From right to left, notions of religion and religious freedom are fundamental to how many Americans have understood their country and themselves. Ideas of religion, politics, and the interplay between them are no less crucial to how the United States has engaged with the world beyond its borders. Yet scholarship on American religion tends to bracket the dome ... Show More
Aug 15
Aarthi Vadde, "We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature (Columbia UP, 2026)
We the Platform: How the Internet Changed Twenty-First-Century Literature (Columbia University Press 2026) by Aarthi Vadde is a groundbreaking account of mass writing in the twenty-first century, identifying rarely recognized forms of literary possibility amid the profound upheav ... Show More
32m 22s
Aug 12
Jarvis C. McInnis, "Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global Black South" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Built on the grounds of a former cotton plantation, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, offered agricultural and industrial education as a strategy for Black self-determination. There―and in many other communities in the U.S. South, the Caribbean, and Cent ... Show More
1h 6m
Aug 10
Tsering Döndrup, "The Red Wind Howls" (Columbia UP, 2025)
The Red Wind Howls (Columbia UP, 2025) is an unsettling, gripping, and darkly funny novel by Tsering Döndrup, one of modern Tibet’s most celebrated writers. First self-published in 2006 after no publisher was willing to take the political risk, the novel traces Tibetan experience ... Show More
46m 15s
Apr 2024
M. Cooper Minister and Sarah J. Bloesch, "Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Methods" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Cultural Approaches to Studying Religion: An Introduction to Theories and Method (Bloomsbury, 2023) examines the analytic tools of scholars in religious studies, as well as in related disciplines that have shaped the field including cultural approaches from anthropology, history, ... Show More
28m 48s
Jul 2003
Charles Haynes, Philip Hamburger, and Cheryl Crazy Bull — Religious Liberty in America: The Legacy of Church and State
At the center of our history of church and state is a troublesome irony. What began as an attempt to guarantee religious tolerance in the new world has at various times been commandeered by the most chauvinistic movements America has known. In spite of this, religious liberty has ... Show More
52 m
Apr 2024
Vaia Touna and Richard Newton, "Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Fieldnotes in the Critical Study of Religion: Revisiting Classical Theorists (Bloomsbury, 2023) introduces students to the so-called classics of the field from the 19th and 20th centuries, whilst challenging readers to apply a critical lens. Instead of representing scholars and t ... Show More
56m 4s
Oct 2024
Shared Paths: Exploring Jewish and Muslim Experiences in America
This week on International Horizons, John Torpey, Director of the Ralph Bunche Institute, speaks with sociologists Mucahit Bilici and Samuel Heilman about their book, Following Similar Paths: What Jews and Muslims Can Learn From One Another (University of California Press, 2024). ... Show More
40m 42s
Mar 2023
What Happened To Separation Of Church And State? with Dr. Lauren Turek
A pastor, a president, and a foreign political leader step into a National Prayer Breakfast. What happens next? A whole lot of mingling between church and state. This week, Dr. Lauren Turek joins Jonathan to explore how evangelicals have influenced American politics—domestically ... Show More
59m 48s
Nov 2022
WOF 359: Religion, Politics, and Intolerance
<p>Friends, what is the role of religion in civic life? Must we bracket religion from the political sphere? Those are pressing questions as we near the midterm elections. On today's "Word on Fire Show," Brandon Vogt and I discuss the relationship between politics and religion and ... Show More
28m 8s
<p>This episode is on the scholarly academic side. We discuss the very commonly recurring problems of essentializing, generalizing and the "No True Scotsman Fallacy" in discussions about religion.</p><br><p><br></p><p>References:</p><p>Coleman, Simon (2010). “Recent Developments ... Show More
