous assistant. Many bruised egos. A boisterous studio audience. A splash of irreverence. Dozens of questions. Four years of podcasts! A rapidly diminishing reservoir of academic credibility. And far, far too many in-jokes...

40:09

Scrape My Barrel! | Mid-Year Special 2017 (with video)

This 2017 mid-year special's game "Scrape My Barrel"—which has absolutely no connection to the popular BBC gameshow "Call My Bluff"—features two teams of religious studies scholars pitted against each other in a battle of definitions, pedantry, creativity, deception, performance and ‘wit’. Tune in to find out whether the 'established' scholars (George Chryssides, Dawn Llewellyn, and Paul-François Tremlett) or the ‘up-and-coming’ baristas... sorry, RS scholars (Vivian Asimos, Liam Sutherland, and Amy Whitehead) win bragging rights this year!

31:00

Only Sixty Seconds! | Mid-Year Special 2019

For our eighth(!) annual special, Only Sixty Seconds returns! This time, Chris Cotter is your host, as David G. Robertson returns to defend his 2018 crown against Bettina Schmidt, Douglas Davies and Theo Wildcroft. We may not have avoided repetition, but I do not hesitate in promising you no deviation from hilarity!

31:24

Religious Freedom, Exemption, and Festivals in Australia | Discourse! November 2021 (with video)

In this Aussie episode of November Discourse, Professor Carole Cusack and Ray Radford sit down with Dr. Breann Fallon to discuss religion as in Australian current affairs.

21:00

The World Religions Paradigm: An RSP Remix

This RSP Remix answers the question "What is the world religions paradigm?" with an abridged version of our 2013 interview with James Cox.

41:48

Discourse #10 |Sept 2019

This month on Discourse! join David G. Robertson, Vivian Asimos and Aled Thomas at the BASR as they discuss the mythology of Zelda, austerity and evangelical Christians, and the potential arson of Crowley’s Loch Ness redoubt, Boleskine House. Links: Austerity and evangelical Christians: https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2018/June-2018/Faith-in-action-How-Christians-are-plugging-the-gap-left-by-austerity Mythology of Zelda https://youtu.be/3fr1Z07AV00 Potential arson at Boleskine House https://wildhunt.org/2019/08/update-on-boleskine-house-arson.html

1:01:04

Religious Symbols, Secularism, and Culture Wars

In this episode, Matt Sheedy joins RSP co-editor Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility and unpack common assumptions about secularism and religion in the public sphere.

56:22

When Christians Meet Each Other: The Saint Thomas Christians of Southwest India in the Early Modern Period

What happens when Christianities meet each other? Find out in this week's episode of the RSP, where Sidney Castillo talks with István Perczel on his research of the Saint Thomas Christians of Kerala, and their encounters with Catholic missionaries and Western colonial powers in the early modern period.

45:52

Discourse Analysis & Ideology Critique in the Study of Religion

In this episode, Dr. Craig Martin joins Savannah Finver to discuss his forthcoming book, Discourse and Ideology: A Critique of the Study of Culture. Dr. Martin shares with us his motivations for writing this book, describes his primary methodologies and the key concepts he introduces in the text, and explains some of his thoughts on the utility of religion as a category of analysis in religious studies scholarship.

48:44

Religion, Bodies, and the State | Discourse! October 2021

Join Emily D. Crews, Alison Robertson, and host Theo Wildcroft for a collection of topical stories on how religion mediates how the state treats human bodies in different ways. And Jesusween!

45:36

Focus on Fieldwork: An RSP Remix

In the first RSP Remix, Dave McConeghy guides us through recent RSP discussions of fieldwork and its impact on scholarship. This episode features excerpts from conversations with Christopher R. Cotter, Spencer Dew, Liz Bucar, Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada, Robin Veldman, Elizabeth Pérez, and Cristina Rocha.

38:49

Mapping the Digital Study of Religion

Dan Gorman speaks with Christopher Cantwell and Kristian Petersen about the future of the digital study of religion.

34:30

Deconstructing ‘Religion’ in Contemporary Japan

In this episode, Dr. Mitsutoshi Horii joins Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book, The Category of 'Religion' in Contemporary Japan: Shūkyō & Temple Buddhism, where he demonstrates the necessity for understanding how and why certain groups come to be classified as 'religious' in contemporary Japan.

34:14

#ClassificationMatters | Discourse! September 2021 (with video)

Kicking off our first episode of Discourse!, RSP co-founder David Robertson, Ting Guo, and Jacob Barrett discuss the effects of classification in vaccination resistance, the Texas abortion ban, and the equation of the hijab with oppression. It's an exciting episode—be sure to tune in!

54:32

History Repeated: Religious Conspiracy Theories Then and Now

In this episode, Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulus explores a range of Dr. Carmen Celestini's work on conspiracy theories, Christian apocalyptic thought and its impacts on political systems in America. They discuss early antimasonic movements, white supremacists from Christian Identity Organisation and discuss the parallels between old and new conspiracy thought and try to understand what is driving people to these movements.

33:25

Law, Religious Racism, and Religions of the African Diaspora

Danielle N. Boaz sat down with Benjamin Marcus to discuss her new book, Banning Black Gods: Law and Religions of the African Diaspora. She examines the legal challenges faced by adherents of the most widely practiced African-derived religions in the 21st century.

1:00:16

Freak Out!: How Critical Race Theory became a Moral Panic | Discourse! June 2021 (with video)

For our final episode of Season 10, join Andie Alexander, Ishanika Sharma, and K. Merinda Simmons as they talk all things Critical Race Theory—or at least what can be covered in one episode!

40:09

Sovereignty and Spiritual Warfare

Join Savannah H. Finver and Dr. S. Jonathon O'Donnell as they talk demons, American politics, interdisciplinary methodologies, and the critical study of religion.

40:00

On the Tantricization of Jain Ascetic Rituals

In the RSP’s first episode on Jainism, Dr. Ellen Gough joins Andie Alexander to discuss what she terms “tantricization,” a method for thinking about the process of establishing something as tantric.

34:13

South American Austral Religions in an Ethnohistorical Comparative Perspective

In this episode, Boris Briones talks with Sidney Castillo on his comparative research of the Mapuche and Selk'nam of austral South America. Check it out to learn a thing or two about ethnohistory and scientific divulgation!

27:36

South American church-state relations

Politics and social institutions are inseparable. Whether we take a look at small-scale or complex societies, we can find that politics is involved with economics, kinship with hierarchy, and of course, religion with the state. In this podcast, Sidney Castillo interviews professor Marco Huaco Palomino as he addresses the nuances of secularity in several Latin American countries.

29:06

Evangelical Yoga: Cultural Appropriation and Translation in American Religions

In this interview, we discuss yoga as a new American phenomenon and the way that some evangelical Christians practice it. Brown provides a historic overview of bodily–religious practices in America, starting with mesmerism, occultism, osteopathy, and chiropractic in the nineteenth century.

29:53

Minority Religions in the Secret Police Archives

James Kapaló takes us inside the Eastern European secret police archives to show us how minority and new religious groups were portrayed. We explore the visual and material presence of religious minorities in the secret police archives in Hungary, Romania and the Republic of Moldova.

39:37

Religion, Science and Evolutionary Theory

Science and evolution in Muslim societies is a complicated topic. Among the public, what does evolution mean? Whats does evolution stand for? Is there a 'Muslim view' on evolution? In this podcast, Stephen Jones interviews Salman Hameed about recent research on Muslim perceptions of science and evolution.

31:39

Studying Tantra from Within and Without

Douglas R. Brooks, Professor of Religion at the University of Rochester, discusses how he became involved in the academic study of Hinduism, specifically Tantra and goddess-centered traditions. He begins with his training in Sanskrit and Tamil at Middlebury College,...

37:47

Politics of this world: Protestant, evangelical, and Pentecostal movements in Peru

Evangelicalism in Peru has become a driving force in politics and decision making across major subjects, such as gender-related policies and institutional power. In this podcast, professor Juan Fonseca aims to elaborate a brief history of Protestantism, in order to comprehend its current mainstream manifestation.

34:15

Sexual Ethics and Islam

Sexual ethics and Islam? How might one begin to study such a vast and "problematic" topic? What are some of the most prescient issues that recur in this contested field? And what is the broader significance of this discussion for Religious Studies in general?

30:27

Religion, Spirituality, and Addiction Recovery

What is the relationship between 'religion', 'spirituality', 'addiction' and 'addiction recovery'? What are we meaning by 'addiction'? Is it socially constructed? Why are we even talking about a relationship between these concepts?

28:41

Comedy, Comedians, and Church: The Interplay between Religion and Humor

Dr Elisha McIntyre discusses her research into religion and humour, particularly looking at comedic work The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as well as a broad range of evangelical comedians. McIntyre discusses the use of religious comedy as a point of entertainment as well as an identity solidifier, evangelical tool, and preaching format within Christianity.

42:10

What do we mean by Indigenous Religion(s)?

We talk a lot about the World Relgions Paradigm at the Religious Studies Project, and this discussion looks more closely at one of the ancillary categories, Indigenous Religion. What exactly does this term refer to? Does it refer to specific religions (plural) or a kind of religion (singular)?

34:29

Islamic Millennialism

We may tend to think of millennialism as something typical of New Religious Movements and christian fundamentalism, but it has a long and interesting history in the Islamic world too. Rob Gleave, Professor of Arabic Studies at Exeter, takes us through the history of Islamic millennialism,...

24:03

Religious Freedom in America: Theoretical Considerations

Religious freedom is an inherently good thing, right? It’s a cherished idea that is easy for state governments to enact, no? In this interview, Finbarr Curtis questions both of these assertions. In The Production of American Religious Freedom, Curtis argues that religious freedom is a fluent and malleable concept that people deploy for various and competing reasons.

39:43

Reinventing Graduate Education in the Study of Religion

We spend a lot of time on the Religious Studies Project discussing Religious Studies as a discipline or field of study, what it means to study 'religion' with or without quotation marks, and what exactly it is that the critical, scholarly study of societal discourses surrounding 'religion' might have to offer. However,...

34:06

Yoga in Museums

Yoga, in its modern form, should be of great interest to scholars of religion. While it certainly has roots in Vedic culture, the vast majority of Western practitioners do not see it as "religious", but rather to do with health or "well-being". Yoga's status as religious has been in court,...

36:06

AI and Religion: An Initial Conversation

This roundtable, in association with the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, considers the impact of recent technological advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics on religion, religious conceptions of the world, and the human. It draws attention to how such advances push religion beyond how it has been commonly defined and considered.

33:26

Black Religious Movements and Religio-Racial Identities during the Great Migration

In this podcast, Judith Weisenfeld talks to Brad Stoddard about her new book, New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Depression. In this book, Weisenfeld explores several social groups in the early 1900s who combined religious and racial rhetoric to fashion new identities.

30:48

Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Theology

By claiming the invisible not simply as a materialist term but a metaphysical one as well, Harriss contends that despite—or even because of—his status as a thoroughly “ secular” novelist and critic, Ellison’s writing reflects important theological trends and issues that mark his age and the cultural inheritances of his literary production.

38:00

Religion and the Psy-Disciplines

In this podcast, Dr. Christopher Harding uses his research on psychoanalysis and Buddhism in modern Japan to tackle the two-way dialogue between religion and the psy-disciplines. How have these shaped each other, and what are tensions between them?

34:59

Six Scholars Discuss the Dissertation to First Book Process

Ever wonder what it's like to complete the dissertation to first book process? How people find publishers? How much the publisher and editor influence the project? This podcast offers a roundtable discussion where six scholars discuss these questions and more. All six published some version of their dissertation, and they have unique insights and anecdotes to help explain and illumine this process.

22:24

Study of Religion in Peru

In this RSP interview, we are joined by professor Dorothea Ortmann from University of Rostock, to delve more into the foundations of the science of religion in Peru. She first states the major differences between the confessional studies or studies oriented to theological or pastoral matters, and the social scientific study of religious phenomena (Ortmann, 2004).

25:05

Muslim NGOs and civil society in Indonesia

While the service provision activities of some religious NGOs complement and enhance systems of low state capacity, in others they compete with state services and in still others service delivery by religious NGOs is associated...

35:26

Angel Spirituality

What is angel spirituality, and who does it appeal to (hint: women)? How do they challenge preconceptions about the relationship between new spiritualities and Christianity, and raise interesting questions about gender, and vernacular religion in supposedly post-Christian Europe?

34:07

Alternative Sociologies of Religion: Through Non-Western Eyes

In this interview, recorded at the SocRel 2017 Annual Conference, Professor James Spickard talks about his latest project. Starting with a critique of North American sociology’s approach to religion, Spickard emphasises how our concepts of religion are historically grounded,

27:22

Beyond ‘Faith-Based Organizations’: Religion and NGOs in comparative perspective

In this interview, we talk with Erica Bornstein about her studies of religious giving and social activism in India and Africa, and what the results of her research contribute to our understanding of the complex configurations of ‘Faith-Based Organizations’ across diverse religious contexts.Since the turn of the twenty-first century,...

52:18

Witchcraft in Rural Slovenia

Based on her ethnographic fieldwork in the area, Mencej describes witchcraft from a variety of angles, from psychological to anthropological and historical, providing a detailed understanding of witchcraft as part of the lived social reality of the community. In what kind of situations are witchcraft narratives evoked?

37:39

Millennialism and Violence?

Are we right to connect millennialism and violence? Are groups like Heaven's Gate or the Branch Davidians typical, or rare exceptions, magnified out of proportion by the lens of the media - and scholarship? How do we account for the popularity of mllennialism outside of religious traditions, new, extreme or otherwise?

36:10

Misplaced Faith?: A theory of supernatural belief as misattribution

Does scientific evidence have any bearing at all on the existence of a God or gods? In this podcast, Thomas J. Coleman III interviews Dr. Luke Galen on his latest theoretical work, which combines evidence from across the psychological sciences to address how natural processes influence attributions of supernatural agency.

26:01

Christian evangelical organisations in global anti-trafficking networks

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, there has been a remarkable surge of interest among both academics and policy makers in the effects that religion has on international aid and development. Within this broad field, the work of ‘religious NGOs’ or ‘Faith-Based Organisations’ (FBOs) has garnered considerable attention.

35:52

Religion, Gender, and Gender Violence

In this podcast Dr Caroline Blyth discusses her research on 'theologies of rape' and gender violence as enacted against males and masculinity, particularly within the Christian Church. Blyth also discusses her upcoming edited series Rape Culture, Gender Violence and Religion (edited with Dr Emily Colgan and Dr Katie Edwards).

40:09

Christmas Special 2017 – Scrape My Barrel!

As has now become traditional (how many times must something be repeated to become ‘tradition’? And does this make it ‘religious’?), we are delighted to end 2017 on a more light-hearted note and present our ‘Christmas’ special gameshow,

28:21

Changing Your Story: Assessing Ex-Member Narratives

Ex-member testimony can be a difficult to deal with. Such testimony tends to receive privileged treatment in anti-cult literature, while some academics are prone to be sceptical, even suggesting ex-member testimony is worthless due to the danger of adaption and fiction.

29:30

Children in New Religious Movements

In the complex and sometimes fraught relationship between New Religious Movements and the wider culture and state, why is it that children are so often a focus? Children are seen as needing special protection and therefore legitimising dramatic state intervention, but are also seen as of particular importance to the future of these movements, and in some more millennial groups, of the world itself.

24:24

Hyper-Real Religion, Digital Capitalism, and the Pygmalion Effect

In this interview, recorded at the SocRel 2017 conference in Leeds, Professor Adam Possamai discusses the rising popularity of ‘Hyper-Real religion’ – a category encompassing Jediism, Matrixism, and other movements taking influence from popular culture. Situating hyper-real religions within the contemporary context of digital capitalism,

31:46

Jesuits, Mormons, and American Religion in the World

My conversation with Maffly-Kipp begins with McGreevy's book, expands to include her work on Mormonism in contrast to Catholicism, and ends with a discussion of evangelical historian Mark Noll, in whose honor Notre Dame was originally going to host a conference, but was cancelled at the last minute.

49:42

Drawn to the Gods – Religion, Comedy and Animated Television Programs

In this podcast Associate Professor David Feltmate, author of Drawn to the Gods: Religion and Humor in The Simpsons, South Park, and Family Guy, chats to Breann Fallon about the manner in which these three television shows create a broad commentary on religion for the general public.

27:41

Muslims, NGOs, and the future of democratic space in Myanmar

The critical situation of the Rohingyas has cast a shadow over Myanmar’s process of democratization and drawn attention to some aggressively un-civil sectors of this Buddhist majority country’s Muslim minority population. In this interview with Melissa Crouch,...

32:14

Autism, Religion, and Imagination

spectrum represent a unique population of study in the cognitive and psychological sciences of religion. Because religious cognition stems from normal social-cognitive capacities, which are altered for individuals on the spectrum, researchers also expect variation in how they think about supernatural agents.

26:56

Hindu Traditions in Contemporary British Communities

This podcast explores how Hindu belief and traditions have been incorporated into modern western practices. An overview of the British kirtan community and the Art of Living movement is followed by a discussion of authenticity, reconciliation of tradition and modernity, and the influence of popular culture.

43:09

The Legacy of Edward Tylor – Roundtable

This roundtable recorded at the annual BASR conference at the University of Chester 2017 brought together a group of scholars interested in different perspectives on the legacy of Tylor. Topics discussed included his impact on indigenous societies, the debates over animism,

30:17

‘Modelling Religion’ and the Integration of the Sciences and the Humanities in the Bio-cultural Study of Religion

Following his Albert Moore Memorial Lecture at Otago University, celebrating 50 years of Religious Studies at Otago, Professor Wesley Wildman talks to Thomas White regarding the integration of the sciences and the humanities in his bio-cultural approach to the study of religion.

33:43

Stereotyping Religion: Critical Approaches to Pervasive Cliches

"Religions are belief systems", "Religions are intrinsically violent", "Religion is Bullshit"... these are just some of the pervasive cliches that we might hear from time to time in the English-speaking world about our central topic of discussion on the RSP, 'religion'.

37:26

Why do we believe? Evolution, Primates, and the Human Niche

In this wide-ranging interview, Chris and Professor Fuentes discuss the themes of the lecture series, the intersections of research on human evolution, ethnoprimatology, and human nature, with the study of religion more generally, the Planet of the Apes films, and more. Along the way,...

56:39

What is the point of of academic conferences?: A roundtable discussion

Why attend conferences? What is the point? What else could we do instead that might be a better use of our time? And how did we find having a fully-functional podcast studio set up at this conference? These are just a few of the issues that crop up in this lively roundtable discussion, facilitated by the inestimable Moritz Klenk.

47:29

The Gods of Indian Country

Dr. Jennifer Graber's new book, "The Gods of Indian Country," grew out of lingering questions from her first book, a study of American Quakers and prisons. Graber learned that Quakers served as missionaries to Native American reservations in the West. She combined this interest in Quaker missions with her research into Native American captivity, so that the resulting narrative contrasts the motives of U.S. officials with Kiowa captives on an Oklahoma reservation.

43:31

Ecospirituality, Gender and Nature

Is, as Sherry Ortner once asked, Female to Nature as Male is to Culture? Where does this discourse come from? How does this gendering of nature intersect with contemporary forms of ecospirituality? And religion more generally? Why does it matter? And for whom? Joining Chris today to discuss these questions and more, is Dr Susannah Crockford of Ghent University.

34:34

A Dark Goddess: An inter-religious language for feminine spirituality

Ross Downing interviews academic and vlogger Áine Warren about her research and fieldwork experience of the Dark Goddess; a contemporary Pagan feminist figure being fed into by women from all over the world and from many religious backgrounds. The inspiration of Jungian psychology is discussed and the development of a media-based theology or thealogy.

49:44

Preserving identity and empowering women. How do Canadian Muslim schools affect their students?

In this interview, Dr. Jasmin Zine talks about Muslim schools in Canada and their impact on their students’ identity development and integration in the society. Having served for decades as a tool to preserve a particular religious identity, Islamic schooling also plays a crucial role in empowering female students. In some cases, Muslim schools have become a safe haven, especially for women, “a place where their identity is not in question, where they can feel safe and comfortable”.

44:49

Religion, Education, and Politics in Australia and NZ

Following on from the delivery of her conference paper at the EASR 2018 in Bern, in this podcast, Professor Marion Maddox of Macquarie University speaks to Thomas White regarding the historical, national and regional differences in the presence of religion in Australian and New Zealand schools.

43:16

Representations of Religious Studies in Popular Culture

Given that popular cultural representations are more likely to shape public perceptions about what the study of religion is and who does it than either direct experience in the classroom or statistics about graduation rates and job placements, we hope that you will agree that we should try to understand what these perceptions are. In this podcast, Chris speaks with Professors Brian Collins and Kristen Tobey about this fascinating and important topic.

42:15

The ‘secular’, the ‘religious’, and the ‘refugee’ in Germany

Ever since the so-called ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015, the ‘refugee’ in Germany has been constructed in a variety of ways that are implicated in specific co-constitutive notions of the ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ that exert symbolic power by naturalizing certain notions of the religious and thereby the secular while excluding others and feeding back into the subject formation (or subjectivation) of people classified as ‘refugees’. In this process certain positions are produced as hegemonic while others are classified as not acceptable (e.g., “radical”, “not European” or “anti-humanist”).

32:22

The Hugging Guru: Amma and Transnationalism

In this interview conducted at the 2018 EASR conference in Bern, Marianne Qvortrup Fibiger speaks to Sammy Bishop about Amma, a guru who has become world famous for her healing hugs - apparently giving more than 33 million hugs over the past 30 years. They discuss the ways in which different audiences can interpret Amma's message, and how she reconnects Hindus in diaspora with their traditions.

34:48

A Global Study on Government Restrictions and Social Hostilities Related to Religion

In this podcast, we speak with Dr. Katayoun Kishi, who oversaw the ninth in a series of reports by Pew Research Center analyzing the extent to which governments and societies around the world impinge on religious beliefs and practices. We discuss the findings of the report as well as methodology for collecting and analyzing data. Dr. Kishi summarizes findings for different regions of the world--including the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East and North Africa--and she explains long-term trends evident from Pew's reports.

42:34

New Directions in the Study of Scientology

Scientology seems almost exclusively to be considered fair game (pun intended) for ridicule and criticism among New Religious Movements, and this may have much to tell us about the theoretical models scholars are using, and the institutional factors at play in the legitimisation of particular traditions in the academic and popular discourse. We discuss insider scholarship and the control of information; the Free Zone and the Church; strategic use of the category 'religion'; and how we see scholarship developing in the post-Hubbard era

54:04

RE Commission report: A Way Forward?

At a recent RE research and policy conference #2020RE, Dr Wendy Dossett had the opportunity to chat with two of the Commissioners and authors of the Religion and Worldviews report, Dr Joyce Miller and Prof Eleanor Nesbitt, along with Religious Education sociologist (and convener of SOCREL), Céline Benoit. Their conversation ranged over some of the following issues: the rationale for the move from calling the subject ‘Religious Education’ to ‘Religion and Worldviews’; the inadequacy for the classroom of a world religions approach; the degree to which faith communities are entitled to influence what gets taught in schools; and the anomaly of the so-called withdrawal clause.

42:29

Magic and Modernity

This conversation between Richard Irvine, Theodoros Kyriakides and David G. Robertson concerns magical thinking in the modern world. We may think that such ideas are confined to the fringes in the secular, post-Enlightenment world, but this is not necessarily the case. We talk about Weber's rationalisation and James Frazer's evolutionary model of modernity, and how they relate to ideas of belief, and magic.

42:45

Myth, Solidarity, and Post-Liberalism

With the rise of reactionary politics across the globe, it is arguably increasingly important for the academic community to give consideration to the prospects of developing and strengthening solidarity across apparent religious, political and economic differences. In this podcast, Chris speaks to Dr Timothy Stacey (University of Ottawa) about his forthcoming book, Myth and Solidarity in the Modern World:

35:51

From Static Categories to a River of Theories: “The Myth of Disenchantment”

In a free wheeling conversation, Dr. Jason Josephson-Storm and Dan Gorman discuss the intellectual history of religious studies and the myth that magic is dead.

35:20

From Non-Religion to Unbelief? A developing field…

In this podcast, we check in with the state of the field, discuss developments beyond the Anglophone "West", some of the many exciting projects being worked on under the "Understanding Unbelief" banner, the utility and pitfalls of the terminology of "unbelief", and some of the critical issues surrounding the reification of survey categories.

37:45

Drone Metal Mysticism

In this interview, Owen Coggins joins us to talk about the use of religious (and sacrilegious) language and imagery in Drone Metal, a genre which stretches metal to low, slow, repetitive extremes. Drawing on the work of Michel de Certeau, he tells David Robertson that the prevalence of language relating to mysticism and "spiritual experience" may be due to the genre's focus on the physicality of the musical experience.

37:16

Against Invention: A richer history for ‘Hinduism’

In this interview Associate Professor Will Sweetman talks to Thomas White about the idea that ‘Hinduism’ and many of the other terms we use to classify religions—including the term religion itself—are modern inventions, emerging out of nineteenth-century inter-cultural contact and European colonialism. Will argues against this critique, and to make his case he draws on historical sources that discuss ‘Hinduism’ both outside of the anglophone...

45:29

Worldviews and Ways of Life

Ann Taves joins us to discuss her work arguing that we should study religions under the broader rubric of "worldviews" and "ways of life". This ambitious interdisciplinary project aims to place a micro-level analysis of individual worldviews into a broader evolutionary perspective.

31:22

Negotiating Gender in Contemporary Occultism

In this interview conducted at the 2018 EASR conference in Bern, Sammy Bishop speaks to Manon Hedenborg White about the development of Western esotericism, charting the influence of the infamous Aleister Crowley and his philosophy of Thelema. They explore Crowley's somewhat ambiguous view of gender, before bringing the research into the present day, on how gender roles in contemporary Thelema can be contested and negotiated. Finally, Hedenborg White delves into the important but often overlooked role of women in the development of contemporary Occultism.

24:37

“Soka Gakkai, Kōmeitō and the religious voices of Japan’s political arena

Throughout Japanese history, religion has always coloured and influenced the matters of the state. Religious validation of imperialist aggression and Japan’s war efforts in the first half of the 20th century is just one example of this.

44:29

Situating Religion within Justice

In this podcast Professor Joe Bulbulia of Auckland University speaks to Thomas White about situating the study of religion within a broader concept of ‘justice’. Bulbulia calls ‘religion and spirituality those features of nature [in the biocultural sense of the word] that combine to cultivate a sense of justice in people’. Bulbulia argues that common across human societies are conceptions of obligation and responsibility:

29:35

African American Spiritual Churches

The African American Spiritual Churches are combinatory religious sites, which blend Protestant, Catholic, Spiritualist, Haitian Voodoo, and Benin's traditional Vodun practices. Female leadership and business management has been essential in the history of these churches. Dr. Guillory's upcoming book draws on years of archival research, ethnographic observation, and oral history interviews to tell the story of these churches from 1920 to the present day.

25:43

‘Good’ Grief? Rituals of World Repairing

Toys, Rabbits, and Princess Diana - three things that may not seem at all connected. However, when one starts to question the notion of grief, bereavement, and death in the contemporary West, these three are more connected than appears. In this podcast, Breann Fallon interviews Professor Douglas Ezzy of the University of Tasmania on the power of symbols...

33:45

Religious change in Japanese Shinto

In this week's podcast, Hans Van Eyghen sits down with Professor Michael Pye to discuss the various historical, political, and social factors that have impacted Japanese Shinto. Though Shinto is widely known as the indigenous religion of Japan, it is rarely discussed in detail and has attracted little attention from scholars. In this week's podcast,

34:14

God and Mathematics

What does math have to do with religion? In his interview with Hans van Eyghen, author Chris Ransford discusses his latest book 'God and the Mathematics of Infinity'. He discusses why mathematics is useful for thinking about religion, covering some of the conclusions he draws in the book.You can download this interview, and subscribe to receive our weekly podcast,If you enjoyed it, please take a moment to rate us. And remember,...

48:50

Spirituality

To discuss 'spirituality', we are joined by Boaz Huss and Steven Sutcliffe. We discuss the genealogy of 'spirituality', and its contemporary significance, with particular reference to the New Age movement. The second half focuses on how spirituality may trouble the religion / secular distinction, and its implications for the critical study of religion.

50:52

Muslim Superheroes

A. Dave Lewis joins us again for a discussion of representations of Muslims in superhero comics. We talk about some positive representations, like Kamala Khan, Marvel's new Ms Marvel, and some less-than-positive portrayals, like Frank Millar's Holy Terror!

25:09

What We Can Learn from our Founding Fathers

In this discussion, Professor Schmidt discusses her keynote lecture at the Open University's "Contemporary Religion in Historical Perspectives: Publics and Performances". We turn back to discuss some of the "founding fathers" of the discipline of Religious Studies: Rudolf Otto, R.R. Marrett, and Andrew Lang.

32:38

The Political Relevance of the Sociology of Religion

Following the lead of scholars such as Jose Casanova, Professor Turner brings the public and political role of religion into focus. By doing so, he argues, we can push the sociology of religion toward the realms of political theory, international relations, and race relations, thus creating an agenda in which the sociology of religion becomes increasingly mainstream and relevant to the world we live in,...

46:11

The Lie at the Heart of America

James Baldwin's critique of America and its racism is an "urgent lesson" for contemporary America, writes Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. in his new book Begin Again.

45:05

Myth-making, Environmentalism, and Non-Religion

What myths do non-religious people use in their climate and environmental activism? What does the study of everyday stories bring to the study of 'religion' and 'non-religion'? Find out in this interview with Dr. Tim Stacey by RSP Co-Founder Christopher R. Cotter.

50:57

Thanks for Listening! Celebrating 10 Years of the RSP

10 years in the making! Celebrate our decade of scholarship with this special episode, "Thanks for listening!"

41:14

Politics and Conspirituality | Discourse! January 2021

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."

34:49

The Therwil Affair: Handshakes in Swiss Schools

In this podcast, taking place on the last day of the Annual EASR Conference in Bern, Dr Philipp Hetmanczyk and Martin Bürgin of Zurich University talk to Thomas White about the Therwil Affair, a controversy that emerged in 2016 after two Swiss Muslim schoolboys declined to shake hands with their female teacher.

52:21

The BASR and the Impact of Religious Studies

A panel on the public impact and engagement of Religious Studies/Study of Religion/s led by committee members of the British Association for the Study of Religions, including Dr Stephen Gregg (Wolverhampton), Dr Christopher Cotter (Edinburgh), Dr Suzanne Owen (Leeds Trinity), Dr David Robertson (The Open University) and Dr Steven Sutcliffe (Edinburgh). Issues discussed include why RS continues to be a "muted voice"...

1:00:10

Manifestos and the Academic Study of Religion

What are manifestos? How are they employed in society? What can the academic study of religion offer to help understand them? The faculty and students in the Dept. of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney have a few thoughts on that. Tune in to learn more!

47:02

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

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

46:31

Sacred Trees: Belief, Mythology, and Practice

In this episode, RSP co-editor Breann Fallon talks to Professor Carole Cusack about trees in religious mythology, belief, and practice.

32:32

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.

47:09

On Human Remains | Discourse! May 2021 (with video)

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, David, and Dave introduce Andie 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.

42:15

Comparing Methods in Christian Origins

What happens when scholars take seriously the human-focused study of religious practices? In this episode, Willi Braun joins Andie Alexander to discuss the importance of critical approaches in the study of religion.

44:37

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

Dr. Ronit Y. Stahl and Dan Gorman discuss the United States military chaplaincy as a site of pluralism and cultural tension in the twentieth century.

38:18

Masculinity and the Body Languages of Catholicism

From counting money to lifting four-ton statues, Italian Catholics in Brooklyn have a robust, embodied language to express their masculine devotion says Prof. Maldonado-Estrada in this interview about her new book, Lifeblood of the Parish.

40:00

On the Tantracization of Jain Ascetic Rituals

In the RSP’s first episode on Jainism, Dr. Ellen Gough joins Andie Alexander to discuss what she terms “tantracization,” a method for thinking about the process of establishing something as tantric.

51:46

Islam, Politics, and Identity: The (Im)possibility of Sudan’s Islamic State

Is the Islamic state simply a reaction against the modern secular nation-state, or is there more to it? Join us as Noah Salomon answers this question among many more as he talks about his book For Love of the Prophet: An Ethnography of Sudan's Islamic State.

38:14

Human Rights in Australia | Discourse! March 2021

Join us for our March current events episode focused on human rights in Australia with the U Sydney crew: Prof Carole Cusack, Dr Breann Fallon and Ray Radford.

41:06

Conspiracy Theories, Public Rhetoric, and Power

"You don't go to religious studies conferences with the title of the conference being 'The Problem with Religion,'" so why do we use that rhetoric to talk about conspiracy theories? Listen in to Andie Alexander's interview with RSP co-founder David G. Robertson to find out why!

41:13

Understanding Evangelical Opposition to Climate Action

Evangelicals don't oppose climate activism for the reasons you think. Listen to expert Robin Veldman and find out why "embattlement" matters more than eschatology when it comes to rejecting climate science.

“Religion and Pluralities of Knowledge”: A Roundtable Discussion

It's time for another RSP roundtable, folks. Thanks very much to Liam for facilitating this, and to Angus, Essi, George and Hanna for joining him for a stimulating discussion. This year scholars from across the globe gathered in the city of Groningen in the north-west of the Netherlands...

Religion and Memory

In the year 2000, English-speaking scholars interested in ‘religion’ were introduced (in translation) to one of the most important texts in the sociology of religion in recent years, Danièle Hervieu-Léger’s “Religion as a Chain of Memory”. This book placed the study of ‘religion and memory’ firmly on the academic agenda,

37:54

Sex Scandals and Minoritized Religions

What do Muslims, Mormons, and Satanists have in common? Megan Goodwin argues that for all three groups, sex scandals were used to paint religious groups as un-American and "bad" religion. Learn more about minoritization and its role in policing American identity in this week's episode.

43:50

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.

44:05

Following the Objects: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria

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 as Candace Mixon speaks with Richard McGregor about Islam and the Devotional object.

Ritual, Religion, and the Evolutionary Foundations of Human Culture

Cognitive neuroscientist Merlin Donald discusses the role of ritual in human evolution, and its continued importance in all forms of society and culture. In this interview, Professor Donald outlines his perspective on the evolution of human cognition, and the importance of both embodied communication and mind-sharing networks.

44:42

Race and the Aliites

Complex issues of race, identity, citizenship, sovereignty, and Law come together in this interview with Spencer Dew about the New Religious Movements surrounding Noble Drew Ali and the groups he inspired.

33:58

Beyond Ecological Essentialism: Critical and Constructive Muslim Environmentalisms

The diversity of Muslim environmentalisms shows the urgency of decolonizing Religious Studies and Environmental Humanities amid escalating global climate crises, says Prof. Anna Gade in this week's episode. Based on her decades of fieldwork in Indonesia, Dr. Gade sketches new intersections of religion and the environment that decenter conversations long dominated by Western ecological models.

41:23

Studying “Non-Ordinary Realities”: A Roundtable Discussion

Bettina Schmidt and David Wilson organised a series of panels at the 2014 BASR Conference in Milton Keynes on the topic of "Studying Non-Ordinary Realities", as part of the conference's "Cutting Edge" sub-theme. We managed to make time to get Bettina and David,...

Studying Vernacular Religion in the US

Vernacular religion is a subject which fascinates us here at the RSP, because in keeping with our critical perspective, it challenges that idea that neat categorical boundaries may be drawn, and reminds us that when attempts are made to draw them, particular interests are being served.

Witchcraft and Demonic Possession in Early Modern England

Emeritus Professor Philip Almond discusses his work on witchcraft and demonic possession in early modern England, including issues such as the "familiar cultural script" that was usually played out, the strategic interests of those making accusations, and the broader context of post-Reformation turmoil in which confessional claims to truth took on new urgency.

47:25

Os serés matáves: Pentecostalism in the Prisons of Rio

For Brazil’s “killable people”, there are two prevalent ways to deal with the relative hell of prison - both involving allegiance and devotion. You can give your life to the gang or give your life to God. Only three types of people dare to venture into the heart of a Minas Gerais prison: the condemned, the pentecostal pastors leading the prison ministry,...

31:11

Religion and Literature

How can studying literature help us to study religion? And what the question even mean? In this interview, Alana Vincent, Lecturer in Jewish Studies at the University of Chester, sets out some of the interesting intersections of these two fields.

Science and Religion in Europe: A Historical Perspective

Professor Peter Harrison discusses the false historical assumptions behind the current perception that "science" and "religion" have always been in conflict. Providing a wide-ranging historical overview, Harrison begins with the early interplay between religious institutions and scientific activity,...

44:26

Geographies of Religion and the Secular in Ireland

In this broad-ranging interview, O’Mahony eruditely demonstrates what geography can bring to the academic study of ‘religion’ and presents Ireland as a fascinating context within which to examine processes of boundary-making between the contested constructs of ‘religion’ and the ‘secular’.

40:12

The Emerging Church

The Emerging Church Movement (ECM) is notoriously difficult to define. What are scholars of ‘religion’ to do with a trend seemingly emerging both within and without many contemporary manifestations of (Western) Christianity, that is both anti-institutional and ecumenical, aims to avoid hierarchies and power structures, embraces creativity,...

43:49

Prayer, Pretense, and Personification: How God becomes real

Luhrmann details the rise of evangelicals in the 60’s and 70’s, and how anthropological work can be informed by evolutionary psychology. This serves as a framework to understand the unique training processes that teach an individual that their mind is not only open to their own thoughts, but God’s as well.

39:49

Spiritualism and Shamanism

Wilson's 'apprenticeship' model not only gives us a way to conceptualise shamanism without recourse to sui generis discourse, but draws interesting parallels between indigenous cultures and the somewhat hidden world of heterodox religious practices in the West.

The Postsecular

Discussion focuses upon the history of the 'postsecular', potential definitions, disciplinary and geographical differences, and ultimately suggests that ‘postsecularity’ is effectively dressing up ‘secularity’ in obfuscating clothing.In his 2011 Presidential Address to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion in Milwaukee,

Bricolage

In this interview with Chris, Altglas discusses the complex genealogy of 'bricolage', tracing a movement from forms of cultural warfare to 'playful, postmodern bricoleurs' - what many might be tempted to dub 'pick and mix spirituality'. However, as Altglas goes on to demonstrate,...

Visual Culture and the Study of Religion

After the keynote, at the EASR, guest interviewer George Ioannides had the opportunity to meet with Professor Meyer to discuss her work, her career, her views on the importance of studying religion and/as material and visual culture, and her advice for students who similarly wish to research topics at the intersection of cultural anthropology and the study of religion.

47:19

Narrative and Reflexivity in the Study of Religion: A Roundtable Discussion (Video and Audio!)

The idea for this roundtable was that it would follow on directly from this week's interview on religion and literature, but expand the discussion to cover a variety of points relating to narrative, autobiography and (auto)ethnography in the study of religion. Featuring Dr Wendy Dossett, Prof. Elaine Graham, Dr Dawn Llewellyn, Ethan Quillen, and Dr Alana Vincent.

Baby Boomers, Quest Culture, and Spiritual Seeking

In this interview, discussion focuses on Roof’s work on the Baby Boom generation and beyond, particularly as expressed in his books A Generation of Seekers (1993) and Spiritual Marketplace (1999). In these books, Roof combined survey data with panel studies and interviews across a broad spectrum...

Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict

Big Gods: 1. Watched people are nice people, 2. Religion is more in the situation than in the person, 3. Hell is stronger than heaven, 4. Trust people who trust in God, 5. Religious actions speak louder than words, 6. Unworshipped Gods are impotent Gods, 7. Big Gods for Big Groups, 8. Religious groups cooperate in order to compete.

The Subtle Body

During the annual conference of the European Association for the Study of Religion at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, Damon Lycourinos had the pleasure of interviewing Jay regarding her work on the subtle body and alternative notions of intersubjectivity, addressing both the theoretical and methodological...

1:00:56

Demons, possessions, and exorcisms: Sean McCloud on “Spiritual Warfare”

How should one approach the study of demons and spiritual warfare? In this conversation with University of North Carolina, Charlotte professor Sean McCloud, demons, possessions, and exorcisms that might have once been considered fringe or marginal elements of the American religious scene are now part of a robust “haunted” or supernatural landscape.

Sources of Meaning and Meaning in Life – An interview with Tatjana Schnell

Recently, scholars have placed the concept of ‘meaning making’ as an important area of focus within psychology of religion. Some people find meaning in religious or spiritual experience and beliefs while others find meaning on more secular mediums in life. However, if humans are truly on a “search for meaning”, as Frankl has argued, what might be some of the sources of such meaning?

51:21

“Would You Still Call Yourself an Asianist?”

Over the course of Ramey's career he has gradually and smoothly made a significant shift. Of course he still studies material relevant to his earlier training, but a shift in research focus from inter-religious cooperation to diaspora religion, eventually studying south Asian communities in the U.S.

THATCamp Roundtable on Digital Religious Studies

What does it mean to teach or research religious studies digitally? Does religious "data" make digital religious studies distinct within the digital humanities? What is a digital religious studies research project you think more people should know about? How can departments and the field better support digital methods and pedagogies? Six scholars gathered at the AAR's groundbreaking THATCamp to discuss these questions and more!

“Unruly Angels”: An Interview with Ingvild Gilhus

Angels seem always to break boundaries. Neither human nor god, male nor female, whether Christian or otherwise, angels seem always to have functioned as representatives of an unruly popular religious impulse which seems to sit just below the elite constructions with which the study of religion has traditionally concerned itself.

Religion, Spirituality and Health

Religion, spiritualty and health – oh my! In this day and age, we might be inclined to ask if these three words, when combined, can contribute anything resembling a positive health outcome. In other words, can being religious or spiritual actually contribute to an individual’s overall health? Dr. Koenig answers the questions with a resounding yes!

Habermas, Religion and the Post-Secular

Habermas mostly ignored religion, contending that it was not rational enough to be included in public debate. But over the past decade, he has begun to reexamine religion in light of its persistence in the modern world, calling this a turn toward post-secular society. He argues that religion deserves a place in public debate,...

55:30

The Holberg Prize 2014 Episode With Michael Cook, “Bigger Things Do Rest On Smaller Things.”

Professor Michael Cook, winner of the Holberg Prize 2014, has had a huge influence on the historical study of Islam. In this episode, Knut interviews Professor Cook about his decision to go into history in the first place, about his writing process, the role of the humanities, his reflections about teaching, and why he finds it so important to get the details right.

1:03:23

Roundtable on Religious Studies and Academic Credibility beyond ‘World Religions’

A while back a few of us gathered for what became the first of a 'successful' bout of roundtables conducted by a cadre of 'amazing people' with differing and 'unique' opinions. In that first ‘test’ for the ones that would follow, six of us gathered together to discuss the ‘future of religious studies.’

1:16:57

Authors meet Critics: “New Age Spirituality”

Following from our interview on Monday with Ingvild Gilhus, today's podcast presents an "authors meet critics" session on the new edited volume by Ingvild Gilhus and Steven Sutcliffe, New Age Spirituality: Rethinking Religion. This was recorded at the University of Edinburgh at the launch of the book,

47:08

Book Reviews, May, 2014 – Graham Harvey, Morgan Luck, and James Cox

Publishers just keep asking us to review their books. And who are we to refuse? Free books! So we've now decided to make book reviews a regular feature of the RSP. The format is exactly the same as it was previously. We handed out a few books to some of our friends and sat them down (or at least tried in one case)...

48:42

The Uses of “Indigenous Religion”

Since the 1980s, the category of "Indigenous Religion" - or "Religions" - has become a staple feature of the terminology of the study of religion. But what do we mean when we use it? Is it necessarily tied to a particular geographical area? Or something which originates with a particular ethnic group,

45:33

Before “Religion”: a History of a Modern Concept

Brent Nongbri talks to Jack Tsonis about his recent book, "Before Religion: a History of a Modern Concept". Nongbri provides an overview of the history of "religion" as a concept in the English speaking world, highlighting that the seemingly "natural" or "obvious" definition of the term is actually highly specific to the modern West.

34:22

Christmas Special 2014 – MasterBrain!

here are some traditions that make this time of the year special. End-of-year listicles, the "War on Christmas" debate, animations of elves dancing with your family's heads pasted on... and of course, the RSP "Christmas" Special! This year, Jonathan Tuckett is your host (ably assisted by Ethan Quillen) for MasterBrain,...

The Burning Saints, Fire-Walking Rituals of the Anastenaria

It’s dark outside. The moon hangs in the sky and the soft smell of smoke permeates the warm air as it stings your eyes. Looking down, you notice the glow from burning coals, as hot as 535 degrees C, scattered on the ground below. When Saint Constantine calls you to become a firewalker – you answer - at least if you are one of the Anastenaria.

39:45

The Psychology of Prayer: An interview with Kevin Ladd

Ladd begins the interview by discussing what it means to pray. Perhaps most important, he explains how prayer is defined for research purposes, emphasizing that there is no essential definition, nor is one desirable. In taking care to uphold a scientific understanding of prayer, rather than a theologically apologetic one,...

Global Categories; Local Contexts

Carlo Ginzburg is professor emeritus in History of European Cultures in Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa, Italy. A distinguished historian with a remarkable career, Ginzburg is known for his microhistorical research approach. His most well-known book The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller follows clues...

Christian Reconstruction

Rousas John Rushdoony might be one of the most important Christian theologians you've never heard of. In this interview, Professor Michael McVicar discusses Rushdoony and Christian Reconstruction. McVicar gained unprecedented access to Rushdoony's personal files,...

Encounters Between Buddhism and the West

In this story is a continuation of "dissident orientalism", a conflict inherent within the colonial project wherein communities and personal trajectories become embedded within local religious contexts. A distinction made, both in Ireland and Burma, between native religion and the religion of the coloniser serves...

African Christianity in the West

‘Africa’. ‘Christianity’. ‘The West’. Three seemingly simple terms with clear referents. Three categories which – perhaps unsurprisingly, to regular listeners of the RSP – have been, and continue to be, associated with and invoked in support of myriad competing agendas, truth claims, ideologies, and more.

36:28

Religion and Film

The interview explores S. Brent Plate's personal research journey into this relatively young field, charting the history of the field in the process. Discussion then turns to the key terms involved... what are we meaning by "religion and film"? The relationship of established "world religions" to cinema? Religion/s on Film? Documentaries?

39:21

‘Religious’ and ‘Spiritual’ Struggles: Now in ‘Nonreligious’ and ‘Nonspiritual’ flavors!

In this interview, Dr. Julie Exline discusses what led to her interest in Struggles and some of the background behind the development of the Religious and Spiritual Struggle Scale. She goes on to talk about why the scale includes struggles relevant to both religious believers and nonbelievers and how this work related to some of her current work on god images in both groups.

31:29

Lived Religion: Part 2

In Part 2 of this week's interview, Meredith McGuire continues to speak to Martin about the multiple issues of power, normativity and embodiment of religious life that can be observed through her concept of Lived Religion. Meredith McGuire shows how Lived Religion, a concept she has coined,...

Religion, gender and corporeality

How can religious studies be informed by theories around gender and corporeality? How is gender expressed in today's women's spirituality and in religions that consider femininity to be a way to access power around sexuality and procreation? When it comes to the study of gender and religion,...

Lived Religion: Part 1

Dr. Meredith McGuire talks about the multiple issues of power, normativity and embodiment of religious life that can be observed through her concept of Lived Religion. Part 2 on Wednesday! Meredith McGuire shows how Lived Religion, a concept she has coined, is at the core of this distinction and offers a way of understanding religious experiences as creative,

21st Century Irish Paganism

in this interview, we discuss Jenny Butler's work on Paganism in Ireland, the impact of that particular context upon the Paganism/s she has researched - particularly in terms of language, mythology, and the natural landscape - and also some of the issues associated with the academic study of Paganism in general.

The Supernatural and the New Comparativism

Jeffrey Kripal argues that we need to make room for the paranormal in the study of religion, and that consciousness should be at the forefront of our study.

36:41

The Invention of the Secular Academy

The Religious Studies Project, as an academic endeavour studying religion, is of course devoutly secular. In fact, we tend to take the connection between secularity and the academy completely for granted. But was this always the case? If not, how did it become so? And what does secular mean in this context?

39:19

Religion and Planetary Ethics

Speaking of religions as “eco-social constructions across multiple species, over multiple generations, and over multiple histories,” in this interview Whitney Bauman puts forward an ethics of understanding ourselves and others as planetary creatures, and understanding religion, science, and nature as non-foundational, non-substantive categories.

39:40

Discursive Approaches and the Crises of Religious Studies

What is a discursive approach to the study of religion? And how can it answer the crises of contemporary RS? Kocku von Stuckrad tells David Robertson in this week's RSP podcast. Discursive analysis of one kind or another is perhaps the most prominent methodology in the study of religion today.

Is Religion Special? A Critical Look at Religion, Wellbeing and Prosociality

Is religion good for your health and wellbeing? Does religion promote prosociality? While positive stereotypes prevail in these domains, studies also typically answer these questions in the affirmative and as such, it is easy to think that there must be something special, sui generis,...

41:56

Religious Demography in the US

In this week's podcast we focus on religious demography and identification, survey tools used for religious demography in America, differences between religious identities and identifications, Americans’ shifting religious identifications, correlations between religion and social positions such as ethnicity or generational cohort, and correlations with various social and political issues.

Of Demons, Saints and Heaven: Andean religious beliefs in Peru

In his interview with Sidney Castillo, Dr. Luis Millones discusses some of the traditions that have formed the basis for his research, particularly in the northern coast, northern highlands and south highlands of Peru. He mentions that, with the impact of colonization,...

Gender, queer theory and religion

In this interview, Dr. Mary Jo Neitz continues the conversation about religion and gender by focusing on theories from LGBT studies and queer studies. Using her work as an ethnographer, as well as the work of American philosopher Judith Butler, Neitz distinguishes the categories...

Race and Religion: Intertwined Social Constructions

In this interview, we focus the topic of race: particularly how it has been examined (and ignored) in the field of religious studies, how it has been confused with ethnicity, how race and religion have been theorized as mutually constitutive, limitations and occlusions in the study of race and religion, and why race is a category scholars of religion cannot afford to ignore.

37:23

Minority Religions and the Law

Surely we have moved past the idea of sinister cults brainwashing innocent victims? When it comes to the law, not so, Susan Palmer tells David G. Robertson.cult" and "sect" uncritically. Nevertheless, outside of academia, the language of "cults" continues to be used,...

35:36

Indian Rationalism, and a Relational Approach to Nonreligion

It is unfortunate fact that in popular ‘Western’ imagination, the land of India is frequently orientalised, and naively conceptualized as ‘the quintessential land of religion, spirituality, and miracles.’ Although we would certainly not want to completely invert this stereotype by substituting one unnuanced and inaccurate construct for another,...

Religion and Authority in Asia

Given its contextual and perspectival malleability, the notion of ‘authority', and even more so of ‘religious authority’, is challenging to define and to study. In today’s interview with Paulina Kolata, Dr Erica Baffelli discusses the notion of authority and charismatic leadership in the context of her research on New and ‘New’ New religions in contemporary Japan.

Pilgrimage in Japan and Beyond: Part 1

Professor Ian Reader discusses his publication ‘Pilgrimage in the Marketplace’, which explores the very ‘worldly’ conditions of development, popularisation, and ultimately, survival of pilgrimage centres in connection to the dynamics of the marketplace through which the ‘sacred’ as a category can be sustained.

Social Constructionism

What is social constructionism, and how is it important to the study of religion? Titus Hjelm explains how approaches which see social realities as built from discourses challenge how we think about ontology, epistemology and power.What is social constructionism, and how is it important to the study of religion? In this interview,

Pilgrimage in Japan and Beyond: Part 2

Professor Ian Reader discusses his publication ‘Pilgrimage in the Marketplace’, which explores the very ‘worldly’ conditions of development, popularisation, and ultimately, survival of pilgrimage centres in connection to the dynamics of the marketplace through which the ‘sacred’ as a category can be sustained.

The Fate of Earthly Things

In this interview, Molly Bassett begins by introducing us to the world of Middle America, the sources scholars use today to study this period and its cultures, and then describes the benefits and challenges of teaching with Meso-American materials. Her students learn not only to challenge the categories scholars use to describe religious ideas like "god,"...

41:12

The Brethren in Scotland

Gardenstoun is a fishing village in the North-East of Scotland with a population of only 700 and six churches, four of which are branches of the Plymouth Brethren. Anthropology "at home" - within our own culture, rather than that of some exotic Other - undermines many of the assumptions that the study of religion is based upon,...

Is Britain still a Christian country?

In what sense can a country be “Christian”? Today on the Religious Studies Project, we welcome back Professor Linda Woodhead to discuss and interrogate the question "Is Britain Still a Christian Country?", the topic of her recent Croall Lectures at the University of Edinburgh.

Comics and the Superhero Afterlife

In this wide-ranging interview with A. David Lewis, comic books are presented as an irreplaceable cultural medium for engaging with issues of mortality, identity, subjectivity, and cosmology. With an overwhelming slate of comic book driven television series (Walking Dead, Gotham,...

50:50

Gurdjieff and the Study of Contemporary Religion

David Robertson speaks to two remarkable scholars, Carole Cusack and Steven Sutcliffe, on the significance of G. I. Gurdjieff to the study of religion. How do we approach figures like Gurdjieff whose legacies (and archives) are tightly controlled by their followers, and who often aren't seen as worthy of study by the academy and publishers?

36:19

Understanding the Secular

Making their own contributions to the discourse, Shook and Zuckerman briefly discuss the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Secularism they are co-editing, the growing field of secular studies, what it might mean to ’be secular‘, different secularisms, and offer up two different views of the relationship between categories such as ’religion‘ and ’secular‘.

Sri Lankan Buddhism and Colonialism

Usually one of the first associations upon hearing ‘Sri Lankan Buddhism’ is either the religious violence that swept across the island in the recent decades, or the Pali canon and Theravada Buddhism. In this interview with Anja Pogacnik, Dr. Stephen Berkwitz doesn’t really speak of either.

The Invention of Religion in Japan

In this interview, Jason Josephson discusses the Japanese appropriation of the modern category of "religion." He first describes how Shinto is typically represented in EuroAmerican religious studies courses. He then describes the various actors and processes (both European and native)...

41:49

The Critical Study of Religion

Professor Bruce Lincoln from the University of Chicago discusses a variety of topics including werewolves, critical theory, pedagogy, and self-imposed estrangement from the academic study of religion. In this interview, Professor Bruce Lincoln from the University of Chicago Divinity School discusses a variety of topics including werewolves, critical theory,

“Practice What You Preach”: CREDs and CRUDs

Religious actions speak louder than words. Dr. Jonathan Lanman on credibility enhancing displays (CREDs), and the role that such public displays of commitment play in the acquisition of both belief and nonbelief.Actions typically speak louder than words. A common version of this statement - practice...

God’s Mind, Your Mind, and Theory of Mind

What do God's mind and your mind have in common? A core tenet of cognitive science of religion (CSR) is that the folk-psychological ability to explain human behavior in terms of beliefs, desires and intentions – known as theory of mind (ToM) – is also a system that makes us receptive to belief in the supernatural.

Self-immolation as a religious act: The contested martyrdom of Roger Allen LaPorte, Catholic Worker

In this interview, postdoctoral researcher of U.S. Catholicism, Francesca Cadeddu, shares some of her reflections on Roger Allen LaPorte, whose contested martyrdom by self-immolation is the topic of her present postdoctoral project.Millions of people, most of them civilians, were killed in the Vietnam War. Almost 58,000 of the war's victims were American citizens.

Sufism

Sufism

In this interview, Milad Milani discusses the basic orientation and history of Sufi thought. He also speaks about the diverse national variations of Sufism, particularly with respect to Iranian (or “Persianate”) Sufism. The interview concludes with a few critical remarks on the questionable appropriation of Sufism in contemporary Western discourses on religion.

40:23

Religion as an Evolutionary Organism

In this interview, David Sloan Wilson gives an overview of his research studying religious groups as adaptive units, specifically discussing his work directing the Binghamton Religion and Spirituality Project. He introduces the field of evolutionary religious studies, explaining that 'all aspects of humanity can be understood, in some sense, as a product of evolution'.

33:59

Categorising “Religion”: From Case Studies to Methodology

In this interview, Dr Teemu Taira discusses the role of marginal traditions in understanding the application of the term "religion" in differing context, in particular he discusses Karhun Kansa, the People of the Bear. This leads onto a methodological discussion on the use of the term and the role scholars play in this discourse.

51:03

Embodied religious practices, child psychology and cognitive neuroscience

Bahler discusses the notion of ritual as a locus of power in terms of structure and agency. His recent book, Childlike Peace in Levinas and Merleau-Ponty. Intersubjectivity as a Dialectical Spiral (Lexington Books, forthcoming) focuses on neuroscience to grasp the topic power relations at the confluence of religion and other social influences on one’s trajectories.

44:03

A Critical Introduction to the History, Beliefs, and Practices of Wiccans

In this interview Ethan Doyle White, author of the book Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft, introduces his systematic overview of the contested history and multifaceted developments of Wicca. White presents his own methodological approaches and theoretical data utilising both emic and etic sources in a thematic framework.

41:06

An Introduction to the Sociology of Religion

What is the sociology of religion? What are its particular concerns, dominant themes and defining methodologies? Where did it begin, and how has it evolved? This interview with Grace Davie, the first in our BSA SOCREL series, introduces this important and historically influential approach to the study of religion.

36:59

Historical, Popular, and Scholarly Constructions of Yoga

In its earliest uses, the word “yoga” meant “yoke,” primarily yoking a warhorse to a chariot. In the classical period, yoga took on a variety of other meanings, including yoking the mind-body complex through meditative practices, such as breath control and mantras, to achieve liberation. In this interview,...

Teaching and Learning in Contemporary Religious Studies

Today we are joined by Dr Dominic Corrywright of Oxford Brookes University in the UK, to discuss current developments in higher education pedagogy, the challenges and opportunities that these present for Religious Studies, and some practical examples from Dominic’s own experience.

51:31

Global(ized) religion and the study of religious tensions

This interview with global studies pioneer Mark Juergensmeyer takes on his keynote address at the 2016 Eastern International Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (EIR-AAR) at the University of Pittsburgh. He interrogates the intersections of different religions traditions,...

37:36

Communism and Catholicism: Religion and Religious Studies in Lithuania

What is the religious field like in a country where religion was banned for half of the 20th century? And how do you set up a Religious Studies department there? Under Communism, religion was suppressed in the formerly Catholic Eastern European country of Lithuania until the 1990s.

48:42

Christmas Special 2015 – Fourteen to One!

Fourteen contestants. One tetchy quizmaster. Three microphones. Numerous cases of wine. One glamorous assistant. Many bruised egos. A boisterous studio audience. A splash of irreverence. Dozens of questions. Four years of podcasts! A rapidly diminishing reservoir of academic credibility. And far, far too many in-jokes...

37:58

Researching Radicalisation

We discuss what we mean by 'radicalisation', and what its connections to socialisation, terrorism, and 'religion' might be. We take on the methodological question of how one might go about researching such a contested topic, and look specifically at some of Matthew's findings relating to the causes of radicalisation, and the neo-Durkheimian 'sacred'.

22:49

ISKCON In Britain

Kim Knott provides an overview of the Hare Krishna movement in Britain, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

32:33

Is Secularism a World Religion?

Discussion starts with the entanglement of the concepts 'religion' and 'secularism', a brief discussion of the problems associated with the World Religions Paradigm, and then moves to the pedagogical merits and challenges of teaching 'secularism/s' within a World Religions model. We hope you enjoy this experiment!

31:13

Religion and Feminism

'Religion' and 'Feminism' are two concepts that have a complex relationship in the popular imaginary. But what do academics mean by these two concepts? And how can we study their interrelationship? What can we say about 'religion and feminism', about the academic study of 'religion and feminism',...

31:09

Religion, Youth, and Intergenerationality

We begin this interview by asking what is ‘youth’? How do sociologists define it? What are some of the current trends in sociological research on youth? What, if anything, is distinctive about youth experience? Discussion then turns to ‘religion and youth’, focusing on why scholars might be interested in it,...

35:45

Evangelicalism and Civic Space

In this podcast, Anna Strhan talks to Katie Aston about her research among evangelical Christians, exploring their search for coherence in the contemporary city. How do the members of conservative Anglican congregations negotiate their place in a secular multicultural society,...

25:57

Death, Music, and Ritual: Contemporary Requiems in the Commemoration of Death and Violence

Hoondert discusses the step away from the liturgy associated with requiems as way for today's individual to deal with death or violence in their own way. Still, It is clear that the ritual elements of the requiem remains, hence where this contemporary music fits into the sacral landscape is up for debate.

37:06

Sociology of Religion – and Religious Studies?

What makes the sociology of religion and Religious Studies distinct from each other - if anything? Paul-Francois Tremlett, Titus Hjelm and David Robertson discuss what the two approaches have in common, and how they differ. Importantly, they consider how they might learn from each other.

36:14

Researching Religious Diversity

In this interview, we discuss the broad topic of diversity, contrast this with concepts of 'difference', and ask what on Steven Vertovec might mean by the concept of 'super-diversity' (2007). We then ask why scholars might be interested in situations of 'religious diversity',...

25:24

ISKCON And When New Religions Aren’t So New Anymore

A roundtable discussion considering the future of ISKCON and what happens when religions are no longer 'new'. As a follow-up to our interview with Kim Knott on ISKCON in Britain, this podcast is a roundtable discussion at the ISKCON 50 conference at Bath Spa University, 2016.

34:22

Religious Studies as a Discipline

Aaron Hughes (University of Rochester) has been a vocal critic of some of the theories and methods used by religious studies scholars working on Islam. In this podcast, he discusses his critique of the discipline and practice of religious studies he has made through works such as Situating Islam (Equinox, 2008), Theorizing Islam (Equinox, 2012), Abrahamic Religions (Oxford, 2012), The Study of Judaism (SUNY, 2013), and, most recently, Islam and the Tyranny of Authenticity (Equinox, 2015).

35:08

Religion and American Law

In this interview with Brad Stoddard, Professor Eric Mazur discusses a variety of issues relating to religion and law in the USA, such as the evolving state of First Amendment jurisprudence, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, dominant trends in the study of religion and American law.

45:14

New Horizons in the Sociology of Religion: Beyond Secularization?

In this longer-than-usual episode, Chris and David provide an interlinking narrative between Grace Davie, Joe Webster, Carole Cusack, Jonathan Jong, Paul-Francois Tremlett, Linda Woodhead and Kim Knott, reflecting on current or future developments in the sociology of religion which challenge the ubiquity of the secularization thesis,...

28:34

Getting to Know the North American Association for the Study of Religion

In this interview, Russell McCutcheon and Aaron Hughes discuss the North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR), an international organization dedicated to historical, critical, and social scientific approaches to the study of religion. In this interview, Russell McCutcheon and Aaron Hughes discuss the North American...

28:27

See you in the next life? Cognitive foundations of reincarnation beliefs

Human reincarnation: Same person, different body, another life. While conceptual scaffolding surrounding the idea of reincarnation can vary widely from culture to culture, in this podcast Claire White draws on some of her recent research pointing out that many similarities exist in how individuals reason about and discern the pre-rebirth identities of the reincarnated.

47:43

Nature alive: Amazonian religion in Peru

In this podcast, Dr Jaime Regan Mainville, a leading researcher in the anthropology of religion and linguistics, discusses his ethnographic research among some of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. The Amazon rainforest has always been a land filled with mystery since its 'discovery'.

Method and Theory in the Cognitive Sciences of Religion

Recorded at the 2015 North American Association for the Study of Religion (NAASR) conference, Robert McCauley discusses methodological and theoretical issues within the cognitive sciences of religion. "Science surprises us!" - McCauley podcast with the Religious Studies Project in 2014, Dr. Robert McCauley gave an overview of some of these...

36:37

The “Axial Age”: Problematising Religious History in a Post-Colonial Setting

In the latest #RSPpod from our friends in Australia, Dr Jack Tsonis gets fired up about the "Axial Age" as well as the difficulties the immediate post-PhD years. Karl Jaspers created the term “Axial Age” in 1949 after considering that the Bhagavad Gita, the Pali Canon, the Book of Isaiah,...

36:09

Video Games and Religious Studies

The project of legitimating new cultural commodities into the canon of interpretative objects can be lengthy process. In this interview with University of North Carolina at Greensboro Associate Professor Greg Grieve, video games are presented as a content moving from the margins to the center of the intersection of religion and popular culture.

DEATH, Religion, and Terror Management Theory

Psychologist Dr. Jonathan Jong draws on experimental research utilizing terror management theory to discuss the role of religious and other worldviews in assuaging the fear of the inevitable—DEATH. One year before his own death in 1790, Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to the French scientist Jean-Baptiste,

30:36

Permutations of Secularism

In this interview, we first focus on the origins of the term “secularism,” the proliferation of its meanings, and the uses to which it is put in Anglo-American contexts. Then we discuss the uses of the terms secularism and the secular today, particularly using a specific case study from Joe’s research on American nonbeliever organizations.

Music, Marketing and Megachurches

Music is a big part of a new "mediapolois", part of a marketing matrix of people, places and industries. Today, music's meaning is more often part of a branded ecosystem, not limited to entertainment, but part of the experience of everyday life, including religion.

33:36

From the Ku Klux Klan to Zombies

Many of us only know about the white supremacist group the Ku Klux Klan through film and television, and much of what we see blurs fact and fiction. Distinguishing each side of that messy divide is the prolific Kelly J. Baker, exploring how media portrayals of the hate group have influenced audiences and, in turn, fed back on its own members.

40:16

UFOs, Conspiracy Theories… and Religion?

Area 51, Ancient Aliens, endemic child abuse at the BBC, and Reptilians,... This interview begins with David's own journey to this research field, before considering some basic questions such as "what is a conspiracy theory?"

34:54

Identity and Capitalism

This interview with Craig Martin explores the limits of identity formation under modern Capitalism. Martin's work Capitalizing Religion: Ideology and the Opiate of the Bourgeoisie focuses on the ways in which culture and religion are produced for consumption.

25:28

BDSM as Religious Practice

Alison Robertson gives an insight to her doctoral research on BDSM as religious practice. In this interview Alison Robertson gives an insight to her doctoral research on BDSM (Bondage, Dominance, and Submission) as religious practice. Throughout her research, Robertson has examined the relationship between BDSM and religiosity,

Conversion and Deconversion as Concepts in the Sociology of Religion

For this interview with Lynn Davidman, we focus on the concepts of conversion and deconversion, illustrations of these processes in various contexts, what each term means and how each is experienced in someone's life, the histories of these terms and their use in scholarship, and issues that arise from their conceptualization or use.

36:20

Descriptions of Religion as Explanations of Religion

This week's podcast features Kathryn Lofton and John Modern on the entanglement of description and explanation, the importance of self-reflexivity, and answering the "so what?" question In this week's podcast, Kathryn Lofton and John Modern join Adam Miller for a conversation that hovers around the relationship...

34:40

Discourse, Australia Edition

Breann Fallon, Carole Cusack and Ray Radford approach the Australian news from a Religious Studies perspective. We cover the appeal of Cardinal George Pell, the drama around Israel Folau, and the impact of Christianity on the recent Australian federal election results.

37:30

Demystifying the Study of Religion

In this podcast we have a group discussion about Russell McCutcheon's new book, Religion in Theory and Practice: Demystifying the Field for Burgeoning Academics. Joining us on the podcast is not only the author himself, but two young scholars who also contributed to the book, Matt Sheedy and Tara Baldrick-Marone.

40:44

Philology and the Comparative Study of Myths

In this week’s podcasts, Dr. Paola Corrente gives us insights in how the use of the philological approach can be beneficial for, not only providing a common and solid framework for comparative research but also, for providing more suitable ways of classification according to linguistic criteria. Her work on the “dying gods” –i.e. gods that die but come back to life– of Ancient Greece and Mesopotamia, which draws on the concept formulated by James George Frazer, provides a case for this exercise.

32:59

Natural Selection In the Evolution of Religion

In this week's podcast, professor Armin Geertz outlines an answer elaborating on the arguments presented in his co-authored book The Emergence and Evolution of Religion by Means of Natural Selection. He argues that there are multilevel selection processes that happen within different sociocultural formations, and these are key to understanding how religion has evolved throughout history.

36:49

Critical Approaches to Pre-Islamic Arabia and Early Islam

Given the way in which many introductory courses present the history of early Islam and pre-Islamic Arabia, we may be tempted to think that the historical facts were well established and the narrative uncontested. However, this is far from the case. What evidence do we actually have from this period, and how may it challenge the conventional narratives that have become canonised in sacred and academic histories? What misconceptions might be challenged by modern epigraphic work, or the application of Social Identity theories to ancient texts? And why might this matter for contemporary Islam, contemporary Islamic Studies, and the critical study of religion more broadly? Joining Chris to discuss these questions, is Dr Ilkka Lindstedt of the University of Helsinki.

25:03

Christmas Special 2016 – The Unverifiable Truth-Claim!

"The Unverifiable Truth-claim", recorded at BASR 2016, hosted by David Robertson, and featuring Christopher Cotter, Katie Aston, Jonathan Tuckett, and Krittika Bhatta... Bhatta... Bhattacharjee! Plus a special appearance by RSP Managing Editor, Thomas Coleman!

38:35

Discourse #8 (June 2019)

This month on Discourse, Breann Fallon, Carole Cusack and Ray Radford approach the Australian news from a Religious Studies perspective. We cover the appeal of Cardinal George Pell, the drama around Israel Folau, and the impact of Christianity on the recent Australian federal election results.

51:11

Nonreligion, Religion, and Public Health

The link between religion/spirituality (RS) and health is a recurring theme in the empirical literature within the psychology and sociology of religion, medical studies, and other disciplines. Although this research is usually limited to correlational studies, RS is often interpreted to be an important causal factor in positive health outcomes. This has led some academics, NGO's, and governments to argue that the putative health benefits of RS might be harnessed for public health and public policy more broadly. For example, the United States Army has recently launched a “spiritual health” program, and in the United Kingdom there is an ongoing debate about whether mindfulness meditation should be taught in schools. Government initiatives aside, what if the nonreligious are equally as healthy? In this podcast, Thomas J. Coleman III interviews Dr. David Speed on how research using nonreligious and nonbelieving samples problematizes some of the underlying assumptions of the relationship between RS and public health.

26:19

Discourse #6, March Edition: With Joel Ritala, Jarno Sandberg, Anton Stranden, and Martta Tenhu

This special edition of #Discourse was recorded at the University of Helsinki in mid-February, with Chris and Study of Religion students Joel Ritala, Jarno Sandberg, Anton Stranden and Martta Tenhu. Topics covered include conspiracy theories, the entanglement of 'religion' in education and festive celebrations in Finland and the UK, the first amendment of the United States constitution, and a controversial conversion in the Netherlands.

42:01

Spatial Contestations and Conversions

Listeners to the Religious Studies Project, particularly in a European context, might be quite familiar with the sight of a former church building that has now turned derelict, or is being used for a purposes that perhaps it wasn’t intended for, or is being rejuvenated by another ‘religious’ community, another Christian community, or put to some other use. Chris is joined today by Daan Beekers to discuss spatial contestations and conversions, particularly looking at (former) church buildings in the Dutch context.

45:46

When Archive Meets A.I. – Computational Humanities Research on a Danish Secular Saint

In this week’s podcast, Katrine Frøkjaer Baunvig discusses preliminary results from the research project “Waking the Dead”. This project aims to build an a.i. bot of Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783-1872), a Danish “secular saint” considered to be the father of modern Denmark, who contributed immensely into generating a national consciousness through his writings, both in a political and religious way.

1:08:44

EASR 2019 Publishing Panel

This panel, recorded at the EASR conference 2019 at the University of Tartu, is intended for PhD students and early career scholars who want to learn more about the publishing world.

36:38

When Islam Is Not a Religion

Asma Uddin is the author of When Islam Is Not a Religion: Inside America's Fight for Religious Freedom. In this book, Uddin examines an alarming trend to redefine Islam as a political ideology, not a religion. In our conversation, we track the history of this movement to redefine Islam and its implications for the rights of Muslims. We discuss the widespread presumption among American progressives that courts tend to protect religious freedom for Christians, but not for Muslims, and we examine particular stories that support and problematize that narrative. In particular, Uddin provides vivid examples of how American courts have reacted to arguments that Islam is not a religion.

40:39

Reflections on “Thinking with Jonathan Z. Smith”

Aaron W. Hughes, the keynote speaker for the #JZSatNTNU Conference in Trondheim, Norway, talks conference panelist Andie Alexander about the legacy of Jonathan Z. Smith's work for the field of religious studies.

40:42

BASR 2019: The State of the Discipline

Vivian Asimos and Theodora Wildcroft took the opportunity to ask the delegates of BASR 2019 what inspired them about the conference theme, their opinion about major trends in the discipline, and how they were personally feeling about REF 2021.

54:21

Lady Death and the Pluralization of Latin American Religion

In today’s podcast, Professor R. Andrew Chesnut connects Brazil’s colonial past to its pluralist present and explains why folk saint devotion to Santa Muerte or Lady Death is one of the fastest growing religious movements in the world.

39:04

Doctors and Stigmatics in the 19th and 20th centuries

In this week's podcast with Gabor Klaniczay we learn about cases of stigmata during the 19th and 20th century in Europe, where medical discourses clashed with as well as supported religious discourses about the authenticity and meaning of famous stigmata cases like Italian Padre Pio.

43:17

Challenges and Responsibilities for the Public Scholar of Religion

In this interview, Megan Goodwin examines the current state of public religious studies scholarship. “Public scholar” has become a buzzword in some corners of the discipline of religious studies, variously referring to scholars who share their research to a broader audience on social media platforms, in popular media outlets, or through multimedia such as podcasts and online video. As more scholars have entered these ranks, the broader field has taken notice.

51:17

How Religious Freedom Makes Religion

Tisa Wenger tells David Robertson how local, national, and international regimes of religious freedom have produced and reproduced the category 'religion' and its others in the modern world.

35:31

The secularization of discourse in contemporary Latin American neoconservatism

In this week’s podcast, Professor Jerry Espinoza Rivera explains how Latin American conservatism became neoconservatism. Though Latin America is diverse, conservatism has been a widespread in the region shaping not only the political power plays of religious institutions but the people's daily experience of the world. Recently, however, neoconservatism has managed to develop a language of its own that blends science and philosophy with historical analysis of the contemporary world political landscape to become an significant religio-cultural force.

33:03

Atheism, New Religious Movements, and Cultural Tension

Extensive research has been conducted in exploration of the American religious landscape; however, only recently has social science research started to explore nonbelief in any detail. Research on nonbelief has been limited as most research focuses on the popularity of the religious “nones” or the complexities of alternative faith expressions such as spirituality. Through two studies, one qualitative and one quantitative, Dr. Christopher F. Silver's research explored how nonbelievers’ self-identify.

32:10

Straight White American Jesus, the podcast

In this week's podcast, Skidmore College Professor Bradley Onishi speaks about Straight White American Jesus, a podcast he co-hosts with Dan Miller that blends insider religious experience with academic expertise about American Evangelicalism.

34:28

Buddhism in the critical classroom

How do we deal with different cultural languages when teaching an Introduction to Buddhism course? Is cultural familiarity something to be broken immediately and displaced by new concepts and perspectives? Is it to be leveraged as devices for easy onboarding to other, more unfamiliar terms and ideas? Are they to be outright ignored? David Robertson is joined by Matthew Hayes

30:22

Discussing Pious Fashion and Muslim Dress Beyond the Headscarf

In this discussion, we cover some key terms from Bucar's book, such as what Pious Fashion is, why it might be defined that way, and how it helps further a conversation about Muslim women beyond the veil. We discuss the differences in performing fieldwork for this project in Iran, Indonesia, and Turkey. Connecting this research to Islamophobia and Muslim experience in America, Liz Bucar reflects on how modesty has become more mainstream.

44:58

Science Fiction, Video Games, and Religion

Science fiction and video games are more visible than ever as their popularity reaches record numbers. From classic arcade games to modern open-world sandbox simulators that require hundreds of hours to complete fully, science fiction is one of the most common gaming genres. This podcast explores the ways religion and science fiction appear together in these cultural products, asks how gamers see the value of this play, and how we seek belief in things that are 'out of this world' as a means to escape the present by sharing our hopes about the future.

33:48

Discourse #11 | Oct 2019

Chris Cotter is joined by Susannah Crockford and Sierra Lawson in this month's edition of discourse, discussing college football politics in Alabama, Donald Trump's new 'spiritual adviser', a Day of the Dead/Dia de Muertos memorializing migrants who have died at the US border, Armistice/Remembrance/Veterans day rituals, and the recent controversy surrounding QR codes at the AAR-SBL.

39:58

LDS Garments and Agency

A candid discussion with Nancy Ross about Mormon women's experiences with wearing LDS garments. From the paper "LDS Garments and Agency: A Qualitative Study of Meaning" by Nancy Ross and Jessica Finnigan: "The form of LDS garments has changed over time, from wrist-to-ankle, single-piece long underwear, to versions that included short sleeves and legs, to the two-piece styles that are common today. One of the most difficult aspects of studying garments is that talking about them is a transgressive act." This is that boundary pushing discussion.

35:49

Unbelief as a Nuanced Phenomenon: The Sociality of Nonreligion across Europe

Unbelief has often been defined as either ignorance or rejection of religious systems, but this week's guests David Herbert and Josh Bullock see far more diversity in the ways one can be nonreligious based on their research on Gen Y in Europe.

26:29

Religion, Food Waste, and Food Consumption

Anna Salonen explains how ethics is being involved in her studies of food waste and consumption by both religious and non-religious populations that live in affluent societies, such as Finland and Canada.

24:20

Religion and Multiculturalism in Canada and Beyond

Through personal stories and historical accounts not always included in the telling of multiculturalism in Canada, Fletcher explores the merits of belonging. Defining the term "belonging" we learn the reality of Canadian multiculturalism and re-conceive how Canada can move forward to truly be an inclusive society. Fletcher explains the importance of her work in this book, and how is can be use by religious studies scholars in the current political landscape.

34:59

What is Mindfulness? A Critical Religious Studies Approach

Any casual user of social media can’t have missed the increasing number of adverts for dozens of ‘mindfulness’ apps. Perhaps you have encountered the term in the workplace or in a healthcare setting? It seems that, in the contemporary West, mindfulness is everywhere. But what is it? How popular is it? What is its connection to particular forms of Buddhism? Can it ever be considered wholly secular or is it necessarily religious? And why does this matter, and for whom? Today, Chris is joined by Ville Husgafvel of the University of Helsinki to discuss these important questions surrounding an increasingly pervasive phenomenon that has received little engagement from the critical religious studies community.

31:33

The Study of Religion and National Identity in Estonia

Chris and Atko Remmel discuss Estonia, a context in which notions and debates on religion, atheism, and indifference are interrelated in complex ways with the history of nationalism, and two foreign religious-secular regimes: German Lutheran and Soviet Atheism.

38:59

Discourse #12 | December 2019

Religious studies scholars (and policy experts) Susan Hayward and Peter Mandaville join the Religious Studies Project for Discourse in December 2019. They discuss how classifying conflicts as religious or not can clarify–or obscure–the complexities of those conflicts. The conversation includes examples from the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and the […]

28:38

America’s Dark Theologian Stephen King: A Religious Imagination Explored

Dr. Douglas Cowan discusses his newest book where he explored the religious imagination of Stephen King through his horror novels. Cowan is well known for his research in the area of religion and pop culture through analysis of films and literature. The podcast focuses not only on Stephen King but the process of deciphering the religious motifs within King's work, and the importance of this work to religious studies.

33:34

Young People and Religion in a Global Perspective

Today, Chris is joined by Marcus Moberg and Sofia Sjö to discuss the fascinating “Young Adults and Religion in a Global Perspective” project, which has been addressing this dearth on a massive scale. In this interview, we discuss the logistics and some of the emerging findings of a project which has involved utilizing a number of innovative research methods – including the Faith Q-Sort

36:29

Slenderman and online mythology

In this podcast, Ross Downing discusses personal and communal narratives, online mythology and the grey areas between religion and media with Vivian Asimos. Miss Asimos' work has investigated the potentiality of video games as contemporary mythology in popular culture. In the broader context of BASR 2018, the overall theme of boundaries and categories is explored and the possible insights online movements can yield in the perception and application of theories of religion.

31:00

Special 2019: Only Sixty Seconds!

For our eighth(!) annual special, Only Sixty Seconds returns! This time, Chris Cotter is your host, as David G. Robertson returns to defend his 2018 crown against Bettina Schmidt, Douglas Davies and Theo Wildcroft. We may not have avoided repetition, but I do not hesitate in promising you no deviation from hilarity!

43:16

Secular Jewish Millennials in Israel/Palestine

In this podcast, Chris Cotter is joined by Dr Stacey Gutkowski to discuss what it means to be a ‘secular Jewish Israeli millennial’.

36:18

Religion as a Tactic of Governance

Naomi Goldenberg argues that 'religion', as a separate sphere from governance, has been projected onto the past for strategic purposes. How does viewing religions as "restive once-and-future governments" help us understand the functioning of this category in contemporary discourse?

37:51

Applied Religious Studies at Georgia State University

In this episode, Professor Molly Bassett, chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Georgia State University speaks about her program’s efforts to develop applied religious studies master’s certificates in “Religion and Aging” and “Nonprofit Management.”

53:01

Discourse! March 2020 with Theo Wildcroft, Dan Gorman, & Vivian Asimos

In this month's episode of Discourse!, Theo Wildcroft, Dan Gorman and special emergency guest Vivian Asimos discuss the US Supreme Court's relationship to Christianity, how the Independent dealt with criticism of a review of a book critical of paganism, and religion, abuse and the idea of a ‘witch hunt’ in yoga and academia. Oh and something called coronavirus?

38:31

Melodies of Change: Music and Progressive Judaism

From piyyutim to zemirot to Yeshiva acapella groups in the United States, the use of music in the Jewish faith is numerous and varied. In this interview, Breann Fallon of the Sydney Jewish Museum chats to Dr Ruth Illman of Åbo Akademi University and Uppsala Universityi n about her research on the role of music as an agent of change within the progressive Jewish community in London that appears in her most recent monograph Music and Religious Change among Progressive Jews in London: Being Liberal and Doing Traditional. In particular, Dr Illman discusses the power of music to fuse the traditional and the liberal in a forward movement of progressive Judaism.

44:55

The Public Square and the Heart of Culture War

In this conversation with Dr. Benji Rolsky, we learn how the public square became the ideological focus of American liberal strategies in the 1970s and beyond thanks to the efforts of media figures like Norman Lear.

34:08

Narrating Belief: Vernacular Religion in India

In northeast India, beliefs are more fluid than fixed, argues Ülo Valk in this week's episode. What are the consequences when what we believe changes over time and how does that impact the stories we tell about the world?

50:22

Separating Religion and Government…But What Is Religion?: A Look at the US Supreme Court

Americans generally affirm the importance of separating "church" and "state." But what does church--or religion--mean? Hear two leading religious freedom lawyers discuss the meaning of religious freedom in key #SCOTUS cases, including one before the Court this term.

29:15

Christian Beauty Pageants: Beauty is in the eye of the creator

By comparing the Miss Christian America pageant to other more well known pageants Miss USA and Miss America, Chelsea's study provides a look at the intersections between religion, gender, and collective identity. Using Christian Smith's ideas of subcultural identity, Belanger examines how the structure of the Miss Christian pageant helps develop a unique form of embodied religion.

36:25

America’s Changing Religious Landscape

The religious landscape of the United States is changing dramatically. Americans must consider what it means to govern a nation of religious minorities. We interview Dr. Robert P. Jones, the founding CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. Jones discusses findings from PRRI's national surveys on religion and public life, many of which are represented in the American Values Atlas. The data collected by PRRI reveal a number of surprising trends related to religion and its intersection with politics, voting patterns, age, race, immigration, and secularism in the United States. A few key findings highlighted in PRRI's 2016 report on America's changing religious identity and covered in this podcast: (1) white Christians now account for fewer than half of the public, (2) white evangelical Protestants are in decline, (3) non-Christian religious groups are growing, and (4) atheists and agnostics account for a minority of all religiously unaffiliated. We discuss the implications of these findings and more, and we briefly review the research methodologies utilized by PRRI.

42:49

Near Death Experiences

In this episode, Christopher Cotter discusses Near Death Experiences with Jens Schlieter. How does one study reports of such experiences from a critical study of religion perspective? How are such reports related to modern societal developments such as ‘secularization’, individualization, or advances in medical science?

39:40

Artificial Intelligence and Religion

Chris Cotter and Beth Singler discuss the intersections between religion and Artificial Intelligence from slavery and pain to machines taking over religious functions and practices.

49:29

The Problem with ‘Religion’ (and related categories)

Tim Fitzgerald - a founding figure in the critical study of religion - discusses his career up to his seminal volume, The Ideology of Religious Studies, published twenty years ago this year.

46:44

Decolonizing the Study of Religion

How can the field address its whiteness and the legacy of its colonial origins? In this final episode of our 2019/2020 season Christopher Cotter speaks with Malory Nye about decolonizing Religious Studies.

36:02

May the Fourth Be With You

To honor May the Fourth, International Star Wars Day, please enjoy this compilation of classic Religious Studies Project interviews about Star Wars!

42:18

Discourse! June 2020

Amid mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism ongoing in the United States, RSP contributor Ben Marcus speaks with Andre Willis and Carleigh Beriont about race and religion in this month's Discourse episode.

41:40

Discourse! May 2020 with David G. Robertson, Suzanne Owen, and Craig Martin

It's ideology, religion and conspiracy all the way in this month's Discourse! David G. Robertson is joined by Suzanne Owen and Craig Martin to discuss the Sun's mockery of pagans, problems with the Guardian's headline that people are returning to the Church, coronavirus conspiracies in India targetting Muslims, and how "idiology" (or one idiology, anyway) is pushing the religion out of religious studies.

41:25

The Science of Prayer: Genealogies and Biopolitics

In this week's episode, John Lardas Modern discusses the genealogy and biopolitics of the scientific study of prayer from E.B. Tylor to DEVO.

49:53

The Fetish Revisited: Objects, Hierarchies, and BDSM

In this episode, Breann Fallon talks to Professor J. Lorand Matory about his book "The Fetish Revisited" and his more recent work on white American BDSM as an Afro-Atlantic spiritual practice.

44:04

Politics, Kabbalah, and Beyond: Jewish Studies and the Study of Religion

In this episode, Sidney Castillo talks with Dr. Carsten Wilke about his approach to Jewish studies and his research on the development of Jewish mysticism in early modern Europe.

50:53

Discourse! #13 | January 2020

This decade’s first episode of Discourse! is hosted by Vivian Asimos, with guests Aled Thomas and Michael Munnick. This time, the theme is “communication” – fittingly enough. The conversation covers stories about different models of Christianity among evangelical Trump supporters, the recent resurgence of the use of “cult” in popular media, Greta Thunberg as a […]

43:26

Navigating stasis and mobility: The journey of anointing oil

How do material objects accrue spiritual capital? In this episode, Dr. Kathleen Openshaw shares a poignant story from a member of the Australia branch of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God. As we hear about the global journey of a vial of anointing oil, she explains how we invest objects with significance and connect them to sacred spaces. Especially for the migrant community of UCKG members in Australia, these connections work to collapse the false binary between stasis and mobility that seems so stark in our present moment.

29:09

Discourse! February 2020 with Sierra Lawson and Sidney Castillo

Breann Fallon sits down with Sierra Lawson and Sidney Castillo to discuss the recent Peruvian Congress elections and the controversial new book "American Dirt."

38:01

Global Flows, Local Contexts: Pentecostalism in Australia

How are Brazil and Australia connected by global flows of Pentecostalism? In this episode, Dr. Cristina Rocha shares her work on transnational Christian communities in Australia.

48:34

Decolonizing Religious Studies and Its Layers of Complicity

What layers of complicity in colonialism are still embedded in the field of religious studies? How can we learn from decades of decolonial work in Native American and Indigenous Studies? Dr. Natalie Avalos speaks with RSP co-host David McConeghy about the urgency of decolonial scholarship to start the RSP's 10th season.

42:00

Roots as Scripture and Scripture as Roots

Since its release in 1976, Alex Haley's "Roots" has been a source of inspiration for generations of Americans. For Assistant Professor Richard Newton, Haley's novel reveals the way that scriptures play critical roles in rooting, uprooting, and routing our lives. Listen now to this fascinating discussion with Dr. Newton about his new book "Identifying Roots: Alex Haley and the Anthropology of Scriptures" with RSP Co-Host Breann Fallon.

43:51

Religious Literacy is Social Justice

Is Religious Literacy social justice? In this week's podcast with Professor Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, she discusses the University of Vermont’s new “Religious Literacy for Professionals” certificate and why religious studies does vital work for the academy.

38:00

Locked In, Locked Down, and Vaccinated? On Agency and Autonomy | Discourse! November 2020

This month's Discourse! - with Chris Cotter, Ray Kim, and Theo Wildcroft - kicks off with a festive twist on our now-traditional focus upon Covid-19 to discuss recent relaxations in restrictions in the UK, halal vaccinations, and much more.

50:18

Developing a Critical Study of Non-Religion

Can discourse analysis help scholars avoid the pitfalls of studying non-religion? In his new book, RSP Co-Founder Christopher R. Cotter argues it can. Speaking with co-host Breann Fallon, this interview highlights the challenges of studying non-religion while celebrating the promise of new methodologies.

45:12

The Roots of QAnon | Discourse! August 2020

What is QAnon? In this August 2020 episode of Discourse!, David Robertson, Megan Goodwin, Savannah Finver and Jonathon O'Donnell discuss this conspiracy movement's links to American religious history and contemporary political discourse.

35:30

The Sacrality of the Secular and Philosophy of Religion

In this week's podcast, we speak with Bradley Onishi about the ways in which philosophy of religion has thought "with" religion rather than for or against religion. "It's possible," he says, "to hold an enchanted secularity" if we think about religions themselves as tools for questioning our basic assumptions about the world.

42:27

Race, Religious Freedom & Empire in Post-War Japan

Jolyon Thomas talks American Empire, Racialization, and Religion in Post-War Japan with Brett Esaki at the 2019 AAR Conference in San Diego, CA.

52:44

Empty Signs in an Automatic Signalling System

In this week's episode, Timothy Fitzgerald speaks with David G. Robertson about why the history of the category “religion” should make us reconsider many other modern categories like politics, liberal, secular. Can these interrelated terms ever escape their origins in centuries of colonial epistemé?

47:13

Exploring African Shamanism and White Sangomas in South Africa

In this episode Maxinne speaks with Dr. Ullrich Relebogilwe Kleinhempel who shares some interesting personal and academic insights into researching White Sangomas and Bantu Shamanism in South Africa.

55:32

Presidentialism, or “Who’s Your Daddy?” | Discourse! October 2020

In this October 2020 episode of Discourse!, Andie Alexander, Hina Muneeruddin, and Leslie Dorrough Smith explore ideas of infantile citizens, political debates as spectacle, rhetoric as bumper bowling, fist-fighting viruses, and fake news in the discourses surrounding the US Presidential election.

58:51

Media and the Study of Religion

Vivian Asimos, Chris Cotter, Time Hutchings and Suzanne Owen discuss the intersections of Media and the Study of Religion.

33:47

Discourse! April 2020 with Christopher Cotter, Chris Silver and Savannah Finver

In April’s episode of Discourse!, Chris Cotter, Chris Silver and Susannah Finver place the current global situation relating to coronavirus front and centre in their discussion.

56:05

Challenging the Normative Stance of Aniconism in the Study of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

In this episode, Candace Mixon discusses aniconism with Birgit Meyer & Terje Stordalen. Would our normative assumptions about the absence of images in certain traditions be better served by turning to aesthetics?

48:40

Who Are the Power Worshippers?

In this episode, journalist Katherine Stewart, author of a new book about religious nationalism called The Power Worshippers, shares her perspective on the religio-political struggle for the power to shape American life today.

41:43

Founding American Religion, the Journal

Find out about the founding of the new journal American Religion with editors Sarah Imhoff and Cooper Harris

42:16

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

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?

41:47

Rhizomes, Assemblages, and Religious Change

What would a post-humanist model of religious and social worlds look like? Paul-Francois Tremlett tells David G. Robertson about a new approach which prioritises flow and transformation.

43:06

Kitchens and Constructions of Religious Subjectivity in Black Atlantic Traditions

In this episode we discuss Elizabeth Perez's award-winning book *Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions*. Listen in to learn more about how religious subjectivity is constructed around the process of preparing ritual meals in the Lucumí tradition.

1:21:08

Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of Buddhist Ritual

How does discipline impact the way we see Buddhist ritual? How can more diverse disciplinary conversations help scholars see ritual in new ways? Five scholars from four time zones come together from around the world to discuss the impacts of interdisciplinary approaches to Buddhist ritual.

44:08

Holocaust Museums as Sacred-Secular Space

In this interview, @Bre_Fallon talks to Dr Avril Alba on the tension between the secular and the sacred in Holocaust Museums.

56:05

Religious Festivals during COVID-19 | Discourse! September 2020

How will religious festivals continue amid COVID-19 restrictions? How are religious communities around the world adapting to the pressures of 2020's global pandemic? In this September episode of Discourse!, the RSP's Sidney Castillo speaks with guests Maria Nita, Juan Manuel Rubio Arevalo, and Stefanie Butendieck.

48:18

Boxing and Religious Identity

Are boxers' religious affiliations only as skin deep as their tattoos? Find out in this conversation about boxing and religious identity with Prof. Arlene Sanchez Walsh by David McConeghy.

56:21

Ancient Christian Origins: A Heterogeneous History

In this week’s episode, the RSP’s Sidney Castillo talks with Professor William Arnal about ancient Christian origins and the development of Christianity through New Testament sources such as the Gospel of Thomas and Q.

50:49

What does religious literacy mean in your context?

Will #religiousliteracy save Religious Studies? At the 2019 AAR in San Diego, Dave McConeghy moderated a roundtable with early career scholars about the meaning of religious literacy in their context. Join us for a lively discussion about what it means to teach religious studies with Richard Newton, Chris Jones, Rebekka King, Jenna-Gray-Hildenbrand, Kevin Minister, and Bradly Onishi.

35:56

Climate Change(s): New Approaches to Environmental and Agricultural Ethics

What can we learn about responding to climate change from small farms run by religious communities? In this episode, the RSP’s Candace Mixon talks to Dr. Gretel Van Wieren about her career in environmental and agricultural ethics. Climate activism has deep religious roots, so join us for practical advice about bringing the diverse approaches of Christian, Jewish, and Muslims groups into the undergraduate religious studies classroom.

38:20

Surviving Sexual Abuse: The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

In this episode, Breann Fallon talks to Dr. Kathleen McPhillips about her work on the Catholic Church and the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.

Most Recent Episode

Surviving Sexual Abuse: The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

In this episode, Breann Fallon talks to Dr. Kathleen McPhillips about her work on the Catholic Church and the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse.

Patheos Logo Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Subscription Support Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In

Follow Patheos