In our final Discourse! episode of the season, Andie Alexander, Craig Martin, and Paul-François Tremlett team up to discuss the concept of “harm” and religion as it pertains to recent legislation in Texas, the role of religion in politics in Scotland’s recent election for First Minister, and questions of AI, religion, and desire. It’s quite the conversation, so be sure to tune in!

4 July 2023

In this episode, Andie Alexander is joined by Sam Gill to talk about his recent book The Proper Study of Religion, and they discuss questions of comparison, difference, storytracking, and playfulness in the academic study of religion. Be sure to tune in!

15 May 2023

In this episode, RSP editor Andie Alexander talks with Teemu Taira about his recent monograph Taking ‘Religion’ Seriously: Essays on the Discursive Study of Religion (Brill, 2022). They discuss the usefulness of various discursive approaches to the study of religion and explore the ways in which these methods can be applied to specific studies of how different social groups understand, use, and negotiate the category of ‘religion’. Taira outlines how he has applied discursive methods both in his research and in the classroom, so there are a variety of examples for how one might begin to apply these approaches in their own work.

20 Feb. 2023

For our 400th episode of The Religious Studies Project, Carmen Becker joins Andie Alexander to introduce the new international MA program Religion and the Public Sphere at Leibniz University, Hannover. Find info for their Home program degree track and double degree track. And for more information, contact the program coordinator, Dr. Carmen Becker.

16 Sept. 2022

For our first episode of Season 12, Falguni A. Sheth joins RSP editor Andie Alexander to discuss her new book Unruly Women: Race, Neocolonialism, and the Hijab. In this episode, Sheth explores issues of liberalism, racial discrimination, and religious freedom with regard to Muslim women of color and Black Muslim women in the US through a variety of legal case studies. Sheth demonstrates that the exclusion of Muslim women of color and Black Muslim women works to regulate and manage liberal subjects.

29 Aug. 2022

What is curanderismo and where is it practiced? How does it connect to the borderlands? Is it a "folk" religion, and what exactly does that mean? Tune in with Andie Alexander, Israel L. Domínguez, Brett Hendrickson, and Jennifer Koshatka Seman for the RSP's first episode on curanderismo!

2 May 2022

Tune in for this month's Discourse! with Andie Alexander, Daniel Gorman, Jr., and Paul-François Tremlett as they discuss the upcoming elections in the Philippines and the Russian Orthodox church response to the invasion of Ukraine.

28 Mar. 2022

What sort of discursive traps to we fall into when talking about 'Islam' or 'the West'? How might we reframe our discussions with a critical humanist approach? In this episode, Khurram Hussain joins Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book, The Muslim Speaks (Zed Books, 2020). Hussain unpacks these issues and explores the benefits of critically engaging these issues in a way that takes seriously the human-focused study of religion.

7 Feb. 2022

For our final interview of the semester, tune in to our co-founder David G. Robertson discussing his new book Gnosticism and the History of Religions with our co-editor Andie Alexander. In this episode, Robertson outlines the history and use of the term ‘gnosticism’ to examine how gnosticism has come to work as a ‘free-floating’ signifier. Robertson then considers how the ‘strange charm of gnosticism’ has helped keep the term and idea prevalent in the study of religion, particularly in how understanding gnosticism as a special knowledge is linked with notions of religious experience. It’s a great episode—be sure to check it out!

13 Dec. 2021

What do we mean when we talk about secularism, religion, or culture? In this episode, Matt Sheedy joins RSP co-editor Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book Owning the Secular: Religious Symbols, Culture Wars, Western Fragility (Routledge, 2021). Sheedy discusses how “religion” and “secular” categories are necessarily intertwined as he considers the ways in which those categories are contested in the public sphere—particularly with regard to Islam and gender in the post-9/11 era.

15 Nov. 2021

In this episode, Dr. Mitsutoshi Horii joins Andie Alexander to discuss his recent book, The Category of ‘Religion’ in Contemporary Japan: Shūkyō & Temple Buddhism, where he demonstrates the necessity for understanding how and why certain groups come to be classified as ‘religious’ in contemporary Japan.

4 October 2021

For our final episode of Season 10, Andie Alexander, Ishanika Sharma, and K. Merinda Simmons talk all things Critical Race Theory from recent 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. Watch the video recording here.

28 June 2021

"You don't go to religious studies conferences with the title of the conference being 'The Problem with Religion,'" so why do we use that rhetoric to talk about conspiracy theories? Listen in to Andie Alexander's interview with RSP co-founder David G. Robertson to find out why! Listen to a preview of the episode here.

17 May 2021

What happens when scholars take seriously the human-focused study of religious practices? How might we study “sacred texts” while acknowledging that they are also human artifacts? Andie Alexander chats with Willi Braun about how “religious” behaviors and practices are exceptionally ordinary and human and argues for a critical, human-focused approach to the study of religion. Listen to a preview of the episode here.

19 April 2021

In this October 2020 episode of Discourse!, Andie Alexander, Hina Muneeruddin, and Leslie Dorrough Smith explore ideas of infantile citizens, political debates as spectacle, rhetoric as bumper bowling, fist-fighting viruses, and fake news in the discourses surrounding the US Presidential election.

26 Oct. 2020

Following the “Thinking with Jonathan Z. Smith” Conference hosted by the Norwegian University for Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, Aaron W. Hughes, the conference’s keynote speaker, joined conference panelist Andie Alexander to reflect on the presentations and discussions during the conference as well as their thoughts on the legacy of J.Z. Smith’s work for the field of religious studies.

11 Nov. 2019