In this episode, Dr. Mitsutoshi Horii joins RSP co-editor Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book The Category of ‘Religion’ in Contemporary Japan: Shūkyō & Temple Buddhism (Palgrave Macmillan 2018). What is ‘religion’? How and when did this term emerge in contemporary Japan? Tune in to learn more about how the classification of Temple Buddhism as religion is used in political, legal, and commercial contexts.

In the first Discourse! episode of the new season, RSP co-founder David Robertson is joined by Ting Guo and Jacob Barrett to discuss three stories in which classification matters. In the first, they look at the recent New York Times article which asks explicitly, “What counts as religion?” when it comes to vaccine resistance. In the second, they discuss how religious groups from conservative Jews to the Satanic Temple are challenging Texas’ abortion ban. In the third, they discuss how the image of Muslim women and the supposed religious nature of misogyny and authoritarianism plays into how states like Afghanistan are portrayed and managed by European and American powers.

• “Vaccine Resisters Seek Religious Exemptions, But What Counts as Religious?“
• “Why the Satanic Temple Backs Big Abortion“
• “Texas’ Abortion Ban Is Against My Religion. As A Rabbi, I will Defy It if Necessary“
• “Revisiting Aisha“
• “Explainer: How Dangerous Is Afghanistan’s Islamic State?“
• “Afghanistan | ‘Most of the women who wear the hijab are not oppressed’: Boushra Almutawakel, author of the image that went viral after the Taliban’s irruption“
• Do Muslim Women Need Saving? – Lila Abu-Lughod
• Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report – Saba Mahmood

In this episode, Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulus discusses the range of Dr. Carmen Celestini’s work on religious conspiracy theories, Christian apocalyptic thought its impacts on the American political system. and tracks some of the parallels between early and modern conspiracy theories. They cover early grassroots movements such as the Anti-Masonic Party and the Know Nothings, who sought to fight against what they perceived as a threat to Christian values from a New World Order. This is paralleled to QAnon and current theories which hold a similar distrust of the government, the media and beliefs of a Satanic New World Order. We then move to discuss The John Birch Society and how their form of improvisational conspiracism linked to contemporary right-wing mobilisation and the Christian Identity Organisation. Threaded throughout our discussion, we ask explore the motivations for joining such a movement and what keeps people there despite moving targets and failed prophecies. Finally, Carmen describes the state of the field of conspiracy movements today, and where she sees it going in the future.

In this episode, Dr. Danielle N. Boaz joins the RSP’s Benjamin Marcus to discuss her new book, Banning Black Gods: Law and Religions of the African Diaspora (PSU Press 2021). Dr. Boaz explains a key concept she explores throughout the book: “religious racism,” and also describes similarities and differences in the ways that legal systems in a variety of countries — including Brazil, Canada, England, France, Haiti, South Africa, and the United States — treat African-derived religious traditions. She explains how and why the study of law furthers the study of African-derived religious traditions and vice versa. Learn more about Dr. Boaz’s work on Twitter at @religiousracism.

Our June episode of Discourse! is the final episode of Season 10! Wow! It’s been a fantastic season, and we are so grateful for your support. For our final episode, Andie Alexander, Ishanika Sharma, and K. Merinda Simmons decided to dive into the current discourses on Critical Race Theory! After defining Critical Race Theory (CRT) and outlining a brief history of its emergence, they dive into some recent examples of how popular conceptions of CRT (contrary to the intersectional aims of CRT discourses) reify the dichotomy between individualism and structuralism. They discuss the recent Georgia and Alabama education resolutions, discourses around India’s caste system, the emergence and role of the Religious Right in America, and conclude with controversy around The 1619 Project. There’s far more to say but only so much time in an episode!

Join Savannah H. Finver and Dr. S. Jonathon O’Donnell for a timely conversation about the role of demonology in American political rhetoric. Savannah chats with Dr. O’Donnell about their interest in rhetoric around demons and how that interest translated into their first monograph, Passing Orders: Demonology and Sovereignty in American Spiritual Warfare (Fordham University Press, 2021). The two also discuss Dr. O’Donnell’s methodology, the importance of including interdisciplinary perspectives in religious studies projects, and discourse analysis as a theoretical framework. We wrap up our conversation with a discussion about what it means to engage in the “critical study of religion” from multiple perspectives and how Dr. O’Donnell sees their work fitting in—or not—to this larger project. What’s next for Dr. O’Donnell? Tune in and find out!

Indigenous peoples have history. Though this fact might not pervade the collective imaginary in different countries, recognizing it is crucial for understanding the social processes that have shaped the current struggles indigenous peoples face in South America. In this direction, the sub-field that has contributed the most is ethnohistory, through the register of ritual practices, life cycle events, and the general way of life of an indigenous group in a given time in history.

In this episode, Boris Briones talks to RSP interviewer Sidney Castillo about his comparative research on the Mapuche and Selk’nam people of austral South America. His work delves into the indigenous religions of both groups, located in the southern regions of Chile and Argentina, where he did extensive archival research to reconstruct their history, beliefs, and practices, some of which are still present to this day.

An important point raised through the conversation is that these indigenous peoples have become systematically ostracized and exterminated by the state in both countries, resulting in the ethnocide of the Selk’nam, and the continuous marginalization of the Mapuche. Given this context, scholarly inquiry of this kind is of greater importance due to its potential for cultural, social, and political vindication in their respective countries. But this impact does not limit itself to academia, as Briones himself has carried out several initiatives for reaching to the general public in an effort to provide basic literacy on these matters. Such endeavor highlights the importance of moving beyond the ivory tower for supporting current struggles related to religion and indigenous peoples, a responsibility that we owe to the very people that aid us in our research in the first place.

Sudan currently ranks in the top ten most at risk countries on the Fragile State Index. Yet despite decades of political instability and conflicts destabilizing the country, the aspirations for an Islamic state proved to be resilient, and an Islamist government of the Sudanese state continues to function. How are we to explain the resilience of this Islamic state when conventional wisdom seems to suggest it should have been an impossible project from its outset? Noah Salomon’s ethnography of the Islamic state in Sudan provides a window into the making of a modern Islamic state by focusing our attention on the Sudanese people that not only constitute it, but bring it to life through their poetry, spiritual devotions, and everyday lives.

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 Fallon, David G. Robertson, and Dave McConeghy introduce Andie Alexander 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.

• “‘This is huge’: black liberationist speaks out after her 40 years in prison,” The Guardian
• “About MOVE,” On a Move
• Documentary on the MOVE Bombing, Let the Fire Burn
• “City of Philadelphia should thoroughly investigate the MOVE remains’ broken chain of custody | Opinion,” The Philadelphia Inquirer
• Babyn Yar Synagogue
• “Why the world must witness pictures of India’s mass Covid-19 cremations,” Vox
• “Why Native Hawaiians are fighting to protect Maunakea from a telescope,” Vox
• “Why Are Native Hawaiians Protesting Against a Telescope?” New York Times

What are the body languages Catholics use to express masculine devotion? In this interview with Prof. Alyssa Maldonado-Estrada about her recent book, Lifeblood of the Parish, the subject is Brooklyn, New York and its Italian Catholic parish of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Yearly the community celebrates San Paolino di Nola with a festival that culminates with the carrying of the giglio — a seventy-foot (21m) tall, four-ton tower. In her analysis, masculinity, devotion, and even Catholicism itself are made through labor and the process of “doing the work” from counting money to painting statues, getting tattoos, or lifting the giglio. By refocusing our attention on the embodied labor of masculinization and devotion, Prof. Maldonado-Estrada challenges what kinds of discourses and practices are most revealing for discussions of gender and piety.