Breann Fallon

Dr. Breann Fallon joined the Religious Studies Project in 2015, and she served as managing co-editor of the RSP from 2019 to 2021. She lectures at the Sydney Jewish Museum full-time in numerous areas including religion, genocide, the Holocaust, and Human Rights. Prior to joining the Museum, Breann taught in the Studies in Religion department at the University of Sydney.  Her research interests lie in the area of religion and violence, particularly in relation to genocide. She has published on sundry topics including religious violence, genocidal sexual violence, religious film, religious art, and civil religion. Breann has appeared on 2SER radio as well as ABC Radio National programs 'Religion and Ethics,' 'God Forbid' and 'Earshot.'

bfallon@sjm.com.au | @Dr_Bre_Fallon

 

Contributions by Breann Fallon

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!"

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Patrons Special: RSP Discourse #1 (September 2018)

Welcome to "Discourse", where our editors and guests take a critical look at how the category "religion" is being used in the media, the public sphere, and the academic field. This episode, David and Chris are joined by RSP Associate Editor Breann Fallon from Sydney, Australia, to discuss new Aussy Prime Minister ScoMo's Pentacostalism, an Abductee Democratic candidate in Miami, Scottish Nationalism as "religion-like", and more.

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'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...

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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,...

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