The Classical Ideas Podcast

Mary DeMocker is cofounder and creative director of 350.org's Eugene, Oregon, chapter. She has written about conscious parenting and climate activism for the Sun, EcoWatch, Mothering.com, Spirituality & Health, Oregon Quarterly, and the Oregonian. She lives with her family in Eugene, Oregon.

You can find her at: www.marydemocker.com and https://twitter.com/MDeMocker/

Dr. Francis Stewart completed her doctoral thesis on punk rock as a surrogate for religion, with a particular emphasis on Straight Edge punk, in 2011 at the University of Stirling. Within the thesis, Stewart examined the notions of community, authenticity, integrity, DIY, and salvation. She also engaged with the connections between music and the expression of emotions, particularly those emotions which are deemed socially 'undesirable' or 'negative'. She also engaged with the question of what do we mean by the terms 'religious', 'spiritual' and 'faith'.

Her book, "Punk Rock is My Religion: Straight Edge Punk and 'Religious' Identity" is out now from Routledge.

Follow Stewart on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Dr_F_Stewart

Michael R. Cohen is Associate Professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane University, where he holds a Sizeler Professorship. He is the author of the newly published"Cotton Capitalists: American Jewish Entrepreneurship in the Reconstruction Era from NYU Press, as well as The Birth of Conservative Judaism: Solomon Schechter's Disciples and the Creation of an American Religious Movement from Columbia University Press. He earned his Ph.D. from Brandeis University.

Dr. Pablo Mendoza is Assistant to the President for Social Equity at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He received his PhD from the University of Missouri and was previously the Director of the Mizzou Multicultural Center. He has taught Cheng Man-Ch'ing (Zhang Manqing) Yang-style Tai Chi Ch'uan (Taijiquan). This form is based on martial applied defensive moves that are synchronized to breathing patterns that assist with relaxation and meditation.

Michael Downing teaches creative writing at Tufts University. This conversation features a deep dive into Michael's nonfiction book "Shoes Outside the Door: Desire, Devotion, and Excess at San Francisco Zen Center, hailed by the New York Review of Books as a 'dramatic and insightful' narrative history of the first Buddhist monastery outside of Asia, and by the Los Angeles Times as 'a highly readable book, important for the healing it invites in giving voice to the thoughts and feelings of Zen Center members who have remained silent until now.'"

Visit: www.michaeldowningbooks.com for more information.

A veteran journalist, essayist, and award-winning education writer, Linda K. Wertheimer is the author of Faith Ed: Teaching about Religion in an Age of Intolerance. Faith Ed, released on Aug. 18, 2015, by Beacon Press, focuses on public schools' ups and downs as they teach about world religions.

See https://www.lindakwertheimer.com/ for more information

Linda on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindakwert

Buy the book: Faith Ed book at Beacon Press

Raghunath tours the world, leading yoga workshops, yoga teacher trainings, kirtans, & the practical applications of yogic philosophy. He annually takes a group on pilgrimage through holy places of India and sometimes fronts the bands Youth of Today and Shelter.

Find him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raghunathyogi/

Visit his website: https://www.raghunath.yoga/

Buy his kirtan album, Krishna Kirtan, here: http://merchnow.com/catalogs/raghunath

Shulem Deen is a writer, journalist, and author of the award-winning memoir "All Who Go Do Not Return." He is a regular contributor to the Forward, and in 2015 was listed in the Forward 50, an annual list of American Jews with outsized roles on political and social issues. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the New Republic, Salon, Tablet Magazine, and elsewhere. He serves as a board member at Footsteps, a New York City-based organization that offers assistance and support to those who have left the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community.

Follow Shulem on Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/shdeen

Buy his book here: All Who Go Do Not Return

Griffin Hardy is the Communications Director for Ministry Against the Death Penalty (MADP), founded by Sister Helen Prejean, author of "Dead Man Walking."

Mission Statement: "The Ministry Against the Death Penalty believes in the dignity of all people and fosters creative, reflective and educational programs that awaken hearts and minds, inspire social change, and strengthen our democracy's commitment to human rights." Furthermore, MADP "believe in the dignity and rights of all persons and recognize that government-sanctioned killing and the practice of torture is a violation of those rights and a denial of human dignity."

Find out more at: https://www.sisterhelen.org

Dr. Daniel Hummel is a Scholar, writer, researcher, and teacher of religion, politics, and foreign policy in the United States and the modern Middle East. He is currently a Robert M. Kingdon Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Hummel is also a specialist in the concept of Christian Zionism and has a forthcoming book from the University of Pennsylvania Press entitled, "A Covenant of the Mind: Evangelicals, Israel, and the Construction of a Special Relationship." Dr. Hummel's unique take on the Israel-Palestine situation is tinted with his own expertise in Christian Zionism, and we discuss that issue in a lot of depth in this conversation as well. Dr. Hummel is also a contributor to the Washington Post in middle east current events.