The Classical Ideas Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 270: Evangelical Purity Culture w/Dr. Sara Moslener Jul 13, 2023

Show notes

Sara Moslener is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, Anthropology, and Religion at Central Michigan University, where she teaches courses on the history of religious and racial discrimination in the United States. She has been studying evangelical purity culture for over 15 years and has numerous publications, including the book Virgin Nation: Sexual Purity and American Adolescence (Oxford University Press: 2015). Sara's work has been featured in The Revealer, The Guardian, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Sojourners Magazine, Jezebel, Religion Dispatches, Religion & Politics, Religion News Service, and The Baffler. She has appeared on numerous podcasts and is a regular contributor to the podcast Straight White American Jesus.

EP 269: White Christian Nationalism, Social Media, and the New Apostolic Reformation w/Justin Friel Jul 06, 2023

Show notes

Justin Friel (He/Him) is currently a Ph.D. student in the Joint Doctoral Program with the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology. His research explores how religion, culture, and politics influence and affect one another and the ways these forces shape the formation and performance of Queer identities. Within that, Justin's research interests include white Christian nationalism, TikTok, popular culture, and utopia. Justin has an M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy and currently works time as a therapist focusing on sex, sexuality, spirituality, and identity.

Visit Justin Friel online: https://www.theholyqueer.com/

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort

EP 268: The Church of the Holy Apostle and the Gay Rights Movement w/Dr. Heather White Jun 29, 2023

Show notes

Heather R. White is Visiting Assistant Professor in the Religious Studies Department and Gender and Queer Studies Program at the University of Puget Sound and a Research Associate at the Women's Studies in Religion Program at Harvard Divinity School. Her research focuses on religion, identity, and politics with an emphasis on queer, post-secular, and critical race theories as frameworks for interpreting recent U.S. history. White is the author of Reforming Sodom: Protestants and the Rise of Gay Rights (University of North Carolina Press, 2015).

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort

EP 267: Dawoodi Bohras in Montreal, public scholarship, and social media platforms w/Arwa Hussain Jun 22, 2023

Show notes

Arwa Hussain is a Ph.D. candidate in Religions and Cultures and 2022-23 Public Scholar at Concordia University in Montreal. Her current research interests deal with Islamic communities, particularly her own community, the Dawoodi Bohras, gender and agency, and social media platforms. Her dissertation combines digital ethnography and personal experience to understand how pious Dawoodi Bohra women embed their agency within a religious community and represent themselves on social media, the first study of its kind to shed light on this dynamic community and its women. Her doctoral research is supported by Concordia University and the FRQSC, awarded by the government of Quebec. Arwa holds an M.A. and M.Phil. degree in History from the University of Karachi, Pakistan, where she received the Hamida Khuhro Gold Medal of Excellence. As a Concordia Public Scholar, Arwa has produced a number of pieces of public scholarship, including for the Montreal Gazette, The Conversation, and the Concordia blogs; as well as a spotlight roundtable discussion on the potentials and pitfalls of social media for Muslim women at 4th Space, Concordia University.

Follow Arwa Hussain on Twitter: https://twitter.com/arwahussainphd

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort

EP 266: Dr. Orit Avishai on Queer Judaism, LGBT Activism, and the Remaking of Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel Jun 15, 2023

Show notes

Orit Avishai is an ethnographer at Fordham University, where she teaches in the Sociology Department and in the Program on Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her work considers how ideology and culture, broadly defined, shape social institutions, identities, political dialogue, and cultural practices. Her recent work has focused on Jewish Orthodoxy, and her book, Queer Judaism, LGBT Activism and the Remaking of Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel is forthcoming from NYU Press. Her other work has been published in a variety of venues, including Gender & Society, The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and AJS Review. Her recent public-facing writing has appeared in The Conversation, The Katz Center Blog, and Religion Dispatches. Dr. Avishai has degrees from The University of California at Berkeley, the Yale Law School, and Tel Aviv University Law School.

Buy "Queer Judaism, LGBT Activism, and the Remaking of Jewish Orthodoxy in Israel https://nyupress.org/9781479810031/queer-judaism/

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/

EP 265: The Apocryphal Acts of John w/Dr. Jeannie Sellick Jun 08, 2023

Show notes

Jeannie Sellick is a recent graduate of the University of Virginia's Religious Studies Ph.D. program. She defended her dissertation, "The Strongest Seed: Jerome's Fashioning of an Ascetic Masculinity in Late Antiquity" in June 2022, and she is perpetually excited to share it with anyone who asks. She specializes in constructions of gender and sexuality in the religious traditions of the ancient and late antique Mediterranean, with a particular focus on queer masculinities. When she's not teaching or writing, you can find Jeannie hanging out with her geriatric dog, Missy, critiquing Marvel movies, and perfecting her buffalo wing recipe.

Follow Dr. Jeannie Sellick on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheAtheistNun

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort

EP 264: Cancer, Survival, and the Future w/ Dr. M. Cooper Minister Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

M. Cooper Minister is Associate Professor of Religion at Shenandoah University, where they teach courses on death, medicine, sex, gender, and theories of religion. Their books include Rape Culture on Campus and Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods (co-edited with Sarah Bloesch). Their current project is a memoir about being diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer at 33 and learning to persist in between life and death on the dance floor.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort

EP 263: Majorette Dance, HBCU's, and Idioms w/Dustin Gavin May 25, 2023

Show notes

Dustin Gavin (he/him) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Departments of Religious Studies and African American Studies at Yale University. He received his B.A. in Journalism from Howard University, an M.A. in Media Studies from The New School, and completed his second M.A. in Religion and Visual Arts at Yale Divinity School and the Institute of Sacred Music. Dustin's research examines the overlap and confluence of sacred and profane idioms to examine the histories, aesthetics, and embodied performances of black women, sissies, and femmes across U.S. Southern regions.

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EP 262: Indhira Udofia on the impact of religious trauma on Black Millennials and Generation Z May 18, 2023

Show notes

Indhira Udofia (she/they) is a Ph.D. candidate in the Joint Program in Social Work at NC A&T University and UNC Greensboro. Their dissertation project looks at the impact of religious trauma on Black Millennials and Generation Z, exploring the impact of institutional violence on gendered and sexual minorities within Black religious spaces. Her extensive experience providing therapeutic and spiritual services in clinical and community settings (since 2009) and faith communities (since 2014), shaped her deep passion for helping communities and individuals recover from trauma, especially in spaces of spiritual abuse and grief. Indhira believes that their work is a collaborative effort to empower others in their own healing journey. Using strengths-based methodologies and client-based appropriate rituals, restorative practices, and trauma-informed consultation, they work to address power dynamics, conflict resolution, self-care, and other issues that may arise within a healing framework, for the flourishing of the collective. Indhira's love of the arts, especially music, and her travels all over the world, allow her a perspective that is inclusive, welcoming, and informed.

Follow Indhira Udofia:

-https://twitter.com/BlaQTraumaNerd

-https://linktr.ee/imudofia

Follow Sacred Writes:

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Listen to the complete Sacred Writes-Classical Ideas collection:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0JzteHE3RIyOKA9xosmK6W

EP 261: Dr. Anthony Siracusa on Nonviolence before King Apr 07, 2023

Show notes

In the early 1960s, thousands of Black activists used nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation at lunch counters, movie theaters, skating rinks, public pools, and churches across the United States, battling for, and winning, social change. Organizers against segregation had used litigation and protests for decades but not until the advent of nonviolence did they succeed in transforming ingrained patterns of white supremacy on a massive scale. In this book, Anthony C. Siracusa unearths the deeper lineage of anti-war pacifist activists and thinkers from the early twentieth century who developed nonviolence into a revolutionary force for Black liberation. Telling the story of how this powerful political philosophy came to occupy a central place in the Black freedom movement by 1960, Siracusa challenges the idea that nonviolent freedom practices faded with the rise of the Black Power movement. He asserts nonviolence's staying power, insisting that the indwelling commitment to struggle for freedom collectively in a spirit of nonviolence became, for many, a lifelong commitment. In the end, what was revolutionary about the nonviolent method was its ability to assert the basic humanity of Black Americans, to undermine racism's dehumanization, and to insist on the right to be.

Buy the book: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469663005/nonviolence-before-king/

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