The Religious Studies Project

For our final interview of the semester, tune in to our co-founder David G. Robertson discussing his new book Gnosticism and the History of Religions with our co-editor Andie Alexander. In this episode, Robertson outlines the history and use of the term ‘gnosticism’ to examine how gnosticism has come to work as a ‘free-floating’ signifier. Robertson then considers how the ‘strange charm of gnosticism’ has helped keep the term and idea prevalent in the study of religion, particularly in how understanding gnosticism as a special knowledge is linked with notions of religious experience. It’s a great episode—be sure to check it out! Need a preview? Try this!

In this episode, Dr. Breann Fallon sits down with Professor Daniel Boyarin to discuss his monograph Judaism: Genealogy of the Jewish Notion makes the bold argument that the very concept of a religion of ‘Judaism’ is an invention of the Christian church. Before discussing the monograph, Boyarin outlines how Judaism is commonly defined in religious studies, as well as the potential problems with those definitions, particularly with regard to the sometimes competing conceptualisations of Judaism as a ‘religion’ or a ‘culture’. Boyarin highlights the importance of memory and memorialisation as deeply-rooted elements of Jewish practice, especially of moments of genocide and massacre such as the Shoah, which subtly addresses notions of the World Religions Paradigm discussed in previous episodes. Boyarin also argues against “religifying” studies of Jewish texts and instead emphasises both the ideas of inclusivity inherent in the Talmud and its broader applicability, regardless of the religiosity of the reader, in order to fully encapsulate all the life forms and practices that exist in the Jewish community. To bring the conversation to a close, Fallon asks of the humour in the Talmud and Boyarin’s favourite comical moments in the text. Need a preview? Try this!

In this month’s episode of discourse we have an update from Australia. Professor Carole Cusack (University of Sydney) and Ray Radford (University of Sydney and RSP) sit down with Dr. Breann Fallon (Sydney Jewish Museum and RSP) to discuss religion in Australian current affairs. This team of three first consider a conservative article on the amendments Equal Opportunity Bill in Victoria which claims “religion cancelled” and “parents cancelled.” Yet, there is no denying that the three are speaking from lockdown and the conversation turns to religious exemption from vaccination, including the history of this in Australia, as well as religious symbolism at anti-lockdown protests. To end the episode, the trio discuss the interesting timing of opening up in time for Christmas — is this an offering at the temple of consumerism? Whilst there is no answer, it is an interesting take on the impact of COVID-19 on religious festivals. “Is there likely to be a religious exemption for the COVID-19 vaccine?““A pattern of anti-family, anti-religion legislation is emerging in Victoria““‘Australians are very sceptical’: Michael Kirby warns against ‘excessive protection’ of religious freedoms““Scott Morrison pushes premiers to stick to vaccination plan and allow interstate travel by Christmas“ Check out the video of this episode!

What is the world religions paradigm? In this RSP Remix, David McConeghy presents an abridged version of David Robertson’s 2013 interview with James Cox. Cox explains how the world religions paradigm came to be the dominant model for teaching undergraduates comparative religion, and he offers an introduction to a few of the strongest critique of this model. These critiques include the paradigm’s essentialism as well as its emergence as a tool of colonialism and imperialism. Reducing the original episode to 20 minutes presents a great opportunity for this conversation to be employed in more classrooms. If you would like to see other RSP Remixes on specific topics or questions, reach out to us on our social media accounts and let us know!

What do we mean when we talk about secularism, religion, or culture? 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 (Routledge, 2021). Sheedy discusses how “religion” and “secular” categories are necessarily intertwined as he considers the ways in which those categories are contested in the public sphere—particularly with regard to Islam and gender in the post-9/11 era.

Christianity is one of the most ubiquitous religions in the world. In reality, it would be more plausible to rather speak about Christianities given the wide variety that can be found adapted to different contexts, languages, and histories. In this sense, its own internal diversity makes it most pervasive and enduring despite the passage of time or cultural boundaries. But it is worth asking, what happens when Christians from different sides of the world, apparently, meet each other for the first time? In this week’s episode, RSP associate editor Sidney Castillo talks with Dr. István Perczel who presents a highly detailed history of the Saint Thomas Christians (or Syrian Christians) of Kerala, a religious group that has been present in Southwestern India since late antiquity. His discovery of a corpus of Syriac manuscripts from their archives in 1998, has allowed for a turning point in the current understanding of the colonial relations, religious disputes, and overall historiography of the region. One of the takeaways of the episode is how the discovery of new sources allows for further outline the cultural environment in which such texts are produced. Among the many sources, some of them refer to theological debates regarding mystical conceptions of God, and which were translated and re-read from Syriac, to Malayalam, and to Latin. The translation avatars of these documents, and the discussions that arose from figures such as Jesuit priest Francisco Roz, and Nestorian priest Mar Abraham, show the dynamism of the Syrian Christian community during the early modern period. Such “cultural wars” and disputes for truth narratives are certainly no strange to us in our present time, especially when looking at them through the lens of colonialism, political polarization, or cultural appropriation. Need a preview? Try this!

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. Can discourse analysis and ideology critique be done together successfully? What can these methods reveal to us about power relations of domination and subordination in societies? Why is poststructuralism so important to the study of religion, and what do we miss if we don’t attend carefully to the writings of key thinkers such as GWF Hegel, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Jacques Derrida? Tune in to find out! Need a preview? Try this!

On this month’s Discourse!, 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. They discuss debates over the presence of pastors in executions in Texas, how the secularist French state is reacting to the abuse revelations in the Catholic Church, and the role of religion in legal arguments over the ownership of a site sacred to a Los Angeles Apache community. Oh – and Jesusween! Related Links On Death Row in Texas, a Last Request: A Prayer and ‘Human Contact’ Supreme Court Stays Execution in Dispute Over Pastor’s Role in Death Chamber Catholic priests in France ‘must report abuse allegations heard in confession’ In Los Angeles, spiritual convoy urges unity to preserve Apache sacred site Oak Flat Need a preview? Try this!

With over 350 episodes in our archives, we’ve seen many scholars discuss the issue of fieldwork and how their research goals have been modified by their time in the field. Today’s special episode featured clips from seven recent interviews with brief comments by Dave McConeghy. This “remix” is our first attempt to try to bring greater attention to the many different ways our podcast can be used in the classroom. We hope these clips might support a discussion of how fieldwork changes scholars and their scholarship. If you’d like to see more episodes highlighting past interviews to support specific research questions or pedagogical issues in the study of religion, please let us know by reaching out to one of our social media channels such as our Twitter or Instagram.

In this episode, Dan Gorman speaks with Christopher Cantwell and Kristian Petersen about their anthology Digital Humanities and Research Methods in Religious Studies (2021), which is part of DeGruyter’s “Introductions to Digital Humanities—Religion” series. They discuss the ethics and management of ongoing Digital Humanities projects, the opportunities afforded by mapping technology for understanding religious life, and the question of whether digital projects are recognized as genuine scholarship. Need a preview? Take a look…