Professor Thia Cooper of the Department of Religion at Gustavus on growing up poor and Pentecostal as the daughter of a single mom in New Hampshire, traveling to the Soviet Union at age 16 as it was breaking up, her study of international relations at Brown University, the questions that led her from there to graduate work in development studies and then liberation theology, her understanding of theology and its feminist and liberationist iterations, her books Queer and Indecent about the theology of Marcella Althaus-Reid and A Christian Guide to Liberating Desire, Sex, Partnership, Work, and Reproduction, and why studying religion and the liberal arts is important. Note: Some two months after this episode was recorded, Professor Cooper won Gustavus's Faculty Scholarship Award, announced on Honors Day, May 7, 2022. Congratulations Dr. Cooper!