Episode 310: Review Session!
Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork

Transcript!

PDF transcript. Also available via our Buzzsprout page.

Shownotes
(because citations are political)

We are gobsmacked, giddy, and, uh, exhausted by the fact that this is the final episode of Season 3! Like any good academic, we’re thinking about review, revision, and reflection as we wrap up another term with y’all—a shocking 4th season in just a bit over a year of podcasting. We review (so you know what we did this season), offer revisions (nothing is perfect and revising is scholarship), and reflect on this season, this first year of KI101, and what comes next. And we throw it back a little to E301—the first episode of Season 3—to talk about how together, we are a genius.

The 101:

(where we did the professor-work)

PART THE FIRST: REVIEW

We covered 4 topics this season, and there was overlap between them all.

First, we talked about public scholarship, its risks and rewards; and then we had our dear friend and all-around rockstar Dr Simran Jeet Singh on to talk about his often-unconventional scholarship, like his illustrated children’s book, Fauja Singh Keeps Going. Then, we talked about white Christian supremacy and racism ahead of welcoming Dr. Anthea Butler to talk about her latest work, White Evangelical Racism.

Those two topics—and first four episodes of the season—may not seem like they go together, but given both Simran and Anthea’s outrageous public scholarship production, and their focus on racism in the US, there is more in common than first meets the eye.

Next, we chatted early Christianity and magic with Dr. Shaily Patel, focusing on how Christianity isn’t all that we think it is. Last, we did the same thing with Islam with Dr. Ali Olomi, a master of jinn, astrology, and Islamic science, among other things.

Those two topics—and the final four episodes of the season—may also not seem like they go together, but given both Shaily and Ali’s focus on the occult, the parts of religion debated as even being religion in the first place, and paying attention to how traditions have been reduced to a few, politicalized messages when all this richness and weirdness and messiness abounds definitely ties them together.

Need a literal review? We got you. Here’s Season 3 Episode Arcs and Guests:

PART THE SECOND: REVISIONS

Ilyse and Megan often talk about revisions—what we would change about specific episodes, specific lines, or what we would add when we revisit a topic. Making that conversation public—at least in part!—is part of transparency, good pedagogy, and solid scholarly ethics.

We talked about moving more slowly in this section. Our experimental format did a lot of work, but it also made ideas a bit more condensed than in previous seasons, where one or two ideas was the whole season (with copious examples, of course).

Ilyse’s specific revision is basically about Christianity and exceptionalism in our White American Evangelicalism + Racism = BFF episode.

We talked about how this episode in particular did too much, too quick, and that Ilyse thought we jumped from textual support for Christian exceptionalism straight into Christian imperialism, with too little time to move smoothly. We didn’t do a particularly rad job of naming textual traditions of exceptionalism as such, nor did we do any work around tracing that textual tradition as it actually showed up in history. We know that history. We didn’t communicate it well.

We absolutely meant to communicate the real-life histories that tell us that Christians have used their texts for literally nearly every year Christianity has existed to conquer, oppress, and in many cases, kill non-Christians. Is that the only thing Christians have done? No. Does it sound a little like that on our episode? Yeah, a little bit. So, yeah, we’d revise that section to add the nuance we’re normally really attune to, and that we shorthanded for all sorts of reasons—including how we’ve already done this history, theory, and work elsewhere in the pod.

PART THE THIRD: REFLECTIONS

Uncharacteristically, Ilyse showed a tender side and asked Megan to play “rose, thorn, bud” with her about this season.

If you don’t know this way of tricking children and adults like Ilyse into sharing feelings, you’re in for a treat.

Between the two of us, Megan and Ilyse decided that Season 3 looked like:

• Rose (the lovely, fragrant bits): smart people (Drs. Singh, Butler, Patel, Olomi) came to talk with us about smart things (public scholarship; white Christian racism; Christianity and magic; Islam, astrology, and jinn) and making a podcast with your BFFAEAE makes work fun, even if it is a boatload of work.

• Thorn (the spiky, uncomfortable bits): we made 34 on-topic thematic episodes and 2 minis odes and of those 36 things, 32 were made during a pandemic, while we did other work and while Ilyse had little childcare. We are inordinately tired and felt like Season 3 wasn’t as joyful for us as we would have liked.

• Bud (the potential rose, the thing with promise): TAKING A GOSH DARN NAP OR SEVEN. We are both looking forward to a short break from the podcast so we can come back with fresh eyes and ideas.
  

So, what’s next?!

We are thrilled to say that Ilyse will be a UVM Public Humanities Fellow, which will provide material support for Seasons 4 and 5—which are absolutely in process.

Season 4 will start in August 2021 and will tackle the World Religions Syllabus We Love To Hate.

Season 5 will start in January 2022 and we’re not entirely sure what it’ll be. Ask Us Anything: Religion? Topics We Wish Would Go Away? Tell us what you think it should be!

Primary Sources!

(the segment where we talk about how the episode’s themes affect us, as humans, because the “I” matters)

We continued to riff on Hunt’s “together, we are a genius” in Primary Sources this week and also what we hope a break looks like, since some of us (uh, both of us) have no idea what not-working means.

Homework!

(that’s right, nerds, there’s always more to learn)

Just kidding! It’s summer break! No more teachers, no more books!

Megan asks, as always, that you hydrate and sunblock up. Reapply, people!

Ilyse asks that if/when you see her on the internet “taking a break” by “actively doing work and work-adjacent things” to admonish her thoroughly. If you have TV and fiction recs, she’ll take them, gladly.

Stay cool, KIT, and have a rad summer, nerds!