gender

5 June 2023

What’s Sincerity Got to Do With American Secularism?

Podcast

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!

2 September 2022

Nothing Is Perfect, but Is Anything New?

Response

K. Merinda Simmons nuances and furthers Jason Josephson Storm's episode from Season 11 by reflecting critically on the ways in which postmodernism is explicitly—or even implicitly—dismissed in religious studies scholarship.

29 August 2022

Unruly Women: Neocolonialism, Race, and Discrimination

Podcast

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.

15 November 2021

Religious Symbols, Secularism, and Culture Wars

Podcast

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.

15 October 2021

Telling the “Back Stage” Stories of Men, Religious Work, and Play

Response

Responding to our Season 10 episode with Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada, Kristy Nabhan-Warren furthers the discussion on inadvertent feminization of Catholic devotionalism and ways in which it can be reimagined.

27 September 2021

#ClassificationMatters | Discourse! September 2021 (with video)

Podcast

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!

4 June 2021

Rethinking Narratives of ‘American Values’ in the US Military

Response

Jessica Cooperman writes that Stahl's work demonstrates how racism shapes religious institutions and argues that "it points to the necessity of re-examining American narratives of religious freedom through the analytical lenses of both race and gender."

2 November 2020

Kitchens and Constructions of Religious Subjectivity in Black Atlantic Traditions

Podcast

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.

26 October 2020

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

Podcast

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.

6 April 2019

Cosmopolitan and Cool–and Modest

Response

1 April 2019

Discussing Pious Fashion and Muslim Dress Beyond the Headscarf

Podcast

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.

30 March 2019

Meditation on Friction

Response

The barrier of the Temple Garment both shapes and impedes the outward creation of the identity of the Mormon woman.

4 March 2019

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

Podcast

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.

25 February 2019

Melodies of Change: Music and Progressive Judaism

Podcast

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.

22 December 2018

Religious and Socio-Cultural Boundary Work in the Swiss Handshake Affair

Response

In Switzerland, immigrants are in general expected to ‘culturally and socially integrate’, while ethno-cultural differences are, at the same time, perceived as enriching and ethno-cultural identities and thus not totally expected to be abandoned.

14 December 2018

Challenges in the Study of Gender and Contemporary Occultism

Response

Were publications written decades ago for "women-only" already part of history or not? What to do when a certain publication was designated as "available to women scholars only" in one feminist archive but was unrestricted in another?

10 December 2018

Negotiating Gender in Contemporary Occultism

Podcast

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.

7 November 2018

Patrons Special: RSP Discourse #2 (October 2018)

Podcast

Welcome to the second issue of “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, Chris (Cotter) is joined by Chris (Silver) and Theo Wildcroft, both long-time friends and contributors to the RSP, for a cross-Atlantic discussion. After the inevitable discussion of US identity conflicts and terrorism, and ugly manifestation of the KKK in Northern Ireland, discussion moved on to the accepted protocols of trick or treating, and the use of patisserie in debates on LGBT human rights vs religious freedom. Can’t access this episode? Subscribe at https://www.patreon.com/projectrs

19 October 2018

The Dark Goddess: A Post-Jungian Interpretation

Response

However, while Warren has found a consensus on the nature of the Dark Goddess amongst the texts and YouTube communities that she is examining, not all adherents within contemporary Goddess Spirituality view the Dark Goddess in the same way. In fact, the Dark, or Shadow aspect of Goddess, is a point of heated debate within the Goddess community amongst adherents, feminist theologians, and thealogians.

4 October 2018

Mother Earth, Sister Earth: A Response to the RSP Interview with Dr. Susannah Crockford

Response

I have lived in the American Southwest much of my life, and so Dr. Crockford’s description of Sedona and its inhabitants was very familiar to me (although I have never visited that particular corner of Arizona). I was somewhat startled, though, by the idea of connecting the kind of hyperemotionalized and largely disembodied approach to spirituality and the environment that she found there to gendered discourses. On a personal level, as a former inhabitant of the region, I see much closer connections between the kind of American New Age spirituality she described and the transhumanist millenarianism that pervades much of the culture of Silicon Valley.

1 October 2018

Ecospirituality, Gender and Nature

Podcast

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.

27 August 2018

Editors’ Picks, Summer 2018: The Resonance of Vestigial States

Response

During our "summer break", various members of the RSP editorial team will be sharing their thoughts on some podcasts from the RSP archive that they think you should listen to (again). Editors' Picks, if you will. These aren't necessarily 'favourites', but just some podcasts that came to mind that the author has found useful for whatever reason.

30 July 2018

Editors’ Picks, Summer 2018: The Intersections of Religion and Feminism

Response

In the second of our summer "Editors' Picks", Sammy Bishop flags up an important interview in which Dawn Llewellyn provides a great introduction to how feminism, religion, and the academic study of both, might (or indeed, might not) interact. Llewellyn also does an excellent job of flagging up how future work in these fields could become more productively interdisciplinary.

26 February 2018

From Non-Religion to Unbelief? A developing field…

Podcast

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.

5 June 2017

Angel Spirituality

Podcast

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?

28 April 2017

Paths to Sexual Ethics

Response

Paths need not be linear nor our place on them stagnant, rather we can draw from the past and draw it into the present moment, revisiting and revising as we ask new questions in enduring, and uniting, struggles over ethics in sexuality and beyond.

24 April 2017

Sexual Ethics and Islam

Podcast

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?

9 March 2017

Theologies That Cannot Be: A Response to the RSP Interview with Dr. Caroline Blyth

Response

Every discipline has both power and responsibility to contribute to the dismantling of the Patriarchy by declaring its valorization of avarice, egotism, and violence to be wrong. The particular duty and power of religious studies and theology, is to point out that that valorization is hypocritical—that the culture of Patriarchy is itself inimical to the values of the sacred social order from which it claims its authority and for which it claims to offer protection

10 October 2016

Religion and Feminism

Podcast

'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', ...

28 April 2016

Ours Can Be To Reason Why

Response

While perspectives about conversion are Christian-centric, the idea of conversion itself is religion-centric.Lynn Davidman's recent RSP interview illustrates why her work is important, serious, and engaging. As I listened to the podcast, three ideas came to mind. First, I was delighted to hear Davidman describe much of the literature on conversion and deconversion as Christian-centric. While I think she could have made this point even more compellingly in the podcast, ...

7 March 2016

Popular Culture Studies and Bruce Springsteen: Escaping and Embracing Religion

Podcast

"There's always the risk in popular culture studies - first of all, it's so fluid, you know, things change so fast - that the minute you've said something, it's obsolete. And there's always the risk that the material can't bear the weight of analysis," said Kate McCarthy in 2013, shortly after the re-release of her co-edited volume God in the Details. However, ...

4 December 2015

Climates of Queer Concerns

Response

What might a queer feminist engagement with Latour’s proposals look like? It’s that hectic time of year for academics when papers and exams pile up and the end-of-year holidays loom large. In the midst of it all, I’ve been dividing my attention between the knowledge projects that interest me most: queer feminist theory, religious studies, and feminist science studies - particularly those engaged with the climate change and the politics of our new global epoch which some have christened the Anthropocene.

30 November 2015

Gender, queer theory and religion

Podcast

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 ...

15 October 2015

Gender-as-Lived: Considerations in Ethnographic Methodology

Response

Fedele emphasizes that an academic researcher must acknowledge the power issues present in a researcher-interviewee relationship: the academic doesn’t know everything, nor is the participant ignorant. In the Religious Studies Project’s recent interview with Dr. Anna Fedele, Dr. Fedele and her interviewer discuss several aspects of interest related to the intersections of gender, religions, and power dynamics. Fedele’s book, Gender and Power in Contemporary Spirituality: Ethnographic Approaches (Routledge, 2013), ...

12 October 2015

Religion, gender and corporeality

Podcast

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, ...

30 September 2015

Lived Religion: Part 2

Podcast

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,...

27 September 2015

Lived Religion: Part 1

Podcast

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,

19 September 2012

Why are Women more Social than Men?

Response

"As a psychologist, my emphasis and interest is in the properties of individuals (or the situations of individuals) that underlie behaviors. Given that women are more agreeable and conscientious than men and that they mentalize more than men, it is not surprising that women are more involved in the social and ritual aspects of human behavior and, therefore, with religion."

17 September 2012

Why are Women more Religious than Men?

Podcast

The relationship of religion to gender is a highly complex and disputed area. However, it is well-documented that (to take some UK-based examples), ‘men are proportionately under-represented’ in (mainstream ‘Christian’) ‘religious’ services, and ‘women outnumber men on all indices of religiosity and spirituality’. In fact, Marta Trzebiatowska and Steve Bruce, ...

9 July 2012

Religion as Vestigial States

Podcast

In this episode, Jonathan Tuckett is joined by Naomi R. Goldenberg, who argues that religions are formed in distinction to governmental ‘States’ and represent the last vestiges of the previous order and explores several examples of this as well as considering the implications of this distinction.

23 May 2012

Double Trouble: Some Reflections on (En)gendering the Study of Religion

Response

Engaging gender as an important category of analysis in the study of religion is to interrogate, destabilise, and interrupt the ‘business-as-usual’ of the conceptual and organisational assumptions often employed in our highly dynamic yet historically and oft-times structurally androcentric discipline.

21 May 2012

Lisbeth Mikaelsson on Religion and Gender

Podcast

From dress codes to notions of purity to questions of the legitimate of power the topic of gender is one few scholars can afford to ignore. With a whole range of issues to be investigated Lisbeth Mikaelsson gives us an introductory insight into the complex topic of religion and gender: the issues it raises, the way we go about it, who’s doing it and why.

2 March 2012

Meeting at the crossroads of public and private: sexuality and religion

Response

In a recent podcast on Youth, Sexuality and Religion, Dr Sarah-Jane Page discusses research that she conducted along with several colleagues, that concerned young people, sexuality and religion. This is an immediately controversial subject and one that generates many questions. As this research focused on “lived religion”, that is how people experience religion in their everyday lives,

27 February 2012

Youth, Sexuality and Religion

Podcast

The Religion, Youth and Sexuality: A Multi-faith Exploration project, based at the University of Nottingham, looked at 18 to 25 year-olds from a variety of faith backgrounds in order to understand attitudes and practices around sexuality and how this was negotiated in relation to religious traditions. Dr Sarah-Jane Page, one of the research fellows, ...

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