The Religious Studies Project

This month’s Discourse! is presented by Sidney Castillo, with his guests Maria Nita, Juan Manuel Rubio Arevalo, and Stefanie Butendieck. Discussion focuses on the effects of COVID restrictions on different religious communities, including festivals, activism, funeral practices, and the Chilean “Mapuche” community. The conversation goes on to discuss the role of scholars in policy-making, particularly in a South American context. Finally, the panelists discuss Amy Kaufman’s and Paul Sturtevant’s 2020 book The Devil’s Historians: How modern extremists abuse the medieval past, which explores how religion is portrayed and constructed in contemporary medievalism. Resources for this episode include: Festival Research and Covid-19 from the recent virtual event sponsored by The Open University: http://fass.open.ac.uk/festivals-research For a broad sense of the issues with the Mapuche community, you can view the online news article: https://chiletoday.cl/site/the-effects-of-covid-19-on-the-mapuche-community/

In this episode, RSP Co-Host Breann Fallon talks to Professor J. Lorand Matory of Duke University on the topic of fetishism. After outlining the concept of “fetishism,” considering the Portuguese origins as well as the term’s use in the work of Marx and Freud, Matory discusses his latest book The Fetish Revisited. Matory highlights his re-thinking of fetishism, particularly in the way it critiques how social theories are treated as self-existent and contextless ideas from superior white minds. In doing so, Matory shows the importance of turning our gaze back onto the theorists from which our methodologies stem. The second half of this interview moves to Matory’s current work on white American BDSM as an Afro-Atlantic spiritual practice with implications for the current populist political moment. In particular, he draws our attention to the problematic links to slavery used in typical dom-sub hierarchies of BDSM practices.

In this episode, the RSP’s Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulos speaks to Dr. Kathleen Openshaw about her fascinating research on the Universal Church of God in Australia. Beginning with the origins of this Brazilian, Pentecostal Church, Dr. Openshaw explains why the UCKG is so popular with migrants from the Global South. Speaking on her fieldwork, and her recent article in the JASR, this episode traces the intersection of materiality and mobility, unpacking the many fascinating ways the UCKG and its members use anointing oil as a spiritual solution for the obstacles in their lives. Recounting the poignant story of one of her interlocutors, we hear about the centrality of a vial of anointing oil that traveled from Israel to Australian and then to Sudan. Through this discussion, Dr. Openshaw explains how material objects are able to accrue spiritual capital as they move through sacred spaces and connect with people. For migrant communities, especially, the movement of anointed oil collapses the binary between stasis and mobility, which seems especially powerful amid ongoing restrictions due to COVID-19. The article referenced above and in the episode is available here: The Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in Australia: Local Congregants and a Global Spiritual Network. Journal for the Academic Study of Religion. 2019, Vol. 32 Issue 1, p27-48. 22p

This bonus-length roundtable episode brings scholars of various disciplines and ranks together to discuss their experiences in the study of Buddhist ritual. Working in areas of art history, Buddhist Studies, anthropology, and cultural studies, the panelists shed light on some of the challenges and promises of working within and across disciplines. Topics range from “ritual” as a critical scholarly term, interdisciplinary contributions to the field of ritual studies, issues of ritual change, and current challenges (and benefits) to international and interdisciplinary work during the current global health crisis. Overall, this conversation reveals the complex interplay between research demands, institutional support, field-wide assumptions, and technological challenges that shape the way scholarship on ritual is produced. Listen now for a glimpse of how interdisciplinary approaches can help widen the scope of academic work in each of these areas and improve the way scholars approach the study of Buddhist rituals.

Take a journey into the dark heart of American politics in this month’s Discourse! Join David Robertson, Megan Goodwin, Savannah Finver, and S. Jonathon O’Donnell to discuss QAnon. Explore the roots of this multifaceted conspiracy theory in the Satanic Ritual Abuse scare of the 1980s and ’90s, the parallels with earlier millennial narratives, and the connections with modern evangelical Christianity. The panelists also discuss how depictions of QAnon in religious language (i.e., “death cult”) are being used by different actors within and outside the movement, with both sides revealing significant features of contemporary American politics. The panelists recommend the following piece by Adrienne LaFrance, “The Prophecies of Q,” part of The Atlantic‘s project “Shadowland” about conspiracy thinking in America.

In this interview with two RSP editors, Christopher R. Cotter (co-editor-in-chief) and Breann Fallon (managing co-editor), discuss the intellectual-journey that brought Cotter to his newest publication: The Critical Study of Non-Religion: Discourse, Identification and Locality (Bloomsbury Academic, 2020). Cotter begins by providing an overview of previous literature in the area, highlighting the common missteps in the study of non-religion within the Religious Studies academy. Here, Cotter illuminates how he directly responded to those missteps via the creation of his specific methodology, bringing together locality and discourse analysis to create a critical lens for the study of non-religion. Looking specifically at Southside Edinburgh, Cotter highlights some of his findings before turning to the usefulness of his methodology outside of the study of non-religion. Finishing on a candid note, Fallon and Cotter discuss both the positive and negative academic relationships that influenced the creation of this book, bringing their discussion of the intellectual-journey in the creation of this publication full-circle.

“Decades of work is all of a sudden viable and possible in the blink of an eye,” says CU Boulder Professor Natalie Avalos in the final moments of her conversation with RSP Co-Host David McConeghy. After last season’s conversation with Malory Nye that highlighted the colonialism and racism embedded in the European roots of the field of religious studies and its earliest forefathers, we continue this season with the perspective of a scholar of religion positioned within Ethnic Studies and Native American and Indigenous Studies. In her work on modern, urban Indians in New Mexico, Dr. Avalos highlights the need for theories that center the lived experiences and ontological realities of her interlocutors. These do not come from white Europeans writing a century or more ago. To uncritically retain these relics of our field’s past is to be complicit in perpetuating their structural and psychological harm as components of colonialism. It makes us complicit in that legacy’s ongoing trauma, so how do we break this cycle? What has changed that makes this work “viable and possible” today? Dr. Avalos shows us a way forward, one rooted in decolonial theories like regeneration that not only express Indigenous epistemologies, but also create moments of deep reflection for our students. She urges us to do more to make visible our hidden relations to structures of power. This is the work of decolonizing religious studies. If we aspire to produce transformative work — including teaching and scholarship that changes how we think and improves our lives — then we need to start with ourselves and the work we can each do peeling back the layers of our own complicity in sustaining colonialism’s vestiges. That’s the challenge of forging a more just and more rewarding path for our field’s future.

Regular listeners to the Religious Studies Project will be familiar with the critique of the category of ‘religion’. Our podcasts with, for example, Naomi Goldenberg, James Cox, and Tim Fitzgerald, demonstrate that ‘religion’ is a distorting anachronism with roots in European colonial exploitation that has been utilized to justify the cultural superiority of Christian Europe, and is at base ‘a citation of Christianity as idealized prototype’ (Goldenberg 2018: 80). But what might it mean to decolonize the study of religion? How can we take this well-rehearsed critique and put it into practice? In this podcast, Chris is joined by Malory Nye to discuss the decolonizing project. Why is it necessary? Should we speak of decolonizing rather than decolonization? How can the field address its whiteness, and its colonial origins and legacy? What are the theoretical, methodological, historical and pedagogical challenges that this might entail? How can ‘we’ ensure that this is a thorough decolonizing project and not merely a nod to neoliberal higher education agendas? And what can those of us who have limited time and resources at our disposal do to address this urgent and thoroughly pervasive problem with the study of religion? These questions and more animate this broad-ranging discussion with the author of Religion: The Basics, and two key journal articles – “Race and religion: postcolonial formations of power and whiteness” and “Decolonizing the Study of Religion”.

The methods we use to study religion have consequences, argues Dr. John Lardas Modern in this conversation with David McConeghy. Beginning with the approaches of late 19th century anthropologists like E.B. Tylor, Modern discusses how prayer became an object of study for social scientists. As they tried to find out whether ‘prayer works,’ researchers proposed a constellation of theoretical models and experiments that treated religion as a discrete object. Measuring prayer made it easier to use religion and its practices as tools or instruments available for commodification and capitalization. In this wide ranging episode, Modern sketches a few of the bio-political effects that can be seen from his genealogical approach, and he shares with listeners how the American rock band DEVO merits our attention as a surprising fusion of scientific and religious perspectives.

In our June 2020 episode of Discourse, RSP contributor Ben Marcus speaks with Andre Willis, associate professor of religious studies at Brown University, and Carleigh Beriont, PhD candidate at Harvard University. They begin by discussing how the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans exemplify rituals of state violence and technologies of white supremacy in the United States. Amid mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism ongoing in the United States right now, the guests highlight the story of Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old member of the Catholic Worker Movement who was injured protesting, as well as President Trump’s much derided photo opportunity in response to those protests. The conversation then pivots to recent reports that invoke threats of the apocalypse, including the Trump administration decision to consider resuming explosive testing of nuclear weapons. Finally, still enduring a global and now months-long COVID-19 pandemic, the guests look at ongoing religious responses to prohibitions against some in-person religious services and the emerging court battles over worship under restrictions on social distancing. Resources suggested by the guests include: On the Protests in the United States “Trump’s naked use of religion as a political tool draws rebukes from some faith leaders” from the Washington Post “Two Buffalo police officers charged with assault for allegedly shoving 75-year-old protester” from the Washington Post “Here’s What You Need to Know About Breonna Taylor’s Death” from the NY Times “8 Minutes and 46 Seconds: How George Floyd Was Killed in Police Custody” from the NY Times On Nuclear Testing “Trump apparently wants a nuclear test. It could be bad for your health” from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ON COVID-19 and Louisville “Judge allows drive-in Louisville church services, says mayor ‘criminalized the communal celebration of Easter’” from the Washington Post USDC Western KY Civil Action Restraining Order against On Fire Christian Center (direct link to PDF) For more, consider consulting the following: On religious engagement in the protests, Michelle Boorstein et al’s “Faith community takes center stage as thousands again gather for 10th day of protests in D.C.” or “Thousands gather Sunday for prayer and protests in Washington” from the Washington Post On Martin Gugino and President Trump’s attempt to label him an “Antifa provacateur,” “Martin Gugino is a Catholic peace activist, not an ‘Antifa provacateur’ friends say” from Religion News Service On President Trump’s Photo Op: Rachel McBride Lindsey, “The Dangerous Power of the Photo Op” from Religion & Politics On the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Open Skies treaty: “Trump Will Withdraw From Open Skies Arms Control Treaty” by David E. Sanger from the NY Times Finally, for those seeking additional critical perspectives from religious studies scholars we can strongly recommend this blog post at Feminist Studies in Religion by Megan Goodwin and Yohana Agra Junker, “This is Not an Antiracist Reading List, OR, the Treachery of Allyship.”