Bonus Episode: ‘Rona Revisited

Transcript for ‘Rona Revisited:

PDF is here. And Buzzsprout digital transcript is here.

Shownotes for this Bonus Episode:

Coming to you from a responsible distance, as we have really since our launch, Megan and Ilyse talk about religion, religious innovation, COVID-19, and how this whole year in a pandemic has gone.

This episode is equal parts talking through feelings and what professor-types call applied learning, because we’re looking at how we can see ideas we’ve talked about before play out in real time (especially E101’s “religion is what people do;” and E105’s “being religious is both individual and collective”). We track a very select group of examples of religious innovation in the pandemic and then outline some of the US legal frameworks that prove religion is certainly not done with you.

We were rejoined by very special bonus episode guest Sela, Ilyse’s 7 year old daughter, killjoy in training, blue belt in karate, and reader extraordinaire who is still grumpy (she gets it from her mama) about being distanced from friends, adults who won’t wear masks, and missing out on holidays.

Your minisode hosts & guest, masked up.

The 101:

• Our thesis was, predictably: the pandemic has affected religious practice and is a great case study in how religion is still levied by the state, even in a public health catastrophe.

  • We briefly highlighted some of the religious innovation we saw this year:

    • Hajj was canceled. Talk about putting humanity above ritual or rules. Both Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr—the two major festival days, these major joyous celebrations for Muslims—went virtual. 

    • Jews, who often are prohibited electronics during services, holidays, and shabbat, have held Zoom minyans and high holiday services and Chanukah parties.

    • So many Hindu festivals have changed, but a great example are the Ramlila celebrations, specifically Dussehra, a major festival day where the image of Ravana, the demon king of the Ramayana, is burnt. Folks play at the Ramayana—dressing up as the characters & reenacting the scenes, and it is an honor to portray these gods. Many Ramlilas went online after most were canceled.

  • We also talked about the US, laws, and religion not being done with you:

    • In November, in a 5-4 ruling, the US Supreme Court sided with religious organizations in a dispute over Covid-19 restrictions put in place by New York Governor (and serial harasser) Andrew Cuomo limiting the number of people attending religious services (because PANDEMIC).

    • Religious groups—in NYC, Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn and Agudath Israel of America, another Jewish organization in NJ and a small Bible church in Colorado (the December cases)—were found to have their first amendment rights violated, with the Court stating that limitations on worship were not acceptable and placed undue and unfair burden—they were an overreach.

      • The Court said that religious events are allowed to be superspreader events—because nothing, not even the protection of other people’s lives—supercedes someone’s right to drink from the same kiddush cup or gather 100 strong in church. 

      • And that’s how religion can kill you even if you aren’t religious. That’s how your rights are mediated through the lens of religion even if you aren’t religious. That’s how religion is never, ever done with you, even if you think you’re done with it.

Primary Sources:

• In this week’s Primary Sources, Ilyse and Megan talked about this year, being distant, and missing life as we knew it. We also talked about some of the rituals we’ve created, included a 1-year anniversary of lockdown yarzheit Ilyse’s family held to mark the now-more-than 540,000 American deaths (and 2.5 million + worldwide deaths) due to this pandemic.

Homework:

Just like last time, we kept this light and trashy!

But if you want to think about actual homework, our colleagues at Pandemic Religion are crushing it.

Megan’s trash has been drag queens, bucolic Catholic murder mysteries, and political comedy.

• She hyped up her WOW Presents Plus membership, where she gets all the international drag race.

• She recommended Father Brown, a show Ilyse got her hooked on for the record, which is a crime procedural and the mystery-solver is the historic progressive Catholic priest of her dreams (sort of).

• She’s also in a deep rewatch of Veep, which hits too close to reality.

Ilyse’s trash is YA fiction, historical nonsense, books that make her laugh, and trashy UK-based reality TV.

• To read: Fire and Thorns trilogy.

• The Lindy West book Megan sent, Shit, Actually. It’s all about terrible movies—which Ilyse loves (and if that’s your thing, she also demands you listen to How Did This Get Made, her alltime favorite podcast).

• She recs Bridgerton but also suggests that if you’re going to watch it, read Dr. Tricia Matthew’s piece in the LARB on it: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/shondalands-regency-bridgerton 

• Oscar the Grouch approved: Love Island UK—and ONLY the UK Love Island. Thank her later. 

Sela also had some suggestions:

• Bookwanderers series by Anna James.

• World of Winx, a wild TV show.

• The Night at the Museum movie franchise. (Sigh, says her mama.)

Take care of each other—as usual, as ever, as always—nerds.