The Classical Ideas Podcast

Latest Episodes:

EP 330: Commodification and Tibetan Buddhism w/Dr. Raj Kumar Singh Aug 04, 2025

Show notes

Raj Kumar Singh is a PhD researcher in Anthropology at the University of Delhi, currently studying the relationship between religion and economy in Mcleodganj, Dharamshala. He has published several articles and book chapters on Hindu nationalism, Tibetan Buddhism, and the relationship between Communism, Buddhism, and Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-summer

EP 329: Brahma Vidya Mandir Ashram w/Dr. Swasti Bhattacharyya Jul 23, 2025

Show notes

Swasti Bhattacharyya (PhD, RN) Professor Emerita of Philosophy and Religion, has been researching, writing, and teaching in religious studies and applied ethics for over two decades. She examines ethical issues from multiple philosophical and religious perspectives. Her work is rooted in her upbringing as a daughter of an immigrant Hindu father from India and a Japanese Buddhist mother born and raised in Hawai'i. She utilized her experiences as a registered nurse and as an applied ethicist in several publications presenting Hindu perspectives on bioethical issues and on cultural humility. Her current creative nonfiction project combines her academic expertise with her long-term relationships with the women of the Brahma Vidya Mandir ashram, an intentional, spiritually-focused women's community in rural central India. Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester

EP 328: Christian Disaffiliation and Exiting w/Dr. Tess Starman Jul 16, 2025

Show notes

Tess Starman (she/they) is a recent PhD graduate in Sociology at Howard University and is an incoming assistant professor at Simpson College. Her research specializes on intersections of race, gender, sexuality, and power at the nexus of religion and politics. She studies progressive Christian attitudes, religious exiting, and religion's impact on political attitudes and engagement. We discuss her dissertation, entitled, "A Corrupted Faith: The Role of Power in the Process of Christian Disaffiliation and Rise of the Religious Nones," which examines the religious exiting process and non-religious identity formation of ex-Christians. You can find her work at tessstarman.com.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester

EP327: Religious Shame and Dieting w/Dr. Rebecca Wolfe Jul 08, 2025

Show notes

Rebecca Wolfe is a postdoctoral research fellow at Harvard University. Graduating with a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) in 2024, Rebecca's research agenda focuses on the areas of gender, sexuality, the body, and mental health, particularly in the context of religion. Rebecca's dissertation work examined bodily experiences of disordered eating and sexual dysfunction among people raised as women in purity culture, a Protestant evangelical movement. Rebecca has been published in academic journals including Health Affairs, Social Science and Medicine - Population Health, and Theology and Sexuality, and created public facing work on podcasts such as EDGES and Anthrodish, and through the Sage Knowledge video series.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester

EP 326: Fertility, Abortion, Reproductive Care, and Islam w/Dr. Celene Ibrahim Jun 24, 2025

Show notes

Dr. Celene Ibrahim is a multidisciplinary scholar specializing in Qur'anic studies, gender studies and interreligious relations. Her award-winning monograph Women and Gender in the Qur'an (Oxford University Press, 2020) received the Association of Middle East Women's Studies book prize and is being translated into multiple languages. She also authored Islam and Monotheism, an accessible primer on Islamic theology (Cambridge University Press 2022), edited One Nation, Indivisible: Seeking Liberty and Justice from the Pulpit to the Streets (Wipf & Stock 2019), and is featured in the Netflix docudrama Testament: The Story of Moses (2024). Ibrahim holds degrees from Princeton University (AB), Harvard Divinity School (MDiv), and Brandeis University (MA/PHD). She serves as a faculty member at Groton School in Religious Studies and Philosophy.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester

Visit Celene Ibrahim: https://www.celeneibrahim.org/

EP 325: Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States w/Dr. Amanda Hernandez Jun 19, 2025

Show notes

Amanda Hernandez is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and affiliate faculty member of the Feminist Studies and Race & Ethnicity Studies programs at Southwestern University. She is a proud graduate of San Antonio Community College. She received her B.A. in Women's & Gender Studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Baylor University. Her work focuses on the ways that white supremacy and sexism show up in U.S. Christian groups. She is the author of Intersectional Identities of Christian Women in the United States: Faith, Race, and Feminism (Lexington Books, 2024). Her work has been published in Conscience Magazine, Sociology of Race & Ethnicity, the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, and Sociological Spectrum.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester

Visit Dr. Amanda Hernandez: https://sites.google.com/view/amandadhernandez/

Buy the book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/intersectional-identities-of-christian-women-in-the-united-states-9781666941647/

EP 324: Epic Bollywood: Religion and Representation in Modern Indian Cinema w/Dr. Sohini Sarah Pillai Jun 12, 2025

Show notes

Dr. Sohini Sarah Pillai (she/her/hers) is Assistant Professor of Religion, Director of Film and Media Studies, and the Marlene Crandell Francis Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Kalamazoo College. Her research interests include Hindu traditions, epic narratives, Indian cinema, and women in religion. She is the author of Krishna's Mahabharatas: Devotional Retellings of an Epic Narrative(Oxford University Press, 2024) and the co-editor with Nell Shapiro Hawley of Many Mahabharatas(SUNY Press, 2021). Ongoing projects include a co-authored sourcebook with Emilia Bachrach and Jennifer D. Ortegren entitled Women in Hindu Traditions (NYU Press) and a monograph about cinematic adaptations of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. She is also co-chair of the American Academy of Religion's Hinduism Unit and on the editorial board for Reading Religion.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester

EP 323: Conversion Therapy & Shame-Sex Attraction w/Dr. Lucas Wilson Jun 05, 2025

Show notes

Formerly the Justice, Equity, and Transformation Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Calgary, Lucas is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto Mississauga. He is the author of At Home with the Holocaust: Postmemory, Domestic Space, and Second-Generation Holocaust Narratives (Rutgers UP, 2025), which received the Jordan Schnitzer First Book Publication Award. He is also the editor of Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors' Stories of Conversion Therapy (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2025), as well as the co-editor of Emerging Trends in Third-Generation Holocaust Literature (Lexington, 2023). His academic work has appeared in Modern Language Studies, Canadian Jewish Studies, Flannery O'Connor Review, Journal of Jewish Identities, and Studies in American Jewish Literature. His public-facing writing has appeared in The Advocate, Queerty, LGBTQ Nation, and Religion Dispatches, among other venues.

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/2025-carpenter-cohorts-spring-semester

Follow Dr. Lucas Wilson: https://www.instagram.com/lukeslamdunkwilson/

Buy Shame-Sex Attraction: https://bookshop.org/p/books/shame-sex-attraction-survivors-stories-of-conversion-therapy-lucas-wilson/21360797?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAafHdvzZaNVuiBkf8kq3JdOu8i5UQCVYQZqAkrljmmJjkpO-cLhb2xifbGfyfQ_aem_-PIMbnt_hKHPY2E7FMxa6A

EP 322: Ramy, Dubai Bling, and Muslim Matchmaker w/Dr. Tazeen Ali May 01, 2025

Show notes

Tazeen M. Ali (she/her) is assistant professor of Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. Her research and teaching focus on Islam and gender, US Islam, and race and religion in America. She is the author of The Women's Mosque of America: Authority & Community in US Islam (NYU Press, 2022). She has also published in Religion & Politics (now ARC Mag), The Conversation, The Maydan, and Middle East Eye. Ali is currently writing her second book, Muslims on Screen: Racism and Sexuality in Anglo-American Islam, which analyzes entertainment media projects produced by British and American Muslims. She also serves on the advisory board of the National Museum of American Religion. Ali earned her PhD in Religious Studies from Boston University in 2019.

Visit Tazeen Ali

Visit Classical Ideas

Visit Sacred Writes

EP 321: Ezekiel 24:15-27 and Divine Dissociation w/Dr. Alexiana Fry Apr 21, 2025

Show notes

Alexiana Fry (she/her/hers) is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen at the Faculty of Theology for a project entitled "Divergent Views of Diaspora in Ancient Judaism." Her first book, Trauma Talks in the Hebrew Bible: Speech Act Theory and Trauma Hermeneutics, released in October 2023 with Lexington Press. She received her Ph.D. in Old Testament from Stellenbosch University (ZA) in December 2021. Her dissertation project focused on the intersections of gender, sexuality, migration, and trauma in specific biblical texts, and she continues to explore these constitutive features in both ancient and modern contexts.

Visit Alexiana Fry: https://www.alexianafry.com/public-scholarship

Visit Sacred Writes: https://www.sacred-writes.org/carpenter-cohort-2025-jan

Classical Ideas Linktree: https://linktr.ee/classicalideas

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

The Classical Ideas Podcast

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected