E101: What the heck is religion, and what the heck is this podcast?
(15 January 2020)
temporary download link while Buzzsprout is buggered (hi Dr. Ortegren’s class!)
Transcript for Episode 101:
As a PDF! Over on the Buzzsprout website (tab next to show notes)!
Show Notes for Episode 101:
In this first episode, we talked about religion, what it might be, and what it probably isn’t.
We had a few keywords: creedal, votive, descriptive, and prescriptive. And you can find working definitions for those over at the glossary!
Ilyse shouted out Moses Mendelssohn, an 18th century philosopher. Here’s another article on the idea of keeping one’s religion “private” in order to exist in “secular” (read: white, Christian, male) publics. It is by the late and incomparable Saba Mahmood.
In this episode’s Story Time segment, Megan shared an excerpt from Robert Bellah’s well-known “Sheilaism” formation from Habits of the Heart. The full text is available here.
Ilyse, Megan, and Keeping It 101 cite the brilliant scholar of gender, race, and theory Sara Ahmed all the time, especially on citational politics. Ahmed has written about this in a number of places. Here’s one of them.
In Primary Sources, we got personal:
Tiny Ilyse & her mom, Flo (who eats bacon cheeseburgers)
mass card for Megan’s Aunt Lane, which lives in Megan’s wallet for reasons Megan still cannot fully explain because religion is weird and complicated
This episode’s HOMEWORK included:
Ilyse assigned y’all readings from religion scholar Malory Nye:
Prof. Nye’s podcast, Religion Bites, is a good start!
Religion: The Basics, an accessibly written book introducing the study of religion that, fellow academics, teaches beautifully in introductory-level courses
We also mentioned Prof. Nye’s “Decolonizing Religion,” piece which is both here and here.
Megan assigned y’all two novels, each of which illustrates the theory we talked through in Episode 101.
Alice Walker’s The Color Purple has lots of religion, but Megan wanted to make a note of the passage where Shug talks about God explicitly. (There’s also the movie.)
Two short pieces about religion and The Color Purple, if you like:
From Black Youth Project, “The Christianity I was taught didn’t align with my values. ‘The Color Purple’ helped me reimagine religion.”
It’s old, old, old, but still an academic review in LA TImes about The Color Purple and religion is free & here.
Yann Martel’s Life of Pi helps think about stories, narratives, and how religion might work in the world. (There’s also the movie.)
An interview with Ang Lee, the director of the film version, about religion is here.